(RWBY) Firebird Fledgling

[Ember]

Raven

"Really Summer, here?"

"What of it?"

Raven Branwen felt a tinge of irritation as the red-haired and silver-eyed woman shot her a confident smirk, the opulent front entrance of the Glass Unicorn stretching out far in front of them. Raven rolled her eyes considering for a moment -just a scant, nary moment- whether it was worth it or not to turn and leave, and then Summer's smirk hit her and she stopped.

"Thinking about running again, Blackbird~?"
The subtle, barely there tone was present, and once again, Raven felt her heart jump into her chest. She turned her head away, and then, replied in a tone that she hated herself for almost shaking.

"Fine. Let's get this over with."

The doors parted with a soft, barely present sigh, and Raven Branwen, a criminal mastermind, leader of the Branwen bandit tribe, and member of team STRQ, followed Summer Rose into the jaws of death.

It was nice, for a five-story monument to the greed of capricious nobility who had to step into the "filth" of Mantle. In fact, one could even say it was exceptionally nice, and by Raven's standards, it indeed was one of the nicest places she'd ever visited. The two had paused in front of a truly garish statue of a King Taijitu in the central lobby, while awaiting a front desk servicewoman to arrive, Raven found herself studying the abominable statue.

"Not thinking of taking a souvenir, are we, Blackbird?"

Mildly, no… teasing, was that tone of voice and it was almost whispered into her ear, Raven whirled on the other woman, and her hand almost flew for the scabbard, before her senses calmed down.

"Fuck, Summer. Why!?"

Summer Rose, ever the tease, stood her ground, firmly in the taller woman's space, a lilting smile on her lips and a cheeky grin flashing in those silver eyes. Raven almost lost herself in that gaze, but was cut firmly off as Summer spoke quietly.

"Did you see our interested party?"

Raven only nodded, glances hadn't even really been exchanged, but she'd marked the girl the moment they'd entered, small, head of dark hair, and orange eyes that practically screamed out to everyone that she was staring.

"Mm. Not hard to notice, but… only a child. She's probably staring at your weapon."

Summer smirked, stepping back, and twirling idly, the flashing brilliance of the silver and red frame of Dawning Rose burnished on her back. The vast scythe curved into a half-moon at both ends, although the blades were safely collapsed.

"Well~ Dawning Rose does attract quite some attention, but are you sure she's not just staring at you~?"

Raven tried and nearly failed to prevent a blush from that, but while Summer's tone was warm, the smile never quite reached her eyes.

"That's… not fair."

"Oh~? Isn't it? You're the one who's out there being the badass huntress now, couldn't even stop by for a visit in the past 4 months?"

Raven scratched at the back of her neck, by now, avoiding Summer's gaze was something she excelled in.

"Busy. Alpha Beringel showed up at the village, and it took me and a pair of my best to distract it long enough to lure it away from the rest of the pack."

Summer's gaze tinged, those silver eyes filled with something more akin to worry and sadness, and the following question's answer would be something that would hurt her.

"Any-"

"Casualties? Always."

Raven's voice was sharp, cold, punishing, and Summer looked away, the air between them quickly filling with awkwardness and silence as the difference between the two set in. The bandit queen let up, trying to dispel the air between them with something else…

"Did Qrow ever convince you to try bourbon?"

Summer flushed a positively brilliant color of red, and immediately shot back a dagger-sharp retort.

"Oh, like the time he convinced you that birds knew how to fly instinctively?"

"He said he'd never tell anyone!"

Raven hissed, her voice as soft as her face was red.

"She's moving."

Summer's voice cut through Raven's sudden embarrassment, and the huntress watched from the corner of her eye as the young girl, clad in white with a very fancy necklace, stole towards the stairs.

"Quiet. Very quiet. Talented for her age."

Any further conversation was cut firmly in half as a young woman, blond, approached them. She spoke firmly and confidently.

"Madame bids you both welcome and apologizes for the delay, it is not often that we have two huntresses of your… appearance stay with us."

Raven rolled her eyes, and she felt, more than saw, Summer's tinge of annoyance, the little way that single muscle on her bare neck twitched. Summer hated very few things in the world, but… this was one she hated. She hated the forced politeness and more to that end, she hated the way that people kowtowed to her, the mighty huntress, whenever she showed up in Atlas.

"It's no trouble at all, we're used to far worse conditions. Is our room ready?"

Raven's mind flashed into alarm all too quickly, sharing a room? Again? Serious-

"Of course, and madame does apologize for the delay, there was a complication that led to a slight delay in the cleanliness standards of your room, our deepest apologies."

Raven noted the way she looked, noted the little twitches, the little movements. She was certain Summer had seen them too, based on the way the woman's neck muscles pulsed once, twice, a third time.

"It's no trouble at all."

The woman took a brief moment, evidently considering asking for the duffel bags both women carried on their shoulders, before thinking better of it at the sight of Raven's odachi and Summer's enormous scythe, without another word, the woman turned towards a lower hallway and began leading them towards it. Summer took the lead, a hum from her lips bursting forth to mask the slight annoyance she very clearly felt. Raven… was nowhere near that polite, and let herself feel that irritation and annoyance, and exude it. Something their guide very clearly felt based on the very visible shiver that rolled across her shoulders.

"Rae, stop it."

Raven did not stop it. Only continuing to glare, until Summer gently whacked her across the head with the small Atlesian travel pamphlet she'd picked up in the hallway.

"Rae, stop intimidating the staff."

Raven stopped for all of 4 seconds.

The door that they were led to was clearly a sizeable suite, and Raven flashed Summer a look that asked her "why" in a simple question before the door opened and Raven realized why.

Jacuzzi, by dust, a fully functioning jacuzzi.

Summer only flashed that ever-present smirk and led Raven into the room, before the door shut and the two let the smiles slip off of their faces, or well… Summer did, Raven wasn't smiling.

"Interested party?" Summer spoke quietly and quickly.

"Tracked us across the lobby, looked at us like we were water in a desert."

"Necklace?"

Raven grimaced, not wanting to tell Summer what she knew.

"Rae."
Her tone was a warning.

"Electric dust crystal in the center, remotely activated."

"Faunus traits?"

"None visible."

"Child abuse or trafficking?"

"Maybe both?"

Uncertainty clouded their tones, and as the conversation petered out, Raven watched Summer move to the window, flinging open the blinds, and looking outwards across Mantle.

"So, the serial killer that even James can't find?"

"Yeah. Captain Ironwood is having some serious problems with this guy, and initially, they weren't even classified as an individual, team of hunters thought it was an Alpha Manticore that had swarmed through the town. People stripped to pieces."

Raven prompted the next piece with a rhetorical question.

"Until he attacked a nobleman from Atlas…"

"Yep. Agave Bluecrest was shot and stabbed to death inside his limousine. Guards ripped in half."

"Brutal."

"Yep."
"Any idea on where to start?"

"Streets and patrol, seems they like targeting civilians."

"Right, perfect. Are you on first watch or me?"

Raven cracked her neck and stood, waiting for Summer to tell her what came next."

"I'll take first watch if you want to get some rest, or… well, take a bath. I saw you eying that jacuzzi."

Raven didn't dignify that with a response, and strode towards the jacuzzi anyways, in one, smooth, fluid motion she divested herself of her armor, clothing, and outwear, before plunging into the dry tub and turning the faucets on to the max. The utterly steaming water came out in a wonderful, warm rush that had Raven sighing in delight as Summer, back turned to her looked out across the windows into Mantle.

"Tai still asks about you, you know."

Raven tried to ignore the clammy feeling that wrapped around her heart and squeezed.

"You and I both know I wasn't cut out for that life."

"The being domestic part? Or the loving more than one person part?"

"Summer… that's unfair. I'm going back with you, aren't I?"

"Yang needs to know you're not just her fun Aunt, Rae."

"Yang thinks I'm fun?"

"She's 8 and into Menagerie manga, she thinks you're the coolest aunt ever."

Raven turned her head away from Summer.

"I… don't know if I can Summer. I'm not cut out for being a mom. Especially… compared to you."

Summer snorted, a soft, light sound that had Raven looking up just enough to catch her gaze, and the slight, but growing anger hardening those silver eyes into hardened ingots.

"Sorry Rae… but you don't get to say that. You don't get to say that when you told Yang you were her aunt and left her with us before going dust knows where only to return 3 weeks later by portaling into our house's living room."

Her tone might have been soft, but the intentions behind it burned and licked at Raven's core, guilt and regret soaring into her being like unfettered feathers.

"What were you thinking? Do you not anticipate what happens when Yang starts growing? When she starts looking in the mirror and wondering why she doesn't have mine or Tai's face? What's going to happen then?"

Raven didn't have an answer for her, and the silence that surrounded them quickly gained an air of finality to it. Summer had always had a knack for attacking her at her weakest points, and… she'd struck home on this one.

"I… don't know. I thought it would be better if she grew up around… Tai and you… more than-"

"More than what? A bandit queen, a friend? An ex-lover? What are you so afraid of, Rae? Eugh… I can't even…"

Summer stood up, and turned, her form blurring briefly as she sank clean through the window and stepped into the open air. Her semblance drifted white rose petals as she fell away from the window.

"Sum-"

Raven reached out, but her leader was gone. Disappeared amongst the streets and crowds of Mantle's seedy underbelly with nothing but a scattering of white rose petals left behind.

"Fuck."

Raven cursed, and let the long-awaited sight burst from her lips, her bath had been thoroughly ruined, and the woman found herself getting out of the tub, glistering water pouring off of her body and into the tub as she reached for a towel and began to dry herself off.

"Dammit Summer… Every single time."

The late evening turned into early night, and even deeper twilight as Raven watched from the balcony of their suite until Summer returned, the woman clad in her white cloak, lips chapped and cheeks red from the cold, nodded to Raven. Words weren't exchanged, simply because neither of them needed to speak, for Raven… it was too awkward, and for Summer? She was simply too angry to speak to her partner.

This was why, when Raven took to the skies in a beat of magic and wings, she missed the small figure on the roof of the Glass Unicorn. Orange eyes tracked the shape of the raven as she soared away from the building. The small girl kicked her feet over the edge of the roof, watching the simple action of flight in that beautiful raven, and for a brief moment, she dared to dream of something larger.

A/N

Hey everyone! Been a long-time lurker, though I've worked on a few things on this site before, this is my first time posting something. Do enjoy, and feel free to leave reviews and the like! I will say that this story is probably going to be a little different from what some of you are probably expecting. I am excited to see what others think about it! This fic is crossposted to AO3, Space Battles, and Fanfic.net, and I do have a discord available, in case others would like to join to hang out, which I will link below. (Mods if that's not allowed please let me know and I'll change it.)

https://discord.gg/QtmaU53Np

 

[Ember]

Cinder

Cinder remembers the day that she first lay eyes upon the crimson lady and the rose. She remembers this because its the day she unlocks her semblance. The day she tastes power for the first time, and the day she fails to finish her tasks for the day before the Madame and her awful children barge into the washroom looking for fresh towels.

She remembers the way they speak to her, the way their words crash into who she is, the way that the Madame's eldest, Iris, pulls her away, and slaps her with the glove she always wore.

"Gutter rat! Where are those towels!? We have huntresses in the lobby and you still haven't finished?"

She no longer really feels the pain, its there, of course, but… it is deadened, dull. It is the mention of huntresses that has captured her full attention.

Even Iris and Clove, daughters of the madame, find huntresses fascinating and terrifying. They're so far away from Cinder, from who she is, but they're heroes; Powerful heroes that can go anywhere and do anything. They are free in a way that even Cinder finds hard to imagine, the thought of your job being to hunt the shadowed monsters that took her family, the things that claw in the dark at all of faunus and man. The things that are to blame for her situation, for her powerlessness and lack of freedom.

"Ugh, can't even hear us. Madame, Cinder's disrespecting you again, can you deal with her?"

Cinder flinches as her body remembers what being "dealt with" by the Madame feels like. Bowing her head, knowing the agony that will come her way, knowing the pain she will have to endure as a result of her failure. She can see already see Madame advancing on her. That pale, sour hand raised.

She can see the spite, the hatred, twisting and stretching the face of the madame. Her waggling lips turned up in a mocking simile of a smile. She reaches out for Cinder, and the girl does something she would have thought unthinkable a day ago.

She ducks.

Madame's hand passes over her head, and Cinder staggers backwards as the rush of air flows past her. She feels something akin to shock spread across her face, as her small orange eyes look first to Iris and Clove, stunned near the back, then to the madame. In that small, infinitesimal moment of surprise, Cinder moves instinctually. Before either Clove or Iris can do something to stop her, before she even fully processes the Madame's face turning red. Before she can be hurt again, she runs from the washroom, through the storage, into the hotel itself, and there she slows.

They can't do anything to her here, in public. Others will stare, especially the noblewomen and men from Atlas, the people who stink of alcohol, of scandal, and of the kind of disgust that only one born with silver for blood could have. They will stare, and whisper, and certainly, they whisper at her now, but they do not move to intercede. Why should they? She was just the help, just the staff.

Just like clockwork, by the time Cinder threaded her way through the lobby to the second floor, where she could get a look at the huntresses. The bluebloods smelling a scandal had dispersed, disappointed that she would not provide the entertainment they so desperately sought. The Glass Unicorn wasn't supremely busy, its opulent, marble halls and floor lain out in spiraling patterns depicting the legendary deeds of Atlesian heroes.

Cinder watched from the second floor as the two huntresses walked through the doors, either arguing or bickering amongst themselves. One was tall, with a forest of hair the same shade as hers tied back into a messy ponytail mixed with a bandanna. Piercing, wrenching red eyes were currently filled with a soft, crackling warmth that blazed at her partner. The other woman was shorter, dark hair highlighted with red, and bore a simple white and red cloak wrapped around her shoulders.

With a narrowed gaze, Cinder noted their weapons, the immense bulk of the red and silver pole strapped to the shorter woman's back, and the massive sheathed sword at the hip of the taller. They had to be huntresses, had to be! Cinder's eyes widened… had they noticed her? No, surely not, she was just the staff, and they would never pay attention to anyone who wasn't a threat.

She watched the shorter woman break off, moving towards a different corner of the lobby, leaving the tall one alone. Cinder remembers the way they moved, like the enormous cats that she saw on the television late at night. Always stolen glimpses after Iris and Clove had fallen asleep. She remembers being enraptured by their grace, by their beauty and viciousness. She sees the same thing in the way the women move. The tall one is lithe, powerful, she reminds Cinder of the shadowy stalker, the jaguar, all precision and grace that defies explanation. The shorter one is all strength, each step of hers measured and confident, the kind of confidence that Cinder wishes she had. She sees that lazy smile on the face of the smaller woman, sees her turn around, and realizes that she is marking exits and entrances. Even the service ones, why? Is she expecting a fight? Here?

Cinder wants to look for more details, but her gaze remains firmly on the shorter woman as she approaches the taller, leans in, and whispers something. Straining hard, Cinder tries to hear what they say, but its lost as the tall woman whirls on the short, a hand rushing to her scabbard. For a moment, Cinder thinks they might draw blades on each other, that this lobby might be defaced by the aftermath of a huntress fight.

She sees the taller woman relax in a single motion, her hand departing from the handle of her weapon as Iris approaches the two. She speaks to them, likely about the room that Cinder failed to prepare for. Given the slight tint of rose color in the cheeks of the other girl, she likely was steaming towels and linens up until a few moments ago. Cinder almost allows herself to smile, but doesn't give in. The last time she'd dared to smile at the expense of one of her "sisters" had been the worst experience of her young life, and she was not eager to repeat it.

The two huntresses turned to leave, and Cinder found herself following them, stealing towards the stairs to the lobby, her eyes following them until she reached the end of the columns. Cinder wanted to look down, wanted to follow the huntresses deeper into the hotel, into their wing.

Then the shadow of the Madame appeared, and Cinder turned tail and ran for the stairs at the opposite end of the floor. Certainly, she would hurt for this, but better that then the Madame knowing how much the huntresses had affected her.

Her feet carried her into the service stairs. A thin, small space that only she and Clove could really fit into now. Given the disrepair and general lack of need, in addition to the Madame's swelling waistline and Iris' refusal to go into a place where her hair could possibly be dirtied.

This place was quiet, recessed into the walls, she'd once thought Clove hadn't known about it, retreating to small spaces in the walls to sleep or nap whenever she could. But that had changed when Madame and Iris had taken sledgehammers to the wall she was hiding behind, exposing her hiding place amidst peals of Clove's laughter.

She still had the scar on her upper arm, when one of the metal blocks had cut her bad enough to bleed, and she'd fled from that point on everytime she'd seen Clove. Until Madame had put the collar on her and used it to force her to be around them. Forced her to be obedient.

She'd assumed Cinder couldn't get into these spaces anymore, and while it was a tight fit… she could manage it. She squirmed deeper, fighting her way up the tiny, rickety stairs and towards the roof. One of the places only the contractors, when Madame hired them, would go.

She climbed higher, her thoughts enraptured on the huntresses, on their freedom… on how happy they were. On how the taller one had looked at the shorter one. There was something there that made Cinder's heart ache. She hated that feeling, hated that she wasn't… complete. Her small fists pounded on the walls, pounded and slapped and hit against the hardwood, and she felt those awful tears slowly crash from her eyes to her face. The lukewarm liquid tasted of salty betrayal as she curled up in the darkness and sobbed. She felt her body shake and sigh, and a spike of hateful jealousy burned through her. The awful emotion transforming into a wish, a single tear soaked wish that she could fly the skies like they did, that she could go to the world itself, into that bountiful outside space.

That she could be looked at in the same way as the huntresses, with nothing but awe at the power she wielded. That she could be seen in such a way, as above, as removed, as… free. like those women in the lobby.

She sniffled, wiping at her eyes in the darkness, and wishing desperately that just this once, the brother gods could hear her. that they could listen to her and grant this simple wish of hers.

Why couldn't she be free like those two…?

Time crawled forwards, and Cinder wiped at her eyes again, finally laying exhausted as the last of her tears soaked into the sawdust covered stairwell. She'd heard no one, and that meant… perhaps her "sisters" were simply too preoccupied with the upcoming event. Cinder didn't really know what it was, just… the consequences were always the same. Madame would entertain and drink the night away, and then she'd barge in when Cinder was cleaning, and, flushed from alcohol, electrocute her for any conceivable thing worthy of punishment.

She wrinkled her nose, the small gesture of defiance a careful secret. She hated festivity nights.

All it ever meant was more work, more strain, more pain when she couldn't keep up as Iris and Clove danced through the kitchen, making messes that she couldn't clean fast enough.

"Cinder, this needs to be done!"

"Cinder, did you forget to do laundry?"

"Cinder, what about the food for the guests!"

"Cinder!"

"Cinder!"

"Cinder."

Madame, and her remote. Madame and her lash. Madame and her open palm. Madame and the red marks carved into Cinder's cheeks and wrists.

The litany of voices shook Cinder out of her corner, and out of her place as the small doorway into the stairs was wrenched open, and Clove's brown haired head mockingly called up.

"Ciiiinnnnndeeerrr~"

She giggled, those green eyes full of nothing more than malicious and sadistic pleasure as she saw the smaller girl up the stairs, standing to her full height, she moved up, moved after Cinder, and then called back.

"Oh mother~ She's in the walls again~"

That singsong tone, the face of a tormentor twisted up like a shrew, her expertly done makeup and beautiful appearance as wrong of a characterization as anything else, and then… then the pain began.

Cinder felt every single muscle in her body stiffen and refuse to move, until they all moved at once and the agony began soon after. Every fibre of her body twitched and spasmed and sprained itself out, spittle flying from her dry lips as amber eyes widened into her skull until she thought her eyes might burst free from bone. Even trying to move was completely impossible, and more to that end it only made the agony worse.

Cinder can't even hear the laughter, her body twitching and bending and splaying across the sawdust covered ground. She's fairly sure she can taste wood and blood in her mouth, has she bitten her tongue in the spasming? She's not sure, all she knows is the agony that burns away at who she is. She's fairly sure that she can see Clove, but the chips of jade that Cinder is fairly sure represent her eyes aren't full of a single desire to help.

They're full of sadistic enjoyment.

Cinder can't think anymore, and as her eyes roll back into her head and darkness comes to claim her, a small, traitorous part of her whispers that if she was just a huntress, if she was strong and powerful… they'd never be able to treat her this way.

If she could hold an entire lobby of nobles' attention because of fear and awe, no one could possibly ever hurt her again

Cinder does not remember when she is hauled free of the wall and she does not remember when she awakens, only that her bleary eyed gaze is only barely there for a scant moment when the pain hits her again, sharp, stabbing…

Clove's heeled foot.

"Wake up gutter rat. You've got work to do."

Cinder staggers to her feet, the sense of immediate nausea striking at her core, Madame's shocks hurt, hurt badly. They were even worse when she tried to move, painful secondary shocks ran through her muscles, the utter exhaustion coursing through her. Half lidded, barely conscious eyes only half functioned as Cinder tried to go forwards. Clove's mocking, nasally voice informed her of just what she was supposed to do.

"Madame wants Iris to clean the skylights, but she's busy studying for college. I'm fully aware that you don't really understand how important that is. But you need to do her job, have fun~!"

The mocking, singsong tone accompanied the twisting fear in Cinder's gut. The Glass Unicorn was a gorgeous establishment, and the lobby itself was dominated by a truly vast domed skylight that not only let in copious amounts of Atlesian sunlight. But also provided gorgeous views of the open sky. The lights were normally cleaned by a group of contractors, some of them using esoteric motions, grace, and in one case, feathered wings to soar across the glass like dancers. Cinder loved watching them, the joy they took in their work and the smiles they wore never truly failed to make her just a little happier. It felt special to watch them in their efforts, and sometimes, they'd even leave her small gifts or bring her treats if she was washing the main floor. Cinder didn't know why they did this, only that those small treats, those small bits of food made her feel warm in a way that made the hole in her chest feel just a little lighter.

But, those skylights were terrifying when one looked down at the lobby, some 90 feet below. Those contractors had always been sure to warn both her and anyone nearby that the skylights were dangerous. That they were never to approach the glass or stand on it, that it was a risky place only they were trained for. Cinder had never doubted them, she knew how fragile Madame's glassware could be, how even those cleaners worked quickly and smoothly, minimizing the time they could possibly spend up there.

"Th-the skylights...?"

Her voice is trembling, small, and she hates it. she hates it more when she hears Clove's retreating footsteps, once quieter, turn around and click clack right back to her. She hates the way her chest feels tight, the way she feels weak.

"Yes. The skylights. Get on it."

The kick hurts and knocks her to the side, but the fear, the paralyzing, all consuming fear remained in her chest. She knows that to stay down only encourages Clove to hurt her more, but she can't move. She can't bring herself to stand up, to force herself to move, to do anything that would make Clove wander away but she is weak.

Clove tires of kicking her after a time, stalking away, and Cinder coughs harshly as she struggles to her feet. Her muscles no longer tremble and spasm, and she flexes a hand and leg experimentally to make sure. While she is bruised and battered, and she can feel the awful chafing of the collar hung round her neck on the burns underneath. She is hurting, and her side feels like the ice in Madame's freezers. But she can move again under her own power. She can move somewhere where the others will not see her.

She moves to the roof, to hide away and deny it would only make any punishment worse. Madame's shocks are bad, but Iris likes to hit her with small chunks of metal in her hand. Her fists, thus leave deep marks where her knuckles impact, and yet those same pieces of metal are easy to hide away in a dress or bag.

The door to the roof opens with a blast of cold air to Cinder's face, and the girl finds her teeth almost chattering already, her breath fogging the late evening air as she makes her way to the edge of the roof. She will need to do the skylights, but Madame will not expect her back inside until first light, when her duties in the kitchen necessitate her presence. For now, she has time, time to recover, time to look to the last, dying rays of the sun, and time to watch the tall huntress she saw earlier leap from the 3rd floor window and transform mid jump into a large black bird.

Cinder has to rub her eyes to convince herself that she is not, in fact, dreaming. But no, the beautiful creature lets out her wings and soars high above the city. Is that her semblance? Cinder has heard of these mystical powers, those often only in positions of danger discover theirs. When she was a girl, Cinder dreamed of having a power like the half remembered bedtime stories the voices of her memories read to her once. Back when her bed was warm and her worries were only what the next day would bring her to see and explore.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

The voice shocks her so much she nearly falls, but arms, strong arms wrap around her stomach and pull her back from the edge of the roof. The voice is warm, kind and high in pitch. Cinder turns, feeling her spine stiffen as her orange eyes meet the liquid silver pools of the other huntress. The shorter woman with the enormous pole of a weapon. She is staring into Cinder's eyes, and so close that the girl can feel her rapidly cooling breath as it gently rushes against her face.

"What's your name?"

The question catches her off guard, and Cinder does not realize she is holding a breath in until she releases it in one single swoop. Her voice, thin, weak, and trembling emerges a moment later.

"C-Cinder."

She stutters, hating her voice's stutter even as her body refuses to move away, there is something about this woman. Something about those silver eyes that makes Cinder feel as though she is capable of immense danger. This is not Madame, who inspires terror through threat of punishment. This is someone who maintains a vast capacity for violence, and her being sings that out. Every breath is measured, and every single expression on her face is thought out. Yet she closes her eyes and smiles evenly, cocking her head to the side as she replies to Cinder in one light, beautiful tone.

"It's nice to meet you Cinder, my name is Summer~! Summer Rose."

She opens them again, and Cinder is trapped in front of her eyes again, she can't move, can't even think, until Summer steps backwards, and there is suddenly space between them, standing to her full height, she looks down at the small girl and moves her head to one side.

"Are you alright, Cinder?"

Her hands tilt Cinder's head up, and Cinder's valiant efforts to avoid her gaze, to avoid those eyes that speak of so much experience and so, so much violence fail immediately.

Cinder tries valiantly not to rub at her neck, tries incredibly hard to stand up straight, to not show she's hurting. She knows what will happen if she does, Madame will find out and she will be shocked into compliance once more. This woman is kind, she is beautiful, but Cinder knows its an impossibility for her to take her. This woman is a huntress, and she will not want little Cinder. she will not want a tagalong.

Something must have given it away. Cinder tries to look away, and finds that she is unable to move, as Summer's fingers gently touch the collar. She wrenches herself free, sinking to her knees and clasping her hands against her ears. Her body trembles, she remembers what happened last time she tried to remove it, remembers the pain and punishment that Madame inflicted for such a transgression.

"Cinder. Who did this to you? Is it the-"

"Don't. Please."

Cinder shocks herself once more, shocks herself at the sheer strength in her voice as she speaks. She is surprised to hear that, surprised that her voice is not trembling. She shrinks away again, and hears a soft sound, opening her half closed eyes, she finds Summer Rose's eyes looking back into hers. But they are big, and there is water in them.

Cinder does not like it when others cry, she always expects pain for such a sin, and yet as this woman closes her eyes gently and a few tears drip from her face. Cinder tries to shift her feet away, until the woman speaks once more, and this time, her voice is somehow even softer. Her voice is so warm, so kind, and so clear, that Cinder freezes like a deer in the headlights.

"Cinder, its okay, I won't ask anymore questions. But, if you are willing, I would like to tell you a story."

Cinder should say no, she should politely refuse this warm huntress and turn away to the hotel. She should not talk to strangers, she should not speak to this woman who smells of strawberries and sweetness and all the kindness of the world.

She should say no, and yet, she does not.

She nods her head, and Summer Rose pats the roof next to her. Cinder sits down, and she stares at the woman, waiting for her to begin to speak.

"You know I'm a huntress, and based on the way you froze up when I started speaking with you, you're scared of me. That's entirely fair, but do you know who else is scared of me?"

Cinder shook her head slightly, ever so slightly, but it was there. Summer laughed, the first time that Cinder had heard such a sound, and it was a rich, bubbling laugh that poured freely from the red haired woman's lips.

Cinder had never heard such a sound in her life, this woman's laughter was free, it was given to the world, not as a reward for something done, but simply because she had decided to do so. Madame defiled the world with her laughter for two reasons. One was that she was hurting Cinder, and she dearly loved that, and the other was that awful fake laugh she put on for the guests she entertained in the salons and central rooms of the hotel.

Summer didn't laugh because she was hurting someone, she laughed because she was remembering something, because she was here and present and... alive.

Cinder's eyes are shadowed by the time she looks down, and Summer continues to speak after just a moment.

"Raven, that bird, the woman you saw jump into the air and fly, she's scared of me."

Cinder is taken aback, certainly, she is scared of Summer, but she is scared of every single huntress and most adults! For huntresses it is not hard to be scared of them. They are nigh immortal demigods capable of violence that makes even Atlas' often paraded military might feel weak by comparison. Cinder is aware that for all their posturing, for all the fancy armor and even fancier guns, they are the last to jump in, it is the huntsmen and huntresses who are the first in and the last out.

She admits, somewhere internally, that she idolizes them, but it is hard not to idolize them. Everyone and everything around her does the same. From nobility fawning over the latest exploits, to the newspapers proclaiming more victories than not.

"Did you hear that, Cinder?"

It is with some fear that Cinder realizes she has lost track of who she was sitting nearby. She believes it is entirely unfair to judge herself too harshly, because nominally she would never be so open, so unguarded... so vulnerable in front of another person. Especially an adult, and yet with Summer it is so easy to simply let go and focus on just her words.

"I'll say it again, Raven's been scared of me ever since she challenged me to a fight and I kicked her butt."

That shocks Cinder, Raven, the crimson woman, is taller, stronger, and physically bulkier than Summer. Her face must communicate that, because Summer laughs that wonderful sound into the world again, before saying.

"It's true!"

She pauses for only a moment before continuing.

"Raven's a lovely partner and a very good friend, but she can be the most stubborn blockhead I've ever met. That and before we were actually friends, she was a real fan of using brute force and pure intensity to get through every challenge that ever came for her. Much like, I suspect, your Madame is."

Cinder freezes, her hand moving away from her neck, Summer's gaze is less full of mirth than it was a moment earlier. It is very clear to Cinder that this woman has once again seen clear through her attempts to hide it. A minor flare of anger flashes through her body, her tiny fists clenching tightly as she curses the Madame for making the marks so obvious, so clearly something that anyone could see. Is she flaunting that Cinder's state is never going to change?

"However..."

Cinder looks back up into those silver eyes, and this time, she finds herself able to think, able to actually speak. Yet she does neither of those things, as Summer continues to speak.

"Something tells me that she has contingencies in place for if you were to try to leave, no?"

Summer speaks to the sky, her eyes holding Cinder's gaze as her voice takes on a confusing mix of emotions that are worn on her sleeve. To Cinder's ears, it feels as though she is regretful and simultaneously angry, and that anger terrifies her. Yet it is to a great deal of surprise that Cinder finds herself speaking quietly, confirming Summer's thoughts.

"Yes."

She does not know what a "contingency" is, but assumes from the context of Summer's words that it means methods of tracking Cinder down and punishing her if she tries to leave. Cinder does not need to tell her about the 3 prior attempts, the days spent shivering on the streets, the days starving before Iris found her squatting in an alleyway and dragged her by her hair back to the Glass Unicorn. She does not have to tell Summer any of this, and she has a vague sense that despite that, the woman seems to know and understand without words.

"Then, let me do some research, ok? I think I have an idea about something that will help you."

Cinder nods her head, a tiny flicker of something resembling hope in her core being crushed behind inevitability. Summer will not save her, she knows this, and to hope for any other outcome is pointless. But as her face falls, Summer speaks again, returning to her earlier topic.

"Raven tried to bull all over me, she thought she was better than everyone and would crush all in her path if she felt like they were in her way."

Summer smiles again, but this time it is not aimed at Cinder, instead, Summer is staring off into the distance, casting her gaze out across Atlas itself. She is remembering something, remembering a memory of the past shared with Raven. Cinder wonders, internally, what it would be like to have those memories, memories she could actually see clearly, not half remembered shapes and small impassioned pieces.

"To be fair to her, she was probably one of the strongest students in our year, and she had a reputation for fighting dirty. But I didn't need any of that to beat her, she tried the strength thing on me. She tried to walk all over me with brute force, and... it didn't work."

Summer laughs again, a real belly laugh, her body shaking in the cold air as Cinder listens. She is so enraptured that she doesn't feel the cold anymore, at least, not until Summer pulls the small girl in and wraps her cloak around Cinder.

"Strawberries. She smells like strawberries." Is the only real thought Cinder has in her mind as she is crushed against the side of the older woman. It is... warm. Warm in a way that makes Cinder's chest feel tight, feel... full.

"But, like I said, Raven's a bit of a blockhead, so she couldn't think that tiny little Summer Rose was capable of actually standing up against her! So she tried to push me, and I pushed back. Raven didn't expect that, she didn't expect me to use strength to defy her, she only ever saw me as weak. So for her, it was impossible that I could be strong."

Summer is warm, affectionate and kind. There is no doubt in Cinder's mind that she is genuine. She has seen false kindness on both Iris and Clove before, even the Madame is capable of putting on airs when she wishes. But for some reason, Cinder believes that Summer Rose might be genuinely incapable of hiding her emotions.

"I beat her there, simply by not being walked over, and then she treated me like a cornered animal, avoiding me, trying to hide away like a big scared cat. It took me and her brother, our teammate Qrow, to stop her from leaving."

She paused, and Cinder found the words tumbling from her lips before she could stop herself.

"What happened next?"

Cinder claps her hands to her mouth, genuinely shocked that she's spoken with something akin to eagerness in her tone. Wasn't she supposed to avoid indicating anything? Wasn't she supposed to not entreat this woman?

"Hah, there she is, the eager girl who wants to hear more, so... should I continue, Cinder?"

Cinder flushes brilliantly, her cheeks heating up and the blood rushing to her head. She shyly, bashfully nods her head, and... for once, she realizes that she isn't punished by expressing something she genuinely wants. She wants to hear the rest of the story, she wants to see what happened, wants to know what Raven did next.

"Raven tried to fight, and she took care of her brother first, by knocking him out a 4th floor window with a single punch. Shattered the glass in all 4 windows next to the one she threw him out of!"

Summer pauses, sucking in a breath, her animated nature so clear, so immediate, she's enraptured herself into the story.

"Then it was just me, little Summer Rose, against the fury of Raven Branwen. She struck at me, and something just... snapped in me."

Summer smiles, wiping a slight tear from her eye, she is laughing hard enough to cry, and Cinder realizes she has never seen someone do that before, unconsciously, she reaches out, and places a single cold hand against the other woman's cheek, as if she could catch that single tear in her hands and keep it forever.

"Oh... its ok, Cinder, I'm not actually sad, just... remembering."

Cinder doesn't know why that single sentence makes her feel better, but it does, and she's not sure why, a small flame spreading its wings in her chest. She feels warm, and that simple motion is stunning to her.

"In that moment, I needed to be behind her, and my semblance activated for the first time, I remember a rush, and appearing behind her with dozens of white petals swirling around me. When I hit her from behind, I don't think she ever expected me to hit her like that. The look of shock on her face will live in my head forever."

Summer trails off, staring into the distance, and Cinder finds herself gently tugging at the sleeve of the woman's blouse, her voice... plaintive and gentle.

"What... happened after?"

Summer looks up, startled, and smiles at little Cinder, ruffling her head gently. Cinder isn't sure why, but she likes this simple thing, she likes feeling the other woman do this.

"She was beaten, and she learned that I was made leader for a reason, she learned to be as tricky as I ever could be, and... she took that lesson to heart. Now she fights with her head, not her muscles, and... for you, Cinder."

Cinder looks up at the huntress, this woman who is so warm, so wonderful, and so clear.

"Fight smart, you may not be able to get out yet. But you will, and you'll teach Madame and those awful daughters of hers that you're better than them. So, choose the battles you fight carefully, learn your opponents dance moves, and then, when they're weak and unable to counter you..."

Summer pauses for a moment, and flashes a smile that is cunning and sadistic, like the jungle predators in the books at Cinder. Cinder feels a shiver run through her, but that is not targeted at her, or against her, it is meant to reassure her, and it... for some strange reason does just that.

"You go for their throats."

Summer smiles and gets to her feet, tugging Cinder up with her, and then she speaks gently once more.

"I'll do some research, and tomorrow, if you'd like, I can tell you another story."

Cinder nods, her voice failing her once more as the huntress turns away from her. She watches Summer stand, watches her entire form smoothly move from sitting to standing with none of the creakiness or slowness she's used to with adults. Madame does not look her age, but she is slow to get up, a fact that has saved Cinder from her ire on more than one occasion. In this case, she has no doubts, if she tried to run from Summer, the other woman would have no issues catching her.

But Summer stood and left her alone on that roof. That roof that Cinder now realized was much, much colder without the other woman. She turned to face where Summer had gone, almost about to call out to her, and found nothing but a swirling cloud of white flower petals swarming around her. Cinder's eyes widened… this must have been the woman's semblance… and it was beautiful.

She wondered if hers would ever be as beautiful as that, before she trudged back towards the door, already, the faint touches of cold against her bare forearms communicated the imminent threat of snowfall perfectly.

As Cinder made her way inside, the door shutting behind her nearly silently, she thought back to what Summer had said to her, about fighting smart, not fair. She needed to take her opponents into mind carefully. So she would do so. Immediately, Cinder rules out Madame, she not only has the remote to Cinder's collar, she sleeps with cords around her door, to mark if someone interferes.

Cinder's path takes her into the kitchens, wherein she begins her work for the night, Clove and Iris are long gone, both having "other things to do" than help out the younger girl. She supposes she should be angry about this, but she cannot, mostly because this environment is now silent. She can think clearly in the silence, even as her chores fade into the monotonous background, she can think and consider and evaluate plans.

Attacking either Clove or Iris directly was out. Both were not only taller and stronger than she was, but Iris had the beginnings of training to be a huntress, and Clove wore heels that really hurt. She was also taller than Cinder by enough to truly have a reach advantage, much like her older sister. Cinder grimaced, physicality was out, and she could not fight quite like them. Iris' huntress training, while delayed and frankly quite worthless compared to the two, no, one fully fledged huntress she could tentatively call "on her side". If Summer was actually on her side…

Cinder shook her head, and concentrated harder on scrubbing the floors, her thoughts wandered, first to Clove, then Iris, and then the Madame, and she felt herself getting angry. The flaring rise of the emotion common in her, but… never in such a way as it was now. It felt boiling, raging, almost corrupting, and deep beneath it there was a part of her that felt something shift in her core.

Then her world erupted into pain and the smell of searing flesh as white clouded her eyes.

By the time Cinder could see again, the rush of heat had faded, she looked around in utter shock at her surroundings. The cloud of fading steam, the pinkness on her arms and hands and face, and the painful tingling of burning sensations across her skin. When she looked down at her hands, they pulsed briefly an orange color, and she felt the brush under them crackle and bristle, before abruptly, it flashed orange and disintegrated into ash in her bare hands.

Cinder's eyebrow rose, and on her pink, slightly burned skin, she felt that rush run through her once more. That inexplicable feeling coursing through every single part of her felt like a rush, like an addictive, powerful rush. She saw and felt the ash in her hands, that smooth, velvet feeling rushing through her. Cinder does not know the dangers of an unlocked semblance without aura. She has never had experience with semblances, only hearing tales of them in the books she steals when Clove throws them out.

But… if she could destroy… What else could she do?

Chores were done in record time, and Cinder found herself sitting down in the early morning and staring at the dusty floor in her room. Her eyes narrowed, and she concentrated once more. Willing out that reserve was the goal, but what she could do with it she wasn't certain of. Cinder looked inwards, willing the ground under her hands to do what the brush had done, willing it to heat and melt and crumble away.

She was much less enthused when, a solid 30 minutes later, she had failed to get even a single spark from within her hands or onto the floor.

Why wasn't it working?

Frustration boiled within her, she snapped her hands outwards, flinging them and even swearing softly.

"Work! Burn! DO SOMETHING!"

There! She'd felt it, for just a second, for just a fleeting moment, at the exhalation of that near shout, she'd felt that power again. She drove her focus inwards, forcing her thoughts to remain on that tiny sliver, like a barely cracked open door, it remained just barely out of reach. Just ever so slightly there, but she couldn't open the door… or, could she?

Cinder sat back on her haunches, thinking, but now calmly and much more composed. She thought back to the exact moments that her semblance had activated, the precise feelings and emotions that had run through her, and she realized it right there.

Strong emotions. That was what it caused it, the first was anger, rage, and hate towards Madame and her awful children. The second was frustration at her semblance not working as ordered.

She sat back and chuckled softly, her lips parting in a smile so wide it cracked them and caused a bit of blood to drip down her face. But even though they hurt she didn't care, Cinder knew one thing, and one thing only.

She had power.

Even Iris hadn't discovered her semblance yet, and Cinder had! In that small moment of joy, she felt the door, the gentle current flowing out of her, and warmth surged through her fingers. This time, she placed her right hand into the sand and dust on the floor, wrapped her left around it and concentrated.

Her first inclination that something was wrong came quickly, as she wrenched the left hand away from her right as searing pain rocketed up the inside of her wrists. She resisted the urge to scream, and in that moment poured her pain away from her, away and into the shape she often imagined herself being free of in her dreams, she felt it no longer weighing on her neck, the tines that pressed into her skin like thorns free of that same flesh. She felt the heat depart her hand in a sucking rush, and felt something bubble away under her fingertips as she yanked both arms away from the sharp increase in temperature.

The soft tinkling of glass comes a moment later, something coming to rest on the soft dirt floor of her room alerted her gaze to where she'd placed her hand. And as Cinder looked down, she felt her cracked, slightly bloody lips turn up an even smirk.

There, laying on the ground, was a shattered collar, like her own, but made of transparent, still solidifying glass in a dusky grey.

Cinder felt a small, tiny piece of herself twist in satisfaction, as Summer Rose's voice rang through her head once more.

"Go for the throat when they can't possibly fight back."


A/N: Chapter 1, hope you enjoy! Discord is linked below!

Join the Firebird's hearth Discord Server!

 

[Ember]

Raven

Raven Branwen is a woman of many talents, observant, quick-witted, strong, fast, and an unholy terror to the common man. But she is also stubborn, quick to anger, and remarkably easy(for some) to taunt into a disadvantageous position.
Right now, she feels that disadvantageous position very keenly. Because she is on the receiving end of Summer Rose's full-on patented and trademarked "puppy eyes". And she is trying very hard to put her foot down.

"Summer… we're here to track down a serial killer and you're conducting a deep dive into Atlesian child laws because… why, exactly?"

Summer flashes a beautiful smile that only half bares her teeth to the world, and Raven feels a sinking pit in her stomach as she recognizes that look. That look tells her that Summer has had an idea. An idea that might make her adoption of half a dozen kittens in their second year of Beacon look like a joke in comparison.

"Summer-"

"Relax Rae~ They won't even know she's gone, especially by the time we're all finished here~!"

The pit in Raven's stomach twists as her partner of near 10 years flashes her that same radiant smile, baring her teeth fully to the world. It is in this moment that Raven truly understands that she isn't going to win, and she turns the dialogue away from this topic before Summer can use her weaponized cuteness on her again.

"Fine. Any leads on Tyrian while you were entertaining a small child?"

Summer's smile never leaves her lips as she nods once.

"Of course, the girl was on the roof, an actually perfect place for me to observe, and yes, I did not only mark where he likely is staying, but where he's able to escape from."

Raven grimaces, her reply pouring forth from her mouth.

"Not the awful warehouse jokes… please…"

"Oh~? And here I thought you were practically raised in them Rae~ Shouldn't you be right at home?"

Summer's reply, accompanied by a feral grin as if the cat had not only caught and eaten the canary, but had then framed the dog for such a grave misdeed, catches Raven completely off guard.

"They're awful! As if I liked being raised in the damned places!"

Summer's laughter catches Raven's flustered, slightly angry tone and face and accentuates them wonderfully as the other woman steams in her frustrations.

"But Raven, it's no wonder you hate them so much~!"

"Summer, don't you dare, don't you dare."

"Corvids love to fly high, afterall!"

Raven let out a mighty groan as her partner fired up one of the worst puns she'd ever heard and sent it screaming into her ears. Because of course Summer had taken Taiyang's puns and her brother's bad jokes and combined them into a weapon of supreme teasing that deprived the rest of team STRQ of any sense. When even Taiyang Xiao-Long, self professed pun master, was tired of it then it was truly awful.

"On a more serious topic, I scouted the warehouses. all in and out, barring the windows on the upper level and the large doors and small entrances, there are four ways in and out for doors.the windows leave large open spaces where one could leap through if you don't mind tanking your aura."

Raven's tone is much more composed now, as she recalls her earlier patrol and the results of it.

"Also, likely he's targeting the poor and disenfranchised on purpose, found another murder."

Summer raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, already reported it to James as well."

The eyebrow moved further up.

"No, I took pictures and samples."

Summer cackled loudly.

"That's my partner~! Always one step ahead. lets see those pictures, yeah~?"

Raven sighed, rolling her eyes, but she couldn't help the slightly giddy grin that crossed her features. She pulled her scroll out and extended it into tablet form, she was no detective, but certain magical properties lended her a unique ability to get high quality photographs from places the police would need ladders or a bullhead for.

"Vagrant woman, young, my guess is probably about 29. Track marks and deep stab wounds on the upper chest."

Summer frowned, passing over the scroll and thinking, before she pulled her own out.

"Local transfer from scroll to scroll, wouldn't do to have someone else watching."

Raven pulled a cable, sealed and still in its plastic from her bag, hooking it to Summer's scroll. she transferred the files over and her partner and leader began to look over the photographs. Idly placing a finger at her lips and furrowing her brow as she did so, Raven had to stop herself from catching a few of Summer's bangs as they flew idly down from the top of her head.

"She's not only young, but she's at least fairly athletic, look at the muscle definition, she's either ex military or a huntress dropout. If… so, why no family?"

"Could be highborn? The elites of Atlas aren't exactly known for their hospitality to their dropouts."

Summer chewed her lip for a moment.

"I don't know. She's too rough for highborn nobility, and that mark on her shoulder, the wings and feathers… its a bit strange, right?"

It was Raven's turn to frown as she looked carefully over her own scroll, before something stuck out to her.

"Summer, look at the upper thigh, can you see the cut in the pants that exposes the right side of her hip and thigh joint?"

"Sure, what about it, there's nothing there."

"That's on purpose. That cut isn't worn unless you're Branwen affiliated and know you're being stalked. It can look easily like a rip in the clothes… if she was one of us, I need to reach out to the tribe."

Summer shot Raven a dark look.

"I thought you left."

Raven tried not to cringe as that look passed over her.

"Qrow did. I never felt that I had to do so."

"Raven…"

Summer's tone took on a warning nature, and at that moment, Raven snapped back.

"So what!? They're the people who raised me and my practical family! Not everyone gets to grow up in a safe and loving home like-!"

Summer let a smirk grow on her face.

"Like who, Rae~? Because Taiyang's home was a hell on earth, and as for me… well."

She flashed a look that Raven had only seen once priorly.

"It's not exactly like I grew up in a great place either. What, did you think stable people go to a school to learn to fight monsters? There's a reason I went to Beacon on special recommendation of Ozpin."

She smiled, baring fangs in an approximation of a predators smile that made Raven shiver.

"Raven, you were raised by a tribe of bloodthirsty bandits. A tribe of bandits who kill murder and do worse to everyone they ever encounter. And you call them family because in some way, they are family. But you would do well to remember that not everyone had that. Now, tell me about this mark, without relying on bandits who not only don't have comms, but also haven't and won't change their ways."

Raven flinched further as each mark landed home.

"I… I didn't want that for anyone..."

Summer let a flash of her teeth show in the darkening room.

"Ah~! So that's why you told Yang you were her aunt and Tai and I were her parents! Because you think you're worse than them? Is that it?"

Raven felt something warm start to slide down her cheek, and she tried to turn her head away, only for Summer to reach out behind her, gently turn her head back, and stand on her tiptoes.

"No. You are enough. You'd never hurt Yang or Ruby, right?"

Raven shook her head.

"Then you are enough. You'd have Taiyang and me right by your side. So, when this mission is over, you and I are going back, for good. You're going to cut your ties with the inlaws with one caveat. If they go legitimate, I don't mind having them around, but until that happens, you are to cease contact with the people who beat it into you that the strong are allowed to be amoral savages. You're going… going to be back with us. And we're going to fix it all. Alright?"

Raven looked at Summer, looked at her partner, her leader, her first love and second lover, she studied the face of the silver-eyed warrior, the behemoth of Beacon Academy, and some part of her found a reserve of steel she'd not known she had.

"Fine. I'll do what you ask. But only if you take the stray in too."

Summer smiled.

"What, did you really think we'd leave her behind?"

Raven casts her gaze to one side, hiding the tinting in her cheeks as she tries to refocus.

"But… on the note of our murderer, do you think it's for… that purpose?"

Summer's gaze darkens instantly, and Raven finds herself wondering if that was the purpose of this trip.

"Are all the victims the same?"

Raven shook her head.

"No, but the others were all dispatched with sadistic cruelty, from what Ironwood's police have said, these women are…"

"Killed with clean stabs to the heart, lungs, or spine. Every time."

Summer frowned, once again pursing her lips and looking over the photographs.

"So, we have a sadist looking for a maiden applicable candidate, right?"

Raven nodded, shifting her position on the bed to face Summer evenly.

"Is it Salem's pet assassin?"

Summer frowned, turning her silver eyes up from the scroll to face Raven.

"I really hope not. While I make no bones about how Ozpin isn't telling us everything, I do trust him-"

Raven's face must have darkened as Summer raised a hand to placate the other woman.

"To a limit, Rae. Why else would I come out here? Why would I trust you and follow you here? You know what he says you are, right?"

Raven smirked, before speaking.

"Let me guess, an ungrateful savage who should have accepted his teaching job over being the badass huntress, right?"

Summer let the remark crack her dark look, and a smile flashed onto her face.

"He called you an "ingrate" I didn't think people were still allowed to use that word, it felt like something out of a period drama."

Raven can't stop herself and giggles a bit, snorting freely in the low light conditions of the hotel. She looks out the window, to the sparkling lights of Atlas, to the surroundings of everything and she, in that moment says something that she should have thought more about, at least… she hopes.

"When I come back… are we swearing off Ozpin…?"

Summer looks at her, a curious, strange expression on the woman's face as she does so, she takes a breath in and then exhales it slowly. Before she speaks quietly and carefully.

"I think we give him one last chance. One final time to explain everything, and if he doesn't mention Salem, or her followers, or why he recruits only the strongest students to be teachers. I think he owes us an explanation for everything, and if he doesn't give that over…?"

Summer's grin turned and slipped from her face.

"I've always heard Menagerie is a lovely place to settle. The Belladonnas do still owe me a drink, after all."

Raven raised an eyebrow.

"Opening your own school over there?"

Summer shot back a defiant look.

"Why not? Sure, SDC is largely dominant in the market, but I'm sure we can find something of value dust wise on the continent. Maybe even a type no one would expect to be there? Besides, it's not as if we can go to Atlas, my morals won't allow it, regardless of Ironwood's promises."

Raven smirked.

"Well, I have boats, and a very in-depth knowledge of smuggling things into and out of secure areas~"

Summer stood up and stretched out her arms.

"Then it's decided, hmm~?"

Raven nodded her head and stood as well.

"Joint patrol?"

Summer only nodded.

"After you~"



The two women made their way out of the hotel room, moving through the corridors until Summer, tapping gently on the walls as she walked, found what she was looking for. She tapped once, twice, three times, before pressing her hand, palm first, on the wallpaper and running it up and down.

"In the walls, then?"

"Yep~ She had to make her way from the roof without me seeing her in the stairs, so I'm looking, and- There."

Summer pressed lightly on a section of wallpaper, and a slight, small door swung open, it would fit the two of them, albeit barely.

"Tight fit, huh?"

"Sure, but Rae, if you make a Taiyang quality joke here, I'll take your Katana and dull the blades myself."

Raven gasped outwards, inclining her head to duck into the small space, following the faint glow from Summer's aura deeper into the passageways.

The walls were thick and reinforced here, made of thick, rough-hewn stone of a gloriously deep shade of red, likely a relic from when the hotel was first built years prior. Raven ran a hand across the smooth stone, wondering if the little runaway kept these halls clean for herself or because she was made to by her awful family.
When the two women emerged, it was outside, into an alleyway, a grinding crash of stone announcing their presence as they exited into the soot stained, dirty alleyways of Mantle. Yet, even that grinding crash was completely drowned out by the very presence of Ironwood's troops and sirens a few blocks over. Summer moved quickly and quietly, but it was Raven who stuck to the shadows as the two women fell into an easy rhythm they hadn't practiced since Beacon. Not that they needed to practice such a thing. Neither needed to truly practice it, it had been ingrained into their muscle memory so deeply that they would never forget it.

Raven took point, sticking to shadows while Summer drove attention to her, to her confidence and walking, any studying them might have caught the occasional glimpses of Raven, but they were likely focused on the civilian who was so clearly pretending to be a huntress. After all, Summer did not look like, or carry herself like a huntress.
Raven rolled her eyes as a young police officer approached Summer Rose, and the woman skillfully wove around him without even trying, leaving a flustered, incredibly uncertain young police officer in a swirl of white rose petals. When Raven caught up to her a moment later, she chuckled and spoke from a shadow to the left of Summer.

"You know, you really shouldn't make a habit of messing with Ironwood's lieutenants."

Summer smirked evenly.

"Please, he's got the report on what we've found in his pocket. while he might be an idiot, he's under Ironwood, who will notice that slightly out-of-shape pocket the moment he sees it. The man is career military and has a stick so far up his rear if you looked into his mouth you'd see the wood."

"Of course, but wouldn't it be safer to just let him have the thing personally?"

Summer rolled her eyes.

"You know our best asset here is stealth, and avoiding Ozpin's attention as long as possible, better Ironwood believes that we're just in the area recovering and took a brief look at the scene."

The two made flowing through a crowd easy, passing through a train of exhausted faunus workers on their way back from industrial positions and the like. Faces stained by soot and lined with the exhaustion of working in the worst, most dangerous places in Atlas. Raven felt a part of her cringe that she wasn't doing anything to help them. She cast her gaze to Summer, a good 30 feet distant through the crowd, and she could see the way that her forehead twitched, the vein popping out a moment later.

Summer hated this place. She hated Atlas, and Raven wondered at some level how hard it must be for the other woman to actively repress her desires to commit a war crime on the elites above, or heavens forbid within the hotel.

"Marked the guy, from the looks of it."

Summer spoke quietly and carefully, Raven hearing her, and the woman, even though she didn't move, she nodded once, ever so slightly.

"Tailing now. Tall, open long coat, long braided brown hair, yellow eyes."

Raven saw him and nodded once. Before she turned her back and walked away, darting into an alleyway, the woman sniffed at the air, and reached out with her aura, finding nothing other than a few animals that were not paying attention to her, she concentrated and drew on that power that had been given.
The experience of turning into a bird was quick, but it was not painless. Raven gritted her teeth as every single bone and part of her body felt wrong for seconds that dragged like minutes. Until finally, she'd fully incorporated her form into that of a large corvid, a very quick hop and jump into the air left her soaring up and over the city, and for a moment, she really thought that she could get lost up here in the warm currents of air.

Then reality crashed back in as she saw Summer trailing their target, and the corvid disguised form of Raven circled over to them. Trailing people as a bird was an entirely separate skillset than as a human, and while Summer was quite effective at tracking people on the ground, she couldn't boast Raven's supreme command of the air and the utter insanity that was her birdlike vision.

She picked out their target easily enough, and watched the lackadaisical way he moved, studying his movements and motions, she searched him up and down for any sign or semblance of a weapon. Surely there had to be one on his person, or was he something unique? Perhaps a semblance generated weapon? She was uncertain, and that uncertainty bled into her flight and her motions.

Summer disappeared to one side, and Raven cursed inwardly as she followed the man down an alleyway and watched as he approached a girl on the street, he offered the bare footed woman a hand, and when she refused to take it, a hushed argument broke out into the open. Something that led to the woman snapping her hand away and crying out.
Raven was aware that Summer was probably watching, but her not having stepped in was strange.

The alleyway, upon the outburst, became something akin to dangerous, as now the shadows flowed off the walls, blending together on the floor and reshaping into half a dozen cloaked figures. Each was a dirt covered ragamuffin like the first, but this was their alleyway, and as the man held up his hands and began backing away, Raven let out a brief sigh of relief.

There would be no bloodshed right now, at least, not immediately. However, this person, they were walking away, and it was only now that Raven saw Summer step into view. Her white cloak drawn up far on her face, and her lips set in a determined, terrifying rictus. She knew that look, and gently fell from the building, arriving to perch delicately ontop of her head, whereupon she cawed once, loudly.

That single exclamation had Summer stepping to the side, all before the man turned around as he reached the edge of the alleyways, and in that moment, as Summer turned around and Raven took flight, she made eye contact with their quarry, and saw a simple, awful yellow gaze of pure and utter lunacy.

Those yellow eyes held nothing, there was no sight, and even as Raven soared past him, low in the streets, she reflected on how… empty, they'd been. There was no mirth, no emotion, no… anything in those eyes. It was, Raven reflected, as if she'd looked into the eyes of a wax sculpture, there was nothing but a facsimile of life there, nothing but pure, emptiness in a void that left her feathers puffed out and a shiver running from head to tail pinions.

That was pure, animal panic, and she'd only ever encountered that, once before, when a large eagle had tried to make dinner of her in one afternoon, or… when she'd fought Summer.

By the time she landed safely on a rooftop nearby, Raven returned to her human form and gasped for air. She still felt those chills running through her. Still felt them coursing her blood and gelling her bones in a haunting embrace. She gritted teeth and shrugged briefly, standing taller and rolling her shoulders back before slamming an open palm into her chest and steeling herself.

"Summer."

The comm in her ear was tapped once, and she felt the slight pulse of feeling run through her bones as she spoke, before the reply came, slightly broken up by small amounts of static, but almost nothing else.

"Here. Safe, tailed him to a warehouse 1 or 2 streets over from The Glass Unicorn, shouldn't have been noticed."

Her partner's voice was warm, but it was forced warmth, the kind that resembled electric heaters restrained and kept tightly contained. As if to prevent their warmth from scourging the rooms they resided within.

"You?"

The question comes so suddenly that Raven almost stumbles over herself before she replies.

"Fine. Safe. Made eye contact, he's either blind or the best actor on the planet."

Summer didn't respond initially, a crackle of slight static coursing through the bead as she moved from her position.

"Best actor before blind, then."

Raven stood from her crouched position, casting her red eyes out across the city and staring towards the location of the Unicorn first, then the warehouse Summer had marked. She could see it, an older, dilapidated thing left from when Mantle still had functioning docks for her fleet of skyships, before the construction of Atlas, before everyone and everything who considered themselves better moved to the floating travesty above her.

"Fits our guy though, no visible weapons, possible semblance?"

Summer asked quietly, Raven choosing to reply after she had leaped down from the top of the building, here, the static was noticeable, and not exactly ideal, but she could understand her partner's words in the calm of the alleyways.

"Doubtful, anyone with a semblance that generates the wounds would have variety and training at a scale that would rival my own and Amber's. You know how hard that would be."

Her partner's voice, a slightly irritated tone, replied to her a moment later.

"Yes, I know Miss Spring and Fall maidens got the entire monopoly on training and focus. But still. Perhaps its a telekinetic semblance?"

"Like Glynda?"

"Yeah. She's a monster in the actual ring, remember how she threw around that deathstalker like it was nothing?"

"The big overgrown one?"

"Yeah, well, you can imagine how my attempt at dueling her went."

Raven couldn't help herself, she burst out laughing.

"Really Summer, had to take up Tai on that fools bet?"

Summer's frustrated huff, as inaudible as it was, could be felt in the way she responded.

"Raven Branwen, so help me dust, if you tell a single other soul about this I'll claw my way out of this scroll and rip your feathers off myself!"

Raven, in mock scandal and with the laugh still blurring her tone, responded instantly.

"Not my pinions~!"

"The very same!"

The two women dissolved into giggles for a moment, before Raven tapped her bead once and spoke quietly.

"I think I'm going to visit James, see if he can give me any files on the recorded semblances of all known violent criminals in Atlas. Hopefully he'll forgive me for you putting a karaoke machine through the window of his destroyer…"

Summer's embarrassed choking noise was quite audible as she shyly replied.

"Tai got me drunk and told me to do it…"

"Summer… you and I both know very well you were not only the one who did so, but that it was Taiyang's karaoke machine."

She pulled the bead from her ear as Summer's frustration manifested into angry yelling for a brief moment before fading back into laughter.

"I will return to the hotel as soon as I am able, meet you there?"

"Mmhmm"

Summer's quick reply ceased, Raven shrugged her shoulders and disengaged the commbead from her ear, sealing it into its small, protective gel case. A moment later and a painful crackling sound echoing, a large raven took flight over Mantle and moved to the upper decks of the small airfleet that continually patrolled even Mantle.
While the pride and joy of Atlas' navy were the battleships, arrayed out in trios in the upper orbit of Atlas itself, the working horse destroyers that made up much of the navy often spent time docked to the rocky core of Atlas' floating self. It was there that Raven briefly flew, searching for a particular destroyer, although she was not surprised to find it not at dock, and instead hanging low over the city of Mantle, the gentle hum of its thrusters illuminating a few of the densely packed buildings beneath it.

Even now, Raven could see a cluster of smaller gunships, weaponized bullheads that formed the small vessels airwing, casting low in sweeping patrols over the streets as she came in low and slow for a landing. The bird set down on the deck, and gritting her teeth, Raven blurred back into being with a slight crack of bone reasserting itself.
She idly stepped once, twice, three times on the hull, before leaning over and looking in through the porthole of the massive skyship's windows. There, sitting with his back to her, was Captain Ironwood. He was currently receiving a report from a rating who looked up at her, back down to Ironwood, then jumped visibly and pointed towards her. Raven shifted her body slightly and dropped to the gangway outside of the captain's ready room in response.

She leaned back against the wall, and idly waited, sure enough, the door hissed open a moment later and an utterly exhausted-looking James Ironwood moved onto the deck. He placed his hands on the edge of the railing and spoke.

"So, what brings the Masked Huntress from Mistral all the way out here?"

Raven smirked behind her mask as she saw the tips of the young man's lips quirk up.

"Is it to help or hinder?"

Her response was just as blunt.

"Help. Can you give me the files on every violent criminal this kingdom's dealt with that are currently free?"

The other man turned to face her, his long coat flapping gently in the wind.

"Those are classified files, I cannot just give them too you, no matter your track record."

"I'm not asking for anything detailed or problematic. Just a list of semblances, effects, and the like."

The man's gaze narrowed, and those warm eyes turned cold as steel as the light within winked out.

"Absolutely not. You know not what you ask for."

Raven shrugged.

"Fine then, don't give me the information and when I turn up dead, you can tell Leonardo you bear the full responsibility."

The man stepped back to the railing, looking away from her for a moment, even as she kept her arms folded over her chest.

"You place me in an irritating position."

Raven rolled her eyes and stepped towards the ship's railing, leaning against it, she felt the gentle vibration as Omen clinked against that railing.

"Of course, overriding your duty to the stuffy asshats is one thing, even if it gets a murderer killed."

The man looked at her, eyes hard.

"I will not acknowledge your presence, you will be on your own. None of my soldiers will help you with this. Expect to be disavowed if any information comes to light."
Raven nodded, this was clear-cut, standard bureaucratic bullshit. She'd done work like this before for Lionheart, and even with Summer. They kept the darkness out for the world to thrive.

"Yeah yeah. Just give me the files."

"They will be transferred to a drop site that will be sent to a burner scroll in aisle 6, row 24, rack 30 of Risha's Electronics."

As Raven made to leave, the man reached out and gently took her hand, and then spoke once more.

"You play a dangerous game miss. I would truly hate having to report back to a White Rose that a close friend of hers was injured out here. Especially if I can't tell her more than that."
Raven smirked and fell off the railing.

"Please~! As if a single criminal can bring me down, Jimmy."

The word felt strange to say to the man, especially as he bristled immediately and turned on her, whirling around her to catch a glimpse of who she was as she leaned over and fell from the railing, cockily saluting Ironwood as her form dropped into the city before she rolled over and vanished into the shadows of the buildings, transforming into a raven right before she hit the ground.

Bleeding off speed and extending wings, Raven pulled out and above the buildings, soaring over the city before transforming back midway through and landing evenly amidst the crowd of Atlesians. If anyone noticed her, they made no point of speaking to her about it, and to do so would have been stupid, anyway, as the woman still carried her weapon. No one would willingly mess with a huntress, and many assumed, rightfully, that her semblance was something related to turning into the corvid.

Stranger things had occurred, after all.

By the time Raven had recovered the scroll, found the drop site, and retrieved the small stash of data within, night had fallen and she was due back at the hotel. As she trailed through the city once more, maskless and visible, she found herself willingly trailing into the night as the snow fell. Enjoying the peace and quiet and clarity that such weather provided and the break from Summer.

Summer…

How strange it was that Raven realizes they're working together again, that they're even on speaking terms. Was it her last-minute choice to not abandon Yang? Was it that single spur-of-the-moment decision, that hope, that somewhere in their hearts was just a touch of doubt in Ozpin's intentions, just a slight amount of them unable to truly resolve his decisions because of the game the man played?

Him and his diatribes about mistakes.

Raven knows she's a fucked up person, she knows that she's broken and hurting in a dozen different ways, and the splinters of that person who she is are still pricking at the fingers of anyone who gets too close.

And yet, that never stopped Summer Rose, nor Taiyang Xiao-Long or Qrow. There's a part of Raven that lashes out inwardly at this realization, but the woman simply tosses her wild mane of black hair back, laughs to herself, and saunters into the hotel.

The lobby is nearly deserted, save for a downright furious young blonde woman behind the desk, Raven recognizes this is the eldest of the woman who runs this establishment, and with a casual glance, she notes the well-taken care of appearance that hides the barest hint of calluses.
This girl is training to be a huntress, whether or not she will be a strong one remains to be seen, but Raven's assessment, her guess tells her that she will not. Not unless she removes that attitude of hers before she meets someone capable of turning her inside out.

"Something with strength in it. Now."

Raven feels no need for courtesy with her, and as the terrified young woman scurries off, the Branwen kicks her boots up on the public sofa and stares around the opulent, beautiful lobby. It's quiet and comforting to a degree, she's not exactly dumb to the feeling of plush velvet and genuine comfort here, but it's also ruined by the awful sculptures.
When the young woman returns with a decanter of mulled wine, Raven takes the entire silver vessel from her hands and moves off toward her room, she ignores the faint, singular attempt at stopping her from taking the decanter, and the casual introduction of the girl's gaze to Raven's middle finger discourages her from following her.

The door to their room is slightly ajar, a maintenance cart in the open doorway, and as Raven approaches, she hears quiet sobbing. The woman sets the decanter down and moves to the door, pressing her ear to the wood, she knows two things immediately.

One, that is not Summer crying.

Two, Summer is present in the room, given the slight sounds of her breath in and out.

Raven opens the door silently and just in time to catch the ending pieces of a conversation.

"No… you're coming with us. We won't leave you behind, I promise."

Immediately, Raven rolls her eyes, catching Summer's silver pools with her own red as she does so, but her lips are curved into a smile even as she does so. This is classic Summer, and there's nothing that will really stop her from doing this.

So who is Raven Branwen to try and stop her?

But it is with some consternation that she notes the strange bandages and burns that trace little Cinder's arms and hands. Her gaze shifts up and down, and an eyebrow slowly raises, just enough for Summer to see it as Raven speaks.

"Little Kite."

The serving girl whirls away from Summer, her amber eyes wide and frightened as she takes in Raven's appearance and only, barely slowing down when Raven forces a smile onto her face that feels genuine.

"How did you get those burns?"

The girl looks fear-struck for a moment, but it is with a calm hand on her shoulder that Summer encourages her to speak.

"I-I"

Raven kneels down, looking up into the girl's eyes and gently, carefully placing a gloved hand on her chin, she speaks, her rough voice running out.

"Take your time. No one will hurt you."

The girl nods, swallows, and visibly calms herself down, the shuddering shoulders and remnants of tears fading away until she looks at Raven with a solid, steady, and normal gaze.

"I was laying in my room, and my emotions overcame my composure, Ma'am."

Raven softly chuckles, the sound pouring from her lips so evenly that it stuns Summer, who gazed down at her partner with something akin to genuine surprise arching her eyebrows and widening her eyes.

"Something happened and I melted the ground into glass."

Summer inclines her head to the right, and Raven stands up, looking out over to where she was indicating, there, on the dresser, wrapped in cloth, is a glass replica of the collar Cinder wears around her neck. It is fractured and cracked, but it is clear, and as Raven looks at the crown her brain begins to work over the possibilities.

"Congratulations, little Kite."

Raven's bluntness is immediate as she speaks.

"If you were searching for proof of ability to be a huntress, there it is. You have unlocked your semblance."

Raven, studying the crown, does not see the way Cinder lights up at the mere mention of huntresses, she does not notice the quickened breaths, or Summer's small, but almost proud smile as she studies the collar.
She does turn eventually, and catches Summer comforting Cinder, wrapping the girl in her arms and holding her close.

"Here, tomorrow we have a mission, but we'll be back at nightfall, you're going to stay in our room for that, ok?"

The small girl nods once, and Raven lets a coy, almost coquettish smile cross her own lips as she tugs out her bedroll, and sets it aside for the smaller girl. She indicates the spare double bed and then lays back on her hands on the floor.

She was strong.

Very strong. Raven's mind whirls at the realization of just how powerful this girl could be. Her semblance, unlocked before her 9th birthday, her drive, powerful enough to do so without aura, regardless of the burns, her unconscious will survive shaping the first expression of her semblance.
She falls asleep late that night, as Summer rises for her watch, seeing the small, sleeping face of Cinder, her body rotated all the way around to face Raven.

A/N:
Another one, here we go~!
Comments give me life, so feel free to throw one in. (I'll be posting a chapter a day until it catches up with the main narrative, then it'll be a chapter roughly every week.

 

[Baughn]

This is great, and deserves more readers.

I'd stopped watching RWBY in season for or so, so I didn't previously realise the meaning of Cinder's name. That hit like a gut punch. It sure would be nice if the villains had always been evil, huh…

I hope she does better in this timeline, perhaps becoming the cool older sister to Ruby and Yang, though I fear Summer won't be around to see it. Maybe Cinder's presence will be enough to make Raven stick around. I guess we'll see.

 

[Ember]

Raven

Raven wondered just how she'd found herself being sent to get breakfast at a nearby store, or why, when she returned, she found Summer Rose laughing and giggling, and Cinder desperately trying to reassemble one of the magazines of Dawning Rose. The heavy assembly, and the spring of the magazine, had been ejected, and Cinder was frantically scrambling at the floor, near a kneeling, laughing Summer Rose who was idly spinning one of Dawning Rose's heavy, .50 caliber rounds between her long fingers.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"

The girl's frantic apologies weren't helped by Summer's laughter. With some consternation and a strange feeling in her stomach, Raven noted that Cinder almost seemed tearstruck. So, as Raven set the small bag of pastries and coffee down on the desk in their opulent room, she bent down and gently spoke to Cinder.

"Here, give them to me."

As Cinder reluctantly passed over the shells and pieces, Raven offered a small, small quirk of upturned lips and spoke quietly.

"It's ok, it was a mistake."

Cinder looked at her with a curious expression, one that Raven wasn't quite able to place, and with the slight laughter of Summer Rose in one ear, she gently took the girl's hands and spoke once more.

"Shall I teach you how to assemble it and load it?"

Raven shocks even herself, and, apparently, Summer Rose as well, as the other woman's peals of laughter abruptly cut off with an almost choking noise. The noise causes Cinder to try, and fail, to split her attention between the two women. She eventually chooses to focus on Raven, as Summer rises from her seated position and moves towards the placed bag of coffee and assorted pastries.

Raven calmly takes the pieces of the magazine and carefully holds them out to Cinder. She points to each piece in turn and begins to speak.

"A magazine has five central pieces, all of which work together to make the weapon chamber and fire rounds of ammunition. This small central piece is called the floor plate, and it locks to the spring, and this other piece, which is called the baseplate. That assembly is then loaded into the magazine, like this."
Raven clicks the pieces together and slides part of the spring assembly out to point out the last pieces.

"These two are the follower and the spring, the spring is what pushes bullets, called rounds up the magazine and into the mechanisms of the weapon itself. Once the entire assembly is ready, you click it back into place, like this."

Raven slid the spring and assembly into the magazine, locking it tightly in place and offering that small quirk of her lips as Cinder looked up at her with something resembling pure awe. Then, the tall Branwen pulls Summer's small bag, embroidered with flowering roses, she lifts the flap and begins removing rounds, one at a time. Each one has different colors and tips, and as Cinder remarks over all of them, Raven calmly speaks as she touches her fingers to each one.

"High explosive, Armor piercing, gravity, incendiary, and wind."

Cinder's face, though she tries to hide it, immediately gives away that she has no real idea what any of this means. Something that Raven takes on explaining, again in her calm, solid tone.

"Blue tips are incendiary munitions, they use fire dust to set Grimm ablaze and burn lightly armored targets."

Cinder's finger moves to the Armor Piercing round.

"That one with the black tip is an armor-piercing round, it'll punch a fist-sized hole through a wall and anyone unfortunate enough to be on the other side."

When she touches the purple one, Raven gently takes her hands and moves them away.

"Gravity dust, not a great idea to touch it, ok?"

Cinder nods, spellbound as Raven picks up the wind dust round.

"This one, where the entire bullet is green? It's wind, it will generate a large storm of wind or focus itself into a blade when fired. Depending on what the user desires."
The woman takes a breath, and feeling the warmth of a mug of fresh coffee pressed into her hands, Summer takes over for the last one.

"This one, green and white, is a high explosive round. The bullet hits a target and then explodes, violently. I usually use it on the larger Grimm, like Goliath's or mammoths."
Cinder's eyes snap open, wide and almost even frightened as she stares at the unobtrusive bullet, clad in its shell. Summer smirks and speaks boldly, even, with a gravitas to her voice that almost would feel out of place for her, and yet it doesn't even really remotely feel that wrong to hear her boasting.

"Yep! Even a Goliath feels it when Dawning Rose kicks one of these small ones into its hide."

Summer's pride was clear, and Raven felt her own lips widening and then a large smile breaking out on her face as she watched her partner gently stick an armor piercing round into the base of the magazine, before loading each one deeper and deeper into the magazine until the 10 round receptacle was full.

With a smile on her face, Summer snapped the magazine into the center of Dawning Rose's loading assembly, and the mecha shift weapon clicked shut over the mag. Completely and utterly masking its appearance within the considerably large body of the weapon. Twirling it up and over her head, Summer strapped the massive war scythe onto her back and smiled at Cinder, affectionately, she gently pinched the girl's left cheek, slowly speaking.

"It's time for us to go, but we'll be back later, ok?"

Raven tunes out this part of the conversation, she is idly listening to the weather advisory that's been playing on the tv since they awoke. When with some consternation, she notes that the newscaster is getting handed a parcel.
Immediately Raven's senses light up and she focuses entirely on the television, just in time to catch the updated piece.

"Recent data given to me has necessitated a sudden announcement, as of right now, the City of Atlas is under an emergency weather advisory. All citizens should avoid going outside unless absolutely necessary. A freak storm has formed to the north and is moving towards Atlas, it is projected to hit the city in the next hours and will swing into full force by early evening. Temperatures will be extreme, and all civilians should take note and shelter in place by the time evening hits. Atlesian air force operatives will be flying as long as the weather holds, but they will have to withdraw at that time."

As the broadcast ended, Raven raised an eyebrow. Sure, with their aura, they'd be able to hold against the cold, but this would throw a monkey wrench into leaving the city early. Not a big one, but it would be likely that they'd have to delay their departure until the storm passed, or just use one of Raven's portals.

Her portals… she'd have to do that again, have to renew the control she used over them. Maintaining an emotional connection with people was difficult, especially when you barely liked them. Roland, one of her singular contacts within the tribe, was one who was tolerable, but really only because the man was so toughened and hardened that he didn't die when asked. Now, he led the tribe in her absence, even though it had been some time since she'd last seen it in person.

Her other contact was a woman named Carina, and while she wasn't any longer in the tribe, living in the mountains of Solitas, she had something akin to a time-honored bond with Raven, one that… wasn't as strong as it had been in the past, now that Raven thought about it.

Then, there was Summer, and that bond was as strong as the day she'd made it, powerful and thrumming with the emotions that formed it even now. For Raven, interacting with such things often forced her to submerge herself within them, and then, in that connection and those emotions was she able to pull a portal into reality. It took time and effort to do so, and only two bonds had ever been strong enough to be near instant. Both of which had long since faded to mere flickering flames.

Those bonds were with Taiyang Xiao-Long and Summer Rose. They were strong even now, but only in the way, a defiant ember is the last to stand up when one quenched a fire. Taiyang… she felt something akin to the deep respect and love for the man, even now, even after everything she'd done. And… at some level, he felt it too, while her semblance was not strong enough to allow her to see such insights of others, it did not work if the bond was one-sided. Those in the tribe who hated her had completely and utterly blocked themselves off from her semblance; Such strong negative emotions could sever a bond instantly, and they nearly had when Taiyang and Summer had initially found out just what she and Qrow had meant when they'd told the two that their backgrounds were painful and too long to elaborate on.

Raven opened her eyes when she felt a small tug on her sleeve, and she looked down to find those shining amber eyes looking up at her. Cinder, stared up at her with something akin to wonder and curiosity, eyes glimmering with tears that were uncertain.

"Will you come back…?"

Raven nodded once, her red eyes staring into those amber pools, and noting that beneath the sadness, the uncertainty, and the anxiety, there was something that bucked and barked against it. There was something in those eyes that was screaming that she had to find her way back because it was Cinder counting on her. That she would make it work and make it in the world if she had to die trying. This girl had a fire that had been near quenched before, but that quenching had failed, and now that little flame was burning ever brighter. So Raven told her the blunt truth.

"Yes. We will return. We will be back for you. But."

Raven smiled a thin, sad smile before she took a small ring from her left hand and pressed it into Cinder's own.

"Do you know how to read the street signs?"

The girl nodded solemnly.

"Good, you need to go three streets down from here, knock on the building with the golden door, and give them this ring. They will get you to a safe place if need be."

Cinder nods, inspecting the heavy, solid ring, emblazoned on it is a small wing, made of a dark, beautiful, and glossy metal. She feels that this ring is more valuable than anything she has ever held in her life because it is a promise.

This ring is the tall woman's bond, Raven's word. This is who Raven is, and this is what Raven's eyes tell her. The tall woman, the huntress, is telling Cinder that she will find her, and if she does not find her it is not because she wishes to, it is because she has died.

Raven smiles at Cinder, and Cinder feels something akin to warmth in her smile, as the woman stands, resting a single hand on her katana, she turns to face the door and proceeds outside. Once she leaves, Summer speaks up, almost conspiratorially close to Cinder herself, the woman whispers.

"She's trying to be all stern and hard, but you and I know that's just an act."

Cinder giggles, the half-stolen sound peeking from her lips like the first rays of sun after a blizzard. Summer hides her shock in a closed fist over her mouth, but her wide grin closes her eyes as she gets up and stalks out of the hotel, sending a single glance back to Cinder, she speaks one more time.

"Hang in there, Cinder, we'll be back, and then you'll leave this place behind forever."

Cinder

Cinder wants to trust her, she wants to have faith in the other woman's ability to save her and provide for her, and yet she knows in her heart that she can't rely on the other woman. So as the door closes gently, Cinder takes the small ties out of her hair and ties it back up into a heavy, thick bun. Inside of this, she secures the ring to the bun and hopes that it will be enough to hide it from others' prying eyes.

The girl steals into the servant's passage, while she has been somewhat saved simply by how early it is, she knows that if Madame catches her there will be a form of hell to pay beyond all others.

It is with trepidation that Cinder steps into the kitchens and begins hurrying to make breakfast, her steps are light, and excitement thrums through her body, Summer and Raven had seen fit to give her, her of all people, gifts! She bears one from each woman; In her small, flat boot, Raven bestowed a small knife, and hidden away in her room, Summer has left her a beautiful, feathered, and decorated jewel piece that she's stashed under her pillow. Summer never said specifically why she gave it to her, or why such a beautiful piece was given to Cinder, and yet… she did so anyways, and now Cinder's heart beats fast against her chest just thinking about what it is.

The knife in her boot, the brooch in her room, gifts from two huntresses… and yet they paled in comparison to the feeling of the power running through her. She had her semblance, and she knew how to activate it, she knew how to throw it and fight it until it bubbled out of her in an addicting, wonderful rush.

The routing at the hotel was always the same for Cinder, she would be up at 4 AM, if not earlier, and would have 5 entire hours to herself to prepare food, do laundry, and make certain the "guests" were taken care of before the Madame awakened, even then, she'd have another 2 hours before Iris and Clove awoke. In this section of the morning, she was happy, she had her chores, but no one was awake or could be bothered to punish her. Hence, Cinder hummed a melody, albeit slight, a melody from within the depths of her half-remembered parents, a melody sung by the gravel and chocolate of her father and hummed by the silk and glass of her mother.

So as Cinder found herself rushing to complete her chores that morning, she hummed, and she stuck to the sunspots as they became slowly more and more infrequent, and as her humming began to be drowned out by the encroaching storm Cinder felt every single part of her gently sing. She had power, she had hope, and that was enough for today.

It was with some surprise that her voice cut off when Madame entered the kitchens, swaddled within a vast overcoat and covered in a thick layer of ice and snow, that led Cinder to rush to the woman's side. Even though she was horrible, Cinder knew the winters in Atlas could turn deadly if one wasn't careful, and as she took the massive coat from Madame, splatters of ice water began raining down around her and coating her. Immediately Cinder was shivering as the other woman stood up and turned to face her.

"Breakfast is ready, yes?"

Cinder nodded, the meekness returning with the loss of her voice as soon as Madame had spoken. But as she nodded, she felt the Madame speak quietly, and something… about the way she spoke was strange.

"Good."

Madame passed her on her way out, and Cinder was left sitting there, holding a sodden scarf in one hand and almost completely and utterly slackjawed at the sheer thought of such a thing.

Madame had just complimented her work.

Madame did not do this, Cinder knew that, and more to the point, she didn't just never do such a thing, she willingly chose not to do so. This… this made no sense, so what was happening?

Cinder's mind whirled, turning to look at Madame's way out, the door gently waving. Her eyes narrowed and focused straight ahead, and she considered the possibilities.

One, Madame had turned over a new leaf.

Immediately, it was discarded; she would not do such a thing, she was set in her ways of alcohol and vast wealth.

Two, she wanted something.

This was possible, albeit unlikely, what did Cinder have that Madame didn't? She was 9 years old and knew nothing of serious importance. Her body was slight and small, and Madame couldn't want anything that she didn't already have.

Three, Madame had found out about the huntresses.

This… was possible, and even likely, Cinder's mind gently considered it, if Madame had seen or been awake for long enough in the past few nights it stood to reason she could have seen what had transpired with the huntresses. But how had she heard them? Or… had she seen Summer talking to her on the roof? She couldn't have assumed the huntresses were serious, right?

Even if she had, she wouldn't have approached them, Huntresses were heroes, unstoppable demigods, and they wouldn't even remotely struggle when faced with the Grimm, let alone a single human woman.

If it was none of them… why did she feel a cold pit in her stomach that only got worse the longer the morning dragged on?

Raven

Raven and Summer had forged out into the snow in the early morning to establish their ambush site and prepare for their target's arrival. The warehouse he resided in was a decrepit old building that had yet to be torn down by Atlas' revival projects, it still had shattered windows near the top, and rusted metal side sheeting. It was at the very back of an alleyway and the street was a scant few blocks north from The Glass Unicorn. The massive building was dark and foreboding in the early light of the morning, the extreme cold that blasted every part of Raven's exposed skin hurt her even through her aura.

Luckily she wasn't entirely unprepared, and a heat stick – a small packet of dust readied and activated by huntresses in the field – kept most of her warm as she and Summer held themselves up on the building. Summer was silent, hanging in the dim light a dozen feet from Raven, both of them suspended up and atop the wall. Quietly the two searched for… something. Raven, for her part, was trying to nap; Their target hadn't shown all morning, and they knew that he likely wouldn't return for another few hours.

It was moments like this that Raven wished she could just hang out, waiting, and that her brain wouldn't fill with images of what would happen if they sprung the ambush and it went horribly, horribly wrong.

But for now, all the Spring Maiden could do was look out at the warehouse's dusty interior before sweeping her eyes back to the street just as Summer trailed her gaze to the interior. They knew each other, and more to that point, each of them was in sync. Breathing as one, holding themselves quietly, carefully, and calmly in one place, because they knew each other wouldn't have had it any other way.

"Shadow up the street by the entrance."

Raven doesn't move her head, doesn't give any indication she's heard, she can't, the shadow moves towards the warehouse itself, and then, the figure stops.

It is all Raven can do not to make a sound, hanging above the doors, masked in the overhang of the roof, it is all she can do to not suck in a breath, to not alert their target, as the man steps into the warehouse and moves towards the small room at the back. As the door clangs shut, Raven releases her breath and waits, the next part will be the most difficult.

Waiting for one's target was one thing, but waiting until one's target felt safe in their abode was another. The two women remained hung outside the warehouse, bodies masked by snow and ice, until the beginnings of the howling storm began to fall upon them.

The wind and sleet and ice came fast and hard, but as Summer looked up, her face lit up with a flash of lightning, and Raven knew, right then, that it was time to go.

At the precise moment that the thunder rolled over the warehouse, shaking the metal sheet roofing and the doors, Raven and Summer crashed in through the upper windows, Summer already drawing Dawning Rose, the twin blades of the scythe spiraling up and outwards, as it deployed. The man in the center of the warehouse had looked up at the sound of glass shattering, and Raven saw those dead, withered yellow eyes as Omen flashed from its scabbard.

"Two little birds~! Come to play~!?"

His voice was lilting and high, and before he can say anything more, Dawning Rose clashed downwards and collided sharply with the man's forearm. The blow should have severed the arm at the elbow, it should have continued through and then cut deeply into the man's thigh.

Instead, it deflected off of an armored vambrace with a loud exclamation of metal rasping against metal. The scythe soared to one side as Raven flashed in, Omen's long red fire dust blade striking right towards their target's throat at speed.

The man ducks to one side of the blade, and then a flash of steel is flying at Raven's face and she's ducking too, sliding as Dawning Rose cuts a steel strike towards the man's throat. A strike that the man defends against by leaping backward before the giddy voice pours forth from his lips once more.

"My goddess did not say I would have such cute chickadees dropping by~!"

The man leaps backward, tumbling end over end until he reached the edge of the warehouse, some 30 feet distant. As he straightens his stance and leans up, looking towards Raven, his eyes briefly glimmer, before he's dodging as Summer pulls the trigger on Dawning Rose.

The massive slug tears a furrow into the floor several dozen feet long, before detonating in a flash of orange at the edge of the warehouse.

The man looks back towards the bullet's channel, and that nearly kills him as Summer Rose appears in front of him, mid-swing, an arc of rose petals soaring outwards and fluttering to the floor as her scythe flashed downwards.

Raven is quick to follow her, Omen flickering low as Summer's scythe cuts high, the crimson blade arcs towards their target's feet even as Dawning Rose cuts towards his neck, and neither is particularly prepared for what happens next.

Instead of dodging or deflecting, the man takes Dawning Rose on his face, the scythe blade shrieking and cawing and crying and snapping outwards in flashes of brilliant purple sparks.

His step forwards cause Raven to overcommit, and her blade slaps against the flat of the man's knee as his boot extends into her head, smashing her to one side and setting her head ringing as she collides with metal sheeting.

"Rae!"

She vaguely hears Summer yelling, her ears ringing in the collapsed heap of metal and pain before a tremendous crash greets the same ears, and she sees their target fly past her cone of vision, Summer a white streak of petals in his wake, scythe aimed for his head.

The man rears away from her, and Raven catches a flash of brown as Dawning Rose is violently knocked free of Summer's hands. The spring maiden staggers to her feet, and she flashes a look at the other man, as he looks around, searching for someone. But Summer is only a scant 10 feet away, across the warehouse.

"Not the best actor!"

Raven's voice is slightly pained, but she gets a nod from Summer, and the man begins to speak once more.

"An actor of my talents? Slandered so!? Such rudeness in my guests… no, no no…. My goddess won't tolerate this. Her task is too important, too important-"

Summer slams a fist into his jaw.

The man soars backward, and as he gets to his feet, Summer smirks at him, walking across the warehouse floor, approaching the lowered and slapped-aside form of Dawning Rose. As soon as she touches it, Raven sees the man's eyes narrow, and he leaps for her partner.

His hands are extended, and she sees the sleeves of his coat tear, razor-sharp, crescent-shaped blades protruding from vambraces hidden at his forearms.

The sparks of his weapons clashing upon Omen's red blade are matched only by the sound of the fragile dust blade bursting, Raven's entire body appearing from a portal above Summer as the woman launches herself across the warehouse and into the fray.

While Omen's blade shattered, Raven smiles once and snaps a finger. She feels the warmth on her face, as her eyes burst into violet flames and the fire dust ignites into a raging inferno that sends their target staggering backward, bladed hands covering his eyes.

"That flame, that warmth…"

His voice takes on an unnatural pitch and cadence, before spiking even higher.

"Hahahahahahaahahahahaaaaaaa~"

The laughter seems almost anxious and excited as their target bows elaborately.

"Well well, Spring, herself. May this humble servant greet you~! I am Tyrian, a servant of your rightful queen, dear Maiden."

Raven's eyes narrowed, and the woman sheathed Omen, rotating the scabbard and choosing the next blade unconsciously. Summer racked the bolt on Dawning Rose, since recovered, and the three opponents began to circle each other.

"What, no words from such a lovely fae? No words from her companion? No words from-"

His smile turned dark and sadistic.

"Lovers~?"

Summer hisses through her teeth, and Raven finds herself almost reaching out to reassure the other woman, trying to slow the steady rage of her partner.

"Please, let us continue this dance~!"

Tyrian cackled, pulled back his coat, and cast it to one side, his arm blades ready and unsheathed.

"No words even now? No matter~! I am nothing if not a jester who makes time for my guests~!"

The clash began with Summer swinging Dawning Rose up and onto her shoulder, and disappearing into the rafters, flashing her semblance even as Raven throws her open palm outwards and draws Omen with the other.

The crack of Summer's rifle is drowned out entirely by the fork of raw, natural lightning that sears the air and fills the warehouse with the stench of Ozone and paralysis. While Tyrian slides to one side from the lightning, Summer's rifle round scores first blood in the fight.

The bullet tears a chunk of aura off of Tyrian and then rips into the flesh beneath, while its impact is blunted from his aura, Summer's piercing rounds still tear chunks from the flesh underneath.

Tyrian howls in pleasure, clapping a hand to his thigh as Raven soars towards him, blade extended towards his throat.

"THIS IS TOO GOOD, CHICKADEES!~"

Tyrian deflects her blade, and at first, Raven is not sure how, until a flash of brown pierces towards her face and Summer's rifle cracks again, the bullet deflecting off of the hard, chitinous shell of Tyrian's tail as the veteran huntress is saved from it via a beautiful shot from her partner.

"Scorpion Faunus."

Summer hisses out, Raven replying evenly.

"Venomous, the purple liquid found on one of the bodies."

The scorpion replies with a strange emotion blurring his tone.

"She was so beautiful… she would have been perfect for Mistress…"

His face turned to a scowl, a vile, evil look darkly covering his face. Then, he moved, and the tail and arms flew forwards in what amounted to a horrific rush of limbs and blades crashing forwards and threatening to overwhelm Raven.

She barely got Omen up in time to block the worst of it, and the second worst scored long, nasty cuts on her arms and legs. The scorpion faunus' tail, augmented and shielded by his purple aura, crashed down so hard against her blade that she felt as though her arms might shatter.

Summer's rapid recycling of the bolt action on her rifle announced the next round a few seconds before the crack of the round split the warehouse's air.

Tyrian slides to one side, as Raven slides to the other, and the massive slug smashes into the ground, carving a deep furrow into the concrete floor of the building. The slight feel of petals on Raven's upper body announces Summer teleporting back down, and the two women stare down Tyrian.

"You know… you could stand to make this more fun~!"

The taunts aren't met by a verbal response, instead, the gentle touch of Raven's hand upon Summer's waist, feeling out her anger and soothing her partner's rage ever so briefly. Summer's own expression of affection is slower, more gentle, and far, far more cautious, a gentle bumping of her hip into Raven's side.

Raven nods to Summer and receives a slight inclination of her head in return, her chin gently wobbling back and forth as she ever so slowly, ever so carefully brings the edge of Dawning Rose up.

The two women look once more at Tyrian, and their dance begins again.

Cinder

Cinder remembers the train of events that leads to her running into the snow, she remembers how the impromptu hiding place of her hair bun is immediately discovered when Clove tears out of her room with a thunderous level of rage not seen since she lost her first partner to his brain realizing how terrible she was.

She remembers her hair being torn at, her screams and protests shut down and spit upon as Clove yanks and tugs and tears until a chunk of Cinder's hair, and the ring within it comes free.

"Gutter rat has a secret hmm? How could you keep secrets from your family? Don't you know we care for you?"

Her hair lays in Clove's ham fist, and the girl unravels it until the shining weight of the ring drops into her hands, Cinder is left sobbing, left hurting in the corner, watching as Clove holds the ring up to the light, holds it up to Iris, who is sitting in the corner of the kitchen.

"Huh, solid silver, heavy engravings… something about a Raven on the inside of the ring. Any idea how much its worth, Iris?"

The blonde looks up from her book, beckoning her twin closer and holding out a hand. When Clove places the ring in her hand, Cinder feels a bit of her die, a hole in her chest, suddenly, that escape doesn't seem so possible anymore. Suddenly, her future is threatened, and suddenly, her hopes begin to die.

The feeling is like one has ripped open her heart and poured salt into the wound, and Cinder feels her emotions boiling over, tearing up from the hole she keeps them in, bubbling and rising like lava to the surface.

"Hmm, solid silver… pretty good chunk of Lien, split? Or do you want the whole thing?"

Clove looks to Cinder, taking the ring back. She stares at the crest and engravings.

"So, why'd you steal it?"

Cinder shocks even herself at the tone of her voice.

"Didn't."

There is something there, something edged in steel, plated in flame, and boiling with emotions not unleashed since Cinder was a very small girl.

"You didn't steal it? You certainly didn't buy it, so… someone gave it to you… was it that girl begging outside the hotel a few days ago?"

Iris looked up, suddenly interested.

"You mean the woman who tried offering herself to madame?"

"The same~! She was pretty… in the same way a monster is I suppose."

The two girls dissolve into a conversation, and Cinder finds herself rising to her feet, moving toward the background of the kitchen. Neither of the two of Madame's daughters realizes what she is doing, neither sees her or even perceives her as she picks up an implement of the kitchen entirely too familiar to her.

Cinder is unsure of why she's resorting to this, why she is choosing to throw everything away potentially over a pair of adults whom she… trusts.

She trusts them, why does she trust them? She shouldn't trust them at all, they are dangerous, and unknown, people do not come to help her, they come to pity her or use her. There is no in-between, and Cinder knows this, she feels it keenly. Is it because they are nice? Is it because Raven passed her something of her own? Cinder knows it is foolish to place such trust in another human being. Especially after everything that has been done to her, after everything that has hurt, harmed, and broken her.

"Cinder… please… put that down…"

She doesn't even realize she's brandishing a knife until the timid, quivering voice of Clove sounds in her ears.

Snapping back to the present, Cinder finds the blond curls of Iris splayed against her shoulders, and the rapid pounding of the girl's heartbeat pounding against Cinder's own chest.

How light and feathery it is, like a bird, and yet this is one bird Cinder feels would be better served by being set upon by dogs.

Cinder holds a trembling blade in one hand, her entire demeanor, her entire form twisting, turning, and breaking apart in her head, she feels it keenly, feels the utter pain of what she could do to Madame, what she could, and would do to Madame.

All it would take was a single push, a single, careful push inwards, and Iris would never hurt anyone again. She'd spend the last moments of her life twitching on the floor. Begging for help that would never come.

But… something in Cinder quails when she thinks about doing such a thing, and when Clove holds out the ring, the dark-haired girl takes that opportunity, snatching the ring and then, dropping the knife with a clattering bang to the floor.
As Iris staggers towards her sister, Cinder turns and runs, she runs out of the kitchens, out into the main halls, and into the doors leading out to the streets.

She runs until she collapses into the powdering snow, into the ice-cold flakes as they pour down from thick grey clouds, slamming into the ground and pouring forth further. She feels them alight on her bare arms, and then, then Cinder begins to feel the cold sink in. The howling, blurring gale over her head smashes down and drowns the streets of Atlas in a blanketing, rushing storm that smothers everything in its path. The winds press Cinder as she darts and scrambles and trips into an alleyway, running down towards the only building open on the road, the warehouse.

"Cinder!"

The voice is Madame's, Madames! Cinder tries to stop herself and yet she turns and looks back.

That is her mistake, as the blonde woman, covered in a thick winter coat so encrusted with ice that the crystals are shattering and crackling against her as she moves, and the voice calls out again.

"CINDER!"

The voice calls again, and Cinder flinches as the warehouse behind her bursts open, and a flash of red and white follows one of purple into the snow.

Cinder thinks she recognizes the snarling, pain-filled face of Summer as the huntress kicks at the man, only for the man to catch her in midair, wrapping his tail around her waist and then throwing her away from him.

Summer Rose disappears into a red, crackling portal that spawns right on top of her. Before the other woman steps through the portal and glares at the man. Raven draws a long, ice-cold blade from her scabbard, and Cinder watches, utterly spellbound, as magenta, purple, and red flames ignite the corners of Raven's eyes.

"You'll die for that one, Tyrian."

Her voice is so cold that the blizzard around Cinder feels warm by comparison. Her stance is aggressive and authoritative as she steps forwards, and Cinder recognizes, with widened eyes, as the storm itself bends to Raven's will, snowflakes swirling around her body.

The sudden flash of lightning lights up the street and the howling snow, and for a moment, Cinder sees that Tyrian flinches, it is only a moment, but that is enough, as a bullet smashes into his shoulder and Raven directs that lethal, deadly strike into the ground around the man.

A horrifying noise shreds Cinder's ears and sends her flying as wind and snow clash and burn across her vision, and she skids to a stop in the snow. Raven lies in a heap by the doorway of the warehouse, and Summer is hastily bandaging over her, Tyrian stood in the road, but based on the way his arm hung limply from his body, Cinder could see it was broken.

"Ahahahahahhah~! Such a wonderful~! Wonderful~! Bout! Maiden~! You know your skillset so very well~!"

His voice soared across the air as Cinder found her legs moving, found herself running towards Raven and Summer, running and padding the snow and feeling the cold sink into her bones and skin, she skids to the front of Summer, who catches the girl and whispers to her.

"She's alright, a little dazed, but that's it. He got off far worse, but we're not quite in the clear yet."

Cinder frowns as Raven sits up, opening her red eyes as the pain of her head injury snaps her eyelids open. Her hands rest first on her forehead, then she shoves off of the wall, standing up and staring down at Cinder, her hand comes down, and gently ruffles Cinder's hair as the small, dark-haired girl freezes completely. But Raven's touch is exceedingly gentle as she stands up and looks over toward Tyrian.

SNAP

The man has wrenched his shattered arm back into place, and he casts a hateful, spit-soaked look to the two women, and then, then his eyes alight on Cinder.

His laughter is brilliant and warm.

"Little girl, are you the latest pet project for Summer Rose? Are you to be her newest little wounded bird?"

Cinder grits her teeth, and she concentrates. At that moment, she feels a storm of emotions burn up from within her, she is not a pet, she is not some wounded, childlike, pitiable thing, she is to be a huntress, she is one who commands her semblance, and then she pushes her hands outwards.

Tyrian leaps up into the air, as the ground under him turns a brilliant orange and red and detonates in a spray of superheated energy. Cinder feels sheer, utter joy as her semblance, her power, makes itself known.

"SHE HAS TEETH~! HOW WONDERFUL!"

His shout is joyous and yet tainted by the resounding crack of Summer's rifle and the flash of steel that is Raven's sword, soaring up to meet him.

This time, he is not quite fast enough, and his tail, screaming towards Raven, is deflected by a spike of ice, pulled and congealed from the air itself around her shoulder, into an armguard of pure, pure ice.

Raven's twisted shoulder sends his tail to one side, and her katana spears upwards, it tears chunks of aura free, drawing a long, blue line across Tyrian's open chest, and then, the blade shattered.

Tyrian responded by kicking her in the face, launching her upwards, before sending his tail forwards.

In that moment, Cinder's stomach gives a lurch she's never felt before, she looks up, and her eager eyes pick it out, She sees Summer teleporting in front of Raven, she sees the woman's aura shining brilliant and red, and then, she sees that scorpion tail, glowing purple around the stinger. She sees it and she knows something is wrong.

"Rae-!"

Cinder will wonder, in the coming months, why she calls out for Raven and not Summer, but she does so, and she sees the horrible, wet, awful crunch as Tyrian's tail pierces the dead center of Summer's bodice, tears out her back, and sinks, stinger first, into the soft flesh of Raven's stomach.

She hears someone scream, she's not really sure who, but as she takes a step forwards, her legs turn out from under her, and she falls into the snow.

She hears muffled screaming, accompanied by ringing in her ears, accompanied by heavy footsteps towards her.

"I'm sorry, little bird, you won't be able to see each other anymore, but, on the plus side~! You'll meet our goddess soon enough!"

Cinder kicks at his hand, as it wraps around her ankle and begins to drag her towards the warehouse, but her feet slip off of the ice coating his form, she glances to the fallen forms of the huntresses, and sees, at that moment, Summer's eyes open, and the huntress makes eye contact with Cinder, and she smiles.

And that smile is all teeth.

Cinder feels a shiver run down her spine as her vision of Summer is obscured by the blown-open warehouse doors, she feels cold set in as she's dragged into the building, hearing and listening as Tyrian, the scorpion faunus throws her like a ragdoll across the floor.

She feels, hears, and screams as her hand, pinned under her in the fall, bends too far backward and snaps like dry firewood. The weak bones shatter as she falls, something that has the scorpion-tailed man standing over her with a perplexed expression on his face.

"You… have no aura? How is this possible? Why would you not have an aura? You have a semblan-"

His eyes widen, and Cinder watches through hazy, pain-filled eyes as he drops to the ground, lays flat, and begins to study her intently.

"You have unlocked a semblance without aura… THIS MUST BE A GIFT FROM THE GODDESS! OH, HOW YOU'VE BLESSED ME SO~!"

His shrill, shrieking voice is so loud Cinder can feel her ears ringing after it cuts off and it only cuts off because she hears a voice, filled with rage, say something she'd never, ever thought she'd hear again.

"Get away from my daughter!"

The gunshot seems almost apocalyptically loud. Tyrian spins as the bullet takes a chunk from his shoulder, his already weak aura failing spectacularly in a cloud of purple, blue, and blood-colored sparks.

"You BITCH."

Then, Tyrian is running towards the figure of the Madame, and Cinder can see her eyes, full of shock and terror, as they meet Cinder's own, and as the Madame opens fire with her tiny, delicate firearm, Cinder sees something harden in those eyes.

Then, she sees the spray of gore and blood burst forth from Madame as Tyrian lands atop her and begins to tear, stab, and crush.

Madame is no huntress, she is a civilian without her aura or semblance, who carried a small firearm for self-defense and nothing further, she cannot, and would never have been, able to stand up to a first-year Atlas student, let alone the sheer, vicious prowess of Tyrian.

He is fast, he is terrible, and Madame dies screaming as the scorpion faunus tears her apart in a fountain of sadistic violence that only ends when Madame's body stops moving entirely.

She has bought Cinder seconds, and the girl knows that. She concentrates on her semblance, on the power she felt rushing through her. Focusing on the pain of her shattered hand, Cinder brings that emotion-driven power to bear, projecting a wave of heat from her exhausted legs.

The warehouse fills with an explosion of steam that leaves Cinder breathless from the burns now cutting at the flesh of her face. She knows now, that her lack of aura makes her semblance as dangerous to her as Tyrian was to the Madame, and she knows that he will only be distracted for seconds, but there is a part of her that, despite knowing he can catch her, that he can find her and continue to do so, there is a part of her that refuses to give up.

So she runs, she forces her exhausted legs to pump up and down, and tears through the steam clouds that even now bring the prickling of tears to her face as she tears out of the warehouse, at speed, and runs right into something soft, warm, and calm. The howling gale of the storm seems almost… lesser here, and as she looks up, her eyes meet with the flaming ones of Raven.

"Cinder…"

The woman breathes out, bringing Cinder in close and pushing her into the long shadow of her form, she stands in front of the girl and draws her blade, the sword-bearing a purple and black blade.

Tyrian staggers out seconds after her, and Cinder watches as the man ignores the puffy, swollen, and red eyes he has, looking back and forth.

It is dead quiet, the only sound of the storm raging around the calm that is Raven, and the gentle crunching of the snow as the two circle each other.

Summer interrupts that silence by surging forwards out of the steam, scythe going before her, the whirling blades singing in the air as Tyrian whirls on her, and at that moment, Cinder sees his eyes widen in shock.

Summer is bleeding heavily, her side torn open, and yet she's still coming, still attacking at her prior height. She barely blinks, even as Raven launches herself forwards, the curved form of Omen leaving her scabbard and turning a brilliant, beautiful shade of purple-black as it carves the sky in twain.

Tyrian catches the first blade of Dawning Rose across his chest, and the blade tears a jagged line across the skin and muscle, nicking bone and then spinning off to one side, the man coughs loudly, the sheer pain overwhelming as Summer collides bodily with him, tackling him forwards and into the shining blade of Raven's weapon.

This time, Omen strikes true, cutting through the half-raised bladed weapons of Tyrian's left arm, and scoring a deep, horrific injury on the man's lower stomach, carving up and bursting out from the flesh with a dreadful sound.

The three warriors land splayed across the snow, gore dripping from each and every one. Raven is bleeding black and red, the poison injected from Tyrian's tail working its way through her system, Summer is pierced through the midsection, hurting badly, one hand clamped tight to the hole in her chest. Tyrian bleeds freely from open wounds on his own front, and all three warily survey each other, Summer between Raven and Tyrian just a bit deeper into the mess of the warehouse.

Cinder feels her gut give that wrench again, and she sees Summer's eyes turn hard. She looks away from the wounded, but still standing Tyrian, to her own state, and then to the state of Raven, and Cinder, peeking out from behind the cloak.

Raven must sense it too because she goes to run, and yet, it is too late.

Cinder sees Summer smile beautifully, she sees her mouth something to the both of them, hears it on the whisper of the quiet of the wind.

"Take care of each other for me, I'll be back when I can."

And then Summer Rose draws her weapon and fires at the warehouse.

Raven's rush is stopped cold as the entire building gives a jarring shift, and Tyrian, sensing what is about to happen, tries to jump away only for Summer, sans her cloak, to teleport into his path. She uses the leading edge of Dawning Rose to carve a second line across his chest, piercing deep and sending the two of them tumbling into the center of the warehouse.

The building groans, shakes, and then, in a titanic spray of metal, crashes, crushing debris, and the red and white form of Summer, gleaming blade pinned deep into Tyrian's chest, vanishes behind the noise and titanic spray of the building as the warehouse implodes on itself. Collapsing utterly into a pile of misshapen debris.

Cinder sees Raven, lovingly, barely cognizant, her gaze filled with tears, taking the cloak from the rubble, and she hears the woman speak, in a forced warmth, her tears crashing home.

"Little Kite… we need to go, go now."

Cinder feels her hand taken, and she feels Raven pick her up, hoisting her exhausted form up and onto the shoulders of the woman, and as the snow obscures their footsteps, she feels Raven drape the ruined cloak over both of them, keeping them warm as the snow obscures their path. She falls asleep, sheer exhaustion setting in, as Raven trudges through the snow toward the gates of Atlas.

A/N: The confrontation occurs, and is resolved, I contemplated leaving everyone on a cliffhanger, but I think I will save those for occasions down the line. Comments, criticism, etc, give me life, so do feel free to leave reviews and the like. As always, I hope you enjoy!

 

[Ember]

This is great, and deserves more readers.

I'd stopped watching RWBY in season for or so, so I didn't previously realise the meaning of Cinder's name. That hit like a gut punch. It sure would be nice if the villains had always been evil, huh…

I hope she does better in this timeline, perhaps becoming the cool older sister to Ruby and Yang, though I fear Summer won't be around to see it. Maybe Cinder's presence will be enough to make Raven stick around. I guess we'll see.

Click to shrink...

Thank you for the kind words, I hope I can continue to impress you with what I have planned and already written!

 

[Ember]

Cinder



Cinder opens her eyes slowly, she is aware that she is, at least for the moment, safe, there is no real pain in her wrist beyond a dull, throbbing ache, and a steady movement gently taps her head against someone's hair. She wonders, for a moment, if everything in her dreams must have come true if this was to be her rescuer, and then she hears a gruff, rough voice speak.

"You're awake, aren't you, little Kite?"

It is not accusatory, but Cinder for a moment feels as though it is. She straightens up, fighting back a yawn as she stares across the nape of Raven's neck, to the woman's view of the trail ahead. The two are in the snow-covered pines that surround Atlas, the forest that Cinder has seen from over the walls, and the forest she often imagined running away into. She inhales, deeply, and the fresh, powerful scent of the pines overwhelms her limited senses for a moment, a headache growing in the back of her head. That is odd, she does not remember being so sensitive to smells before this, why now? She takes one hand and begins to rub at her temples, before she feels Raven set her down, gently, onto the lightly covered footpath.

"Little Kite, can you walk?"

Cinder nods, dumbly, the flashes of combat, the richness of the day's past events, the dull, throbbing pain in her arm and wrist, and most of all, she feels the tugging of Raven's hand, wrapped firmly around her uninjured arm.

"I need you to walk, ok?"

Raven's voice, while gruff, generally unbothered, and rather coarse, isn't anything other than soft to Cinder's ears, and the girl gently, carefully looks up, finding Raven looking back down at her, her eyes inscrutable and her demeanor unreadable. Her face is carved as if from stone, and Cinder stares at it, those cruel, artful lips, pursed together against the cold as she asked again.

"Shall I carry you to the rendezvous point?"

Cinder shakes her head, she is capable of walking, but she is unsure of what to think about this huntress. This huntress who even after Summer fell and vanished into the ruins of that warehouse, stuck by Cinder herself, and continued to take her, into the forest beyond Atlas, leaving it all behind.

"We're heading for a few days more, tell me, do you have any experience with weapons? Blades? Firearms?"

Cinder shakes her head no, not that she can remember, and she is shocked to find Raven pressing something into her hands, heavy and long, Cinder finds herself staring at the length of wood, with a small spearpoint on one end.

"Take this, for the moment. It will help if you run into a Grimm of some kind and I'm not close enough to help."

Cinder is not sure how a pointy stick is supposed to prevent a Grimm of any kind from doing what…

What…

What Tyrian did to Madame.

At that moment, Cinder doubles over and begins to vomit, heaving as the reality of what happened a scant day before washes over her like spring rains. She replays it in her mind, from the explosion at the warehouse to the fight against the huntresses, to the moment when Tyrian pierced Raven and Summer through the midsections with his tail, through their aura, the grievous, deadly injury surely factoring in how the fight had turned so suddenly.

Cinder is shocked to feel a hand resting gently on her back, and Raven's voice, soothing, strangely, in her ears.

"It's alright, he's gone, and you will never see the Madame again."

Cinder continues to heave, until her stomach is empty of all, and Raven is then sweeping her gently to her feet, tugging her close and smiling down at her.

It's… not really a smile, Cinder realizes, but it's as close as she's ever seen Raven get, a slight, gentle up kick to her lips as the woman stands and turns away slightly.

"When you can, we need to keep moving."

Her statement is delivered as a matter of fact, and Cinder works hard to straighten herself up, clambering to her feet, and turning her amber gaze to the trail ahead. Her small fingers, the left arm snapped, finds the spear and she presses it into her uninjured hand.

Raven's pace is never too much for her, and the older woman's appearance is disheveled, to say the least. Cinder is not focusing on the trail, Raven's footsteps, or the path even. She is inspecting Raven's appearance.

Raven presents the appearance of a woman calm, collected, and fully in charge of her situation, and yet Cinder can tell not all is right; She walks with a very slight limp, and there are thick, heavy layers of bandages covering her midsection. Cinder wonders, subconsciously, if the woman is being strengthened by something or if something else is allowing her ability to stand.

"Little kite… you can ask me any questions you may have. I do not quite appreciate being ogled like the second coming of a god."

The sudden words, the sudden harshness of their content, startles Cinder so evenly that she visibly colors, looking away, only for Raven to turn to the girl and gently kneel in front of her. The crunch of her knee into the fresh snow alerts Cinder before Raven takes her chin and tilts her head up to face her own.

"Ask. Speak to me, I will not harm you."

Cinder visibly tries, opening her mouth, until her voice staggers out a barely there response for Raven.

"I… ah… are you…?"

Raven answers for her, her tone firm and gentle.

"Am I alright? Yes, while I am wounded, and will require rest, I will be fine."

Her voice is too quick, too immediate, and Cinder knows that she is not telling the full truth in that single sentence.

"Lie…"

Her voice startles her, and Cinder looks to Raven, expecting the woman to raise a hand against her.

Instead, Raven looks, worn out, burned, and exhausted in all measures for a moment, before she turns to face Cinder, and gently says.

"I am injured, and his poison is still attempting to kill me. While my aura is strong, I am unable to do much of anything right now beyond forge ahead to the rendezvous point."

Cinder nods, she does not entirely understand how Raven's aura is helping her, and she does not want to, such is to be dangerous, but such would also invite power, perhaps…

"Will you… give me aura?"

The question is frail and weak, and Cinder feels Raven briefly squeeze her hand as she looks up to the sky.

"No. Not yet."

For a moment, Cinder feels anger bubble and boil away within her, and she sees Raven looking at her curiously before she takes another step and asks another question.

"Why?"

Raven studies the small girl in front of her, the girl she has taken to calling "little kite" affectionately, the girl who even now shyly twitches as she feels such a gaze upon her.

Cinder flinches when Raven answers her question.

"Because of what happened in the fight against Tyrian."

Cinder must look confused because Raven does that small, almost smile as she begins to speak.

"The injury that cost us the fight and nearly ended both mine and Summer's lives was because we were too focused on our aura. We were too focused on what we were doing to win, and not on what we were doing to defend. Tyrian seems to have a semblance that nullifies or negates aura. The reason that we have held on for so long is because, Summer and I are the best, and yet we fell for an old trick in the book."

Cinder does not ask more as Raven turns moody again, the woman standing a moment later, and scooping Cinder up with one arm, placing her onto her shoulders, she tells the girl.

"Your training starts now, I want you to pick out movement and Grimm that you can see, ok?"

Cinder freezes, she's being told to do what?

"Yes, I know it seems like a great pain, but look for the red markings, the eyes, and any movement of sudden Grimm. Anything that can challenge me is likely to look elsewhere, and anything that cannot is likely to remain in our shadow."

Cinder looks to the sky, searching, her eyes peeled and focused, she stares into the trees, and the brush, and misses the branch directly in front of her, the branch that promptly slaps the haft of her spear into her face at speed.

Cinder makes no sound as the dull bonk sounds, instead rubbing her forehead with her uninjured hand, and trying to mask that she's just gotten hit by her own silliness.

"Don't quite focus so hard, let your vision spot things for you, don't focus on one thing, sweep the trees, search for a few seconds, then move on to the next place."

Raven's voice is calm and collected, and her guidance is adopted by Cinder nigh on immediately. Cinder, now casting her eyes throughout the forest, quickly spots the difference. She learns even quicker how to see and sense the incoming shape of a small juvenile nevermore, or the cutting motion of a Grimm's claws as it shears through the undergrowth.

Several times, Raven rests a hand on the hilt of her long blade, and Cinder tenses in preparation for combat, and yet, without fail, every single time she releases the blade as whatever the threat is moves away from her. Cinder wishes to exhale, and does so gently and quietly at Raven's behest only when the taller woman does. At several points she feels almost lightheaded from doing so, envious of Raven's ability to hold her breath, refusing to make even the slightest of sounds as Grimm thunder through the underbrush mere feet from their location.

It is not until dawn darkens to dusk that Cinder speaks up, asking a question of her own accord, the tone of the girl's voice gentle, quiet, and careful. It is almost obscured by the crackling of the firewood that Raven has thrown hastily together, swaddled under a thick blanket the woman has pulled from within a pack.

"How come we weren't seen by the Grimm?"

It is clear, at least to Cinder, that the question has caught Raven off guard because the crimson-colored woman freezes with her spoon halfway to her mouth. The pair have settled beneath the boughs of an enormous pine, and Raven emptied some of the dust propellants from a spare bullet to kickstart this fire, which gutters as the wind howls above the two of them. She pauses for a time, before speaking in a calm voice, as though remembering something.

"No one is quite sure how "much" of an emotion attracts the Grimm. You do know that much at least, right? That negative emotions draw the Grimm to you?"

Cinder nods, this part is taught to all, and she herself had seen it, in flashes of nightmares that tormented her in her darker hours. When she was younger, she feared that her sadness might cause a Grimm attack at The Glass Unicorn , and yet, it never came. So at some level, she knew that she couldn't be an attractant.

"So, while we know that the creatures of Grimm are attracted to general areas of negativity, we don't know exactly what can attract them. For example, some people are just sad all the time, and in many ways, that should attract the Grimm, and yet it doesn't."

Raven pauses, spooning some of the canned soup into her mouth, before passing it over to Cinder, who stares at it as though it might bite her.

"Relax, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already."

Cinder stiffens at the mere mention of "kill" and if Raven picks up on it, she gives no real mention of such a thing. Instead, Raven chooses to carefully, even exceptionally carefully continue.

"Earlier, I was not watching for fodder Grimm, I was concerned about the presence of an alpha variant."

Cinder shudders instantly. Damaged, half-remembered feelings burst to the front of her mind. Ice cold breath, the sound of crackling ice and shattering glass, and the deathly whisper cries of the monster.

"Yes. With that reaction, I suspected we were in the presence of an Alpha Beowulf, hence the sheer quiet of the alpine forest we're technically inside. Luckily, if it was an alpha, it did not sense us."

Cinder concentrates on the soup, which does taste good, a thick and meaty stew with plenty of tender meat and potatoes that fall apart on her tongue. It is something that Raven likely can make very quickly, and it tastes as good as it lasts.

Cinder has hardly finished her first bowl when Raven places the next one in front of her, this one with a chunk of crusty, rustic bread. It's as filling as the bowl of soup is, and yet Cinder falls upon it like a rabid animal, tearing portions of the bread free as soon as she gets her hands upon it. She casts her gaze warily towards Raven, uncertain if the other woman cares about it, only to catch Raven squeezing the bulb of a purple flower out and into the tea, with small droplets dripping into her soup as the thick, odorous smell of fresh flowers fills the air. Raven answers Cinder's unstated questions about it.

"It's for my own health, and no, you cannot eat it, it would kill you."

Cinder's face lights with shock, and she scrambles backward from the flowers that she is now very consciously aware surround their small camp; She almost tumbles right into the fire, only for Raven's rough, callused hand to catch her by the collar of her shirt and hold her up, the woman's lined face alight with a small grin as she gently continues.

"If you'd let me finish, little kite, it is only poisonous to you, and only if you crush the entire flower into your food and ingest it."

Raven waits until Cinder gains enough balance under her feet to stand. Then she carefully stretches her own hands outwards and sits back down, sipping at her soup carefully, blowing little puffs of air onto the liquid to cool it before sipping it.

"We camp here, are you capable of standing guard?"

Cinder nods her head. She is capable of standing guard and very, very capable of watching. Long hours in the hotel have trained her for staying awake far into the night, and as Raven nods her head, the older woman stands up, stretching her hands outwards, and then she turns to her bedroll and the small tent that shrouds it.

"I'll be awake in 6 hours. Here, when you see the moon reach its zenith, should I not be awake, shake the tent, ok?"

Cinder nods her head, and then Raven zips up the small tent and Cinder is alone with naught but the pile of firewood and warmth to keep herself company.

She watches the forest, training with the vision Raven taught her, scanning each section of the trees looking for movement specifically, and focusing her efforts on those places. In those hours, Cinder is closer to more Grimm than she has ever been in her life. She freezes up on more than one occasion, especially when an Ursa, its titanic form covered in bone spikes chipped with frost and ice, wanders into their clearing, sniffing at the air before it turns away from them. Cinder finds herself clutching that primitive spear and it is not long before her thoughts turn to the improvised weapon.

Experimentally, she stands from the fire and then begins to swing it, first through the air, then at the ground. The point unbalances her to such a degree that it nearly sends her tumbling, and with frustration Cinder sits down, staring at the long blade and longer haft. Raven wanted her to use the spear, but it was too heavy, and her arms, while lean from her physical labor, are ill-equipped to use the unwieldy, slender weapon.

So it is with that frustration, that Cinder finds herself drawing the boot knife Raven gave her, and she cuts at the spear, first without an idea of what she's doing, then… as the shape of the weapon falls away, Cinder begins to carve with more, and more purpose. She gathers a small bit of dirt from the area around the campfire, careful in her motions as she uses the blade of the spear to draw out something much more akin to what she always imagined a huntress would use. The drawing takes hours to create, and by the time Cinder is finished, the moon is reaching its zenith, and Raven is stepping free of the tent, her hand on her blade, she asks Cinder a simple question.

"Grimm?"

Cinder, caught off guard, drops the two spears, one whittled fresh, the other the half-cut length of the spear, with the blade that Raven gave her earlier. They gently rap into the earth with dull thuds, and Cinder swears she sees Raven's eyes land on the dirt drawing, now lightly scuffed, as Cinder stands straight, hands at her sides. She musters the courage to speak and replies to the question of the crimson lady.

"One. Large bear, came in 2 hours after you slept, exited to the direction of the moon's rise."

Raven nods and then she directs Cinder towards the tent, ushering the girl into the canvas. She presses a mug of something warm into the girl's hands and then speaks softly.

"Drink this then sleep, I will wake you when morning comes."

Cinder settles down on her haunches as Raven zips the tent shut, passing Cinder's spears and her knife through to her before she does so, the weapons placed on the ground near the bedroll. Cinder's initial instincts turn towards safety, then the mug in her hands. It is steel, made of a thick and heavily insulated material, the smell wafting out of the warm liquid is a strong odor of apples and fruit, something she only passingly recognizes.

Cautiously, Cinder looks over the mug, spotting the slight condensation and marks on the rim that indicate Raven had drunk from the mug earlier. Deciding that it couldn't really be poisoned if she'd just drunk from it, Cinder takes a single sip.

Flavors of fall fruit, apricots, apples, and spices she can't identify burst across her tongue, the warm liquid seeps into her very bones, and before she knows it the entire mug is gone, and her eyes feel hooded and heavy.

It is then that Cinder places the mug down gently onto the hotplate next to the exit of the tent, and looks towards the bedroll. She is not entirely sure what she expects, whether Raven left her a smaller roll, but instead, she finds nothing other than the simple bedroll.

"Sleep in mine, I didn't expect to have another along, we'll get one for you when we reach the next town."

The gruff voice of Raven is heard through the tent wall and Cinder listens. Snuggling into the thick sleeping bag, the blankets swarming around her, Cinder wraps herself in the body heat-laden form of Raven's bedroll, and before she can even truly process what the strange, rising feeling in her chest is, she is asleep.

She is stirred awake by the gentle, albeit firm, grip on her arms, and for a moment, Cinder nearly panics, nearly thinking she is back at The Glass Unicorn before reality crashes back in with the smell of something thick, salty, and meaty. It is then that Raven finally speaks to her, at least, she thinks so, it's entirely possible that the woman had said something priorly she'd missed.

"Come now, it's dawn, we need to move."

Cinder rolls free of the bedroll, and exits the tent, blearily rubbing at her eyes as the dawn peeks shyly over the neighboring hills. She seats herself at the log, taking in the sight of a pair of sausages searing over the open, fire dust flame growing from the wood.

Cinder reaches for the spit, and tears off a chunk of sausage, promptly spitting it into the snow as the heat burns her tongue, as she winces from the pain, Raven speaks quietly from over her shoulder, accompanied by the rustling of fabric and zippers being used.

"There are enough, take your time. I won't be taking either of those from you. I've already eaten. Besides, you'll need the energy for training."

Cinder looks up, sausage on a spit halfway inside her mouth as Raven flashes that familiarly tiny, barely there hint of a smile.

"What, did you think you could just enter a huntsman academy with a semblance?"

Cinder looks to one side, hiding the rapid flush across her cheeks. She feels stupid now, because, of course, that's not true! She can see the way Raven's arms are bulked up, and she's felt the calluses on her hands.

"Hence, training."

Raven stands up, shouldering her pack over one arm, and extending her other to Cinder as the woman looks down at her.

"We have miles to travel tonight, and you should be able to walk the distance."

Cinder finds herself wanting to follow along with the tall woman, she finds herself no longer looking back at the way they came… at least, the way she thinks they came. She realizes now that she has no real idea where she is, or where Raven is taking her. And for that moment, she realizes that her worry and concern do not stem from the lack of knowing where she is, it stems instead from the fact that for some reason, she trusts Raven.

Why does she trust Raven?

Cinder puzzles over this question, and finds that an answer is not quite so forthcoming, even as the two make their way into the depths of snowdrifts, searching far and wide, for something… and yet Cinder never truly settles on a reason.

Raven wouldn't use her as a bargaining chip, she knew that immediately, Cinder as a person was nearly worthless, and she still didn't even really know why Raven had saved her, the promise had been made… by… the both of them. Raven and Summer, and then Summer had gone into that warehouse, and she still hadn't come back out.

"There. Our destination."

Cinder casts her eyes forwards, and sees a break in the forest. There is a clearing there, and very clearly someone has been there since there is a small structure left behind, constructed and only barely held together against the elements.

The snow of Atlas never truly stopped falling, but Cinder is glad to enter the cabin, away from the cold and the wind, and more glad to see Raven flick her blade out and into the fireplace, a roaring blaze slowly building from the logs left behind.

"Watch the flames, little kite."

Raven disappears into the house, blade drawn, leaving Cinder behind in the main room. Cinder, curious, watched her motions until she vanished, and the girl realized that she couldn't hear Raven at all, couldn't hear her footsteps, or her movements, not even her breathing.

Concerned, Cinder cast her gaze about and nearly jumped out of her skin when Raven appeared next to her and gently spoke.

"House is clear."

The sheer and utter impossibility of Raven's movement has Cinder on guard as the woman moves in front of her, stripping off water-laden gloves and laying them down at the foot of the fireplace. She turns to find Cinder with a drawn boot knife, and only then, does she see something resembling interest in the face of the other woman.

"So. You noticed that I couldn't have gotten around you, with only the one hallway. Are you curious about how I did such a thing?"

Cinder nods, keeping the blade pointed at Raven, as the woman looks out the windows, and then she's sweeping towards Cinder, her cloak thrown hastily over the girl's head as she whispers.

"Stay down, and do not make a sound if you can avoid it."

The next moments see Cinder clutching tight to her bestowed cape, even as Raven tugs out something from beneath the floorboards. A moment later, Cinder hears an audible click, as something is primed to fire, and then…

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Thunderous, each knock makes Cinder shake on the ratty couch, and she feels Raven step forward audibly, opening the door a moment later.

"Captain. I'm surprised you came so far out for a simple huntress shack."

A thunderous, harsh voice sounds, and Cinder makes out shouted words flying back and forth from outside.

"Don't play coy. You destroyed a warehouse and half a block with that explosion. Of which, I may add, neither killed! Nor seriously injured the culprit enough to actually get us a capture! The council is demanding your head! General Sol is 4 steps from a nationwide manhunt!"

The voice is furious with Raven, and yet Raven returns the favor tenfold, replying in an icy tone so frigid that Cinder feels her blood turn to ice under the cloak.

"You are trespassing on private property. Property owned by Mistral. Your goon squad, and airship, for that matter, are not welcome here. If you wanted a war James, you should go through the proper channels, not by dropping a surprise attack on a simple huntress."

"And you should have known better before you went about blowing up a warehouse! In the HEART of Mantle!"

"Throw your accusations if you insist. Your criminal has left, and I forced him out of your city. Without your help, and for the price of a half-destroyed building? That is enough."
"Oh? Were the dead civilian and her orphaned and kidnapped children part of your plan too? All for some "greater good"? Mask, you came to me with something resembling a plan. How did you botch it so furiously."

Raven snarls her response.

"None of our intelligence mentioned a semblance that can nullify aura!"

The information is revealed so casually, and yet it strikes like the main guns on one of Atlas' airships. The heavy, pregnant pause in the air feels as thick and crackling as ice. Cinder, for her part, freezes. The dead civilian, her orphaned children, that was Madame, Clove, and Iris. A part of Cinder feels a hole tear itself open in her stomach, a part of Cinder feels as though she should burst into tears. A part of Cinder feels relief, feels happiness, even, and those are dashed instantly as the part about "kidnapped" makes its way into her mind.

Faintly, dimly, a part of Cinder remembers the papers signing her away as a legal daughter of Madame's, a daughter who was now missing in the eyes of Atlas. Cinder felt her gaze hollow, would this be the end? Would this be where Raven flipped over her cloak and turned her over to James? Buying herself some goodwill?

"Get out of this cabin, James. Else I make you do so."

Cinder hears an ever so gentle click, as Raven's long blade is loosened in its scabbard ever so slightly.

"You can't be serious. Turn yourself in and answer a few questions, that's all the council wants, then you can go free."

"What, and be reamed in front of a military whose country I don't even serve? For what conceivable purpose would that serve?"

"It would appease the council."

"What happened the last time Mistral tried to "appease" Atlas, James? Because I remember it all too well."

"That wasn't our fault… the Fang-"

"Were your problem. You made them the world's problem, what was that hare-brained scheme the council of Atlas came up with? Speaking for the other kingdoms? Declaring the White Fang an enemy of every civilized city? Pah. As if."

His hand, or something akin, slams down on a desk, and Cinder flinches.

"You and I both know that wasn't our fault! The council-"

"The council can shove it up their asses. Get out. I will not ask again."

A chair scraped backward, and heavy boots stood up, moving towards the exit.

"You choose to do this the hard way, Mask… what purpose does this serve? You will be hauled back to answer, regardless of whether it's by me or Mistral."

"Mistral won't touch me. My record is spotless, and it would have continued to be spotless had you not interfered with and stymied our attempts by obscuring necessary intelligence!"

Cinder has stopped shivering from terror, and now she listens with rapt attention, had the red lady- Raven, had Raven not intended to go in like she had? What had happened? She'd seen the fight in most of its entirety, and she knew how it had ended, but not quite where or when it had begun, nor what circumstances had led to such an occasion.

"Atlas withheld critical information that could have jeopardized our national securi-"

"Blow it out your ass, James. The man I knew in those Vytal tournaments thought nothing of damaging his own aura and body to present an even fight, in direct defiance of your superior's orders. What happened to him?"

Footsteps, a door swinging open, and a frigidly cold tone asserting itself over the room.

"Reality happened, Mask, much like I remember a certain bird fawning over her teammates. Where did her protective streak wander off to?"

The door slammed, making Cinder shudder as the impact sent vibrations through her bones, and barely a moment had passed before the cloak was torn away from her, and Raven swept her up and sat her at the table.

The tall warrior looked composed on the surface, but Cinder was beginning to see the telltale hints and motions she made to keep herself composed. Small twitches of fingers, smaller motions of her head, and the slight expression of veins in her neck showed just how angry she was capable of being.

Raven's motions were cautious, and she carefully poured steaming stew from a pot hung over the fire into a thick, earthware bowl, which was passed to Cinder's cold hands.

"Eat. We will need to move at first light."

Cinder tries to ignore the food for the moment, studying Raven, even as the woman with blood-red eyes turns her gaze to the single window into the cabin. For a moment, a single beam of light from the dying sun presses itself against Raven's face, and at that moment, Cinder sees a glimmer of water in one of her eyes.

Just as she thinks she might say something, her stomach clenches painfully, and Cinder turns her gaze to the bowl of thick soup, falling upon it a moment later. Internally, she admonishes herself for even thinking of trying to comfort the other woman, Raven does not need her help, nor her assistance, and she wouldn't ask it even if she did.

"I will take the watch tonight, you need your rest…"

Raven paused as she spoke, Cinder realizes right at the end, and now, the silence hangs heavy in the air, as the small, amber-eyed girl turns to face Raven and hesitantly, ever so hesitantly, speaks out.

"I… I can take the first one."

Raven nods, accepting that as a fact before she stands from the table, taking her blade with one hand. She nods to the tangle of cans hanging from the door to the depths of the cabin, and then, tiredly proclaims.

"If something or someone comes, knock on the cans first, before moving to the door, if it is combat… hide."

Cinder nods. She will not fight and both of them know that even the weakest creep would be more than sufficient to overpower her, but… if she had aura… then maybe…?

"Um… Raven…"

She pauses, as the tall woman stops at the door, her head turning to one side and staring back out at her through one eye.

"Why won't you give me aura…? I… could fight, then…"

Raven shakes her head and simply says.

"No. I will answer you another time, but for now, you have your task. Keep the fire bright, little kite."

Then, she was gone, and Cinder felt a familiar feeling starting to churn and writhe at her, boiling up from within. Frustration. Why wouldn't Raven give her that power? She wielded it so mercilessly, so effectively against Tyrian, and she fought that crazed murderer who broke Cinder's arm in as easy a motion as one would snap a twig. How could she look like that? HOW!?

It wasn't fair.

Cinder kicked the foot of the couch, it hurt, a bit, but not that much because she was weak, and the thick cushioning protected her. That made the frustration worse, so she kicked it again.

That was a mistake.

Cinder hobbles forward, grumpy and irritated, she sits down on the couch, nursing her hurting foot, she's not sure, but the pain is pretty bad, though nothing compared to the shocks that ran her life…

The shocks.

The collar.

It's gone.

She freezes as her hand touches bare, scarred, and hurt, but bare skin, for the first time in… she doesn't know how long.

When had it come off? Had Raven removed it?

She'd had it on her when they left Atlas… and some of the wounds on her neck were fresh, so…

When did Raven remove it? When she was asleep in the initial fleeing from there? When she'd slept the night previously? Come to think of it, why had she done so? The collar easily would have kept her close to Raven had she worried that Cinder would run away, so why had she just released her?

Was it like Summer had said? Did Cinder dare to hope that her salvation, her freedom had been granted? She could run anywhere, laugh, cry… she could speak… free from pain?

She tries it, just then, letting out a short snort of laughter that turns into a running laugh that leaves her out of breath. The happy laughter, of a kind she'd not had for years.

Had… Had Raven just… removed the collar? Just because that was what she could do? Had she just done that because she could? Had she freed Cinder knowing full well that she could do so and nothing would stop her?

Cinder's mind flashes through dozens of previous events, and she remembers the conversation from earlier.

Raven had stood up to a captain in the Atlesian Navy, Captain Ironwood himself, and she'd not only been furious with him, but she'd also cursed him out and told him to get out of her cabin! She'd hidden Cinder from him! Refused to admit that she'd been kidnapped, not by Tyrian, but by herself!

Cinder's realizations come at the foot of something else. Madame had never let her escape punishment for more than a few minutes, even when she was older and could try to hide. She'd always threatened once, and then electrocuted immediately, but… Raven had said those things to the face of Captain Ironwood, and he'd been forced out of the cabin like a feral mutt with his tail between his legs.

Was Raven that powerful?

She had only asked Cinder to spot any Grimm, not point them out… did that mean she'd already noted them and dismissed them as a threat?

Thoroughly confused, Cinder stares at the fire, before she gets up and heaps another log into the flames, by the time she returns to the couch, the girl has reached a conclusion.

Cinder must obtain the power and confidence that Raven has because if Raven could speak to a member of Atlas' navy like that, a captain if she could get away with such a thing…

Then she was above the law! She had to be so monumentally powerful, that even Ironwood could do nothing to stop her, nothing to curb her involvement with whatever she chose to do. No one could stop her from being a huntress, and… she would be a huntress to surpass everyone else!

If Raven was the strongest huntress out there then Cinder would just have to be better than her, she'd have to chase the power that came with such a position, and she'd earn it by any means possible, provided… that those wouldn't hurt Raven.

That… was a strange feeling. That she wouldn't hurt Raven. Or… even, that she wouldn't have minded having to step on Clove or Iris's heads, hopes, and dreams to do so. Why was that? Why did she feel so… content with the idea that hurting Raven was wrong…?

Madame had never thought differently, so why did Cinder feel as though hurting Raven would be… wrong?

Why did it make her heart ache and her chest squeeze?

It is early morning when Raven relieves Cinder of her watch, and late morning by the time Cinder finds herself tumbling out of the bed in the central room, finding the form of Raven standing ever alert at the door.

"You have questions, and I can answer some… but not all of them. So… to start with aura?"

Cinder nods, numbly, accepting that Raven is giving her the answers evenly and feeling a twinge of something in her stomach as she listens.

"I will not give you aura because huntresses and huntsmen rely far, far too much on it. You saw for yourself in our engagement against Tyrian. We lost because we counted on our aura to succeed, and because he had something that exploited that."

Cinder nods, this makes sense to her, but there's no reason that she can't have aura and still train with that caution, right?

"Why not train with it regardless?"

"Because it will breed a sense of invincibility into you, that will be magnified by the hormones you will receive when you hit the age where you will attend a combat academy."

Raven paused.

"That will foster a sense of confidence that could result in your death. I will not allow such a thing to happen."

Raven spoke with a vitriol that wasn't in her tone, it was in the steel gaze that she focused on Cinder. Sending a chill down the girl's spine as she looked up at Raven with something akin to determination.

If Raven thought she would be confident, and cocky, then Cinder would learn the way Raven wanted her to. She would learn and beat Raven at her own game, and at that moment, she spoke quietly.

"You have two semblances."

It was not a question, and Raven didn't respond initially, choosing to shift her gaze outside to the environment outside, and the steady snow that came down.

"No. I have a power altogether more dangerous than a semblance to both its wielder and its target."

Raven sat down on the bedside, and held up her hand, flickering, spitting, and crackling, a snowflake crystallized out of thin air into her palm, floating upright over her hand. The spires and turrets of the enormous flake looked razor sharp, and Cinder didn't reach out a hand to touch them. Something that Raven noticed, and… if the small quirk of her upturned lips was indeed a smile, then she was pleased that Cinder had noticed… something.

"This is not quite my semblance, although I cannot fault you for believing it as such. My semblance is a form of transportation."

Raven drew her blade, and in one motion, cut open a slash into the air, Cinder watches, with rapt attention, as a violently beautiful, red storm cuts its way into existence, forming around the two of them, one behind Cinder, and one right in front of Raven. The clouds don't link, and Cinder can't see through them, but casually, Raven gently reaches through the portal, resting a hand on Cinder's shoulder from behind her.

Cinder reflects that this is quite possibly the strangest feeling she's ever felt. She whirls, seeing Raven's disembodied arm floating behind her. The hand moves and feels just as warm as Raven always had, and yet as Cinder stares evenly at the thing, her vision is colored by the flush as her brain processes that this arm is a good 7 to 10 feet distant from its original owner, who seems to be fine.

"That… I…"

Cinder feels just a little lightheaded.

Raven cuts her semblance off with a gentle crackling and the portals fade, only after the woman has drawn her arm back through it.

"The power you saw me use first, is something that I inherited a long, long time ago."

Raven sits down on the couch, beckoning Cinder closer to her, and pointing to the floor before she asks the girl.

"Did you see the fight? How the weather seemed to obey my commands and bend to my will?"

Cinder nods gently. She remembers Raven twisting ice and winds into her weapons, she remembers how the storm itself acquiesced to the will of the crimson maiden seated on the couch in front of her.

"These, or rather, this power allows me to control the weather, sharpening it into my weapons. However, it is limited."

Raven concentrated briefly, narrowing her eyes at the snowflake, which shudders viciously, before expanding into a spear of ice nearly 4 feet long and razor sharp.

"Normally, creating weapons such as this is a trivial matter. But the exception to that is the storm systems that dominate the world."

Raven looks outside and as she does so, Cinder sees the violet and brilliant flames licking at the corners of her eyes.

"The weather affects my powers, the stronger the storms, the less control I have over them, but… by inverse, they are much stronger. One of these spears, for example, could be much, much stronger. Or the localized storm could intensify even further, using myself as a conduit."

Raven finishes speaking, and Cinder realizes that this power, this power might be the key. If she could achieve such a power, then… then she would be strong, right!?

"Little Kite, this power is dangerous, it makes you a target for others. It is not as safe as you think, and… it weakens you in certain ways."

She smiles, but this one is hollow and fake, and Cinder sees Raven almost… sigh as if the energy leaves her all at once.

"I am unwell, Little Kite, this power is not for you. I hope you never suffer from its curse."

Cinder… wasn't really listening anymore, her eyes instead filled with stars and thoughts and dreams. If she had that power… the power over the storms themselves, if she had that ability, if she had that power… the world would be hers!

She could do anything! Float above the clouds, soar through the air, eat candy, and stay up late because she wanted to, not because she had money, she could just… do whatever she wanted! She could just stay with… Raven? Did she want that…?

Cinder looks back up at the other woman. Raven meets her gaze, the flames having flickered out of her gaze, as she looked upon the smaller girl. Raven stood from the couch before Cinder could say anything, and then she said.

"Come on, we have a long way to go, and part of that means we're going to be hiking through the snow. I was able to find a few leftover things from the last time I used this place, and they should fit, albeit a bit loosely."

Raven nods her head to a box she set on the kitchen table earlier, and when Cinder approaches it, she takes note of varying thick, fluffy articles of clothing. Several will be too small, and several will be too large, but they will work. The girl quickly strips from her clothing, only pausing when she hears Raven take in a sharp, albeit soft gasp from behind her. Cinder turns to look, and… in the reflection of the mirror, her back, the scars upon its flesh from lightning, the scars twisting into a vaguely heart-shaped mark on her upper back. The scar tissue remaining from her much more rebellious attempts at leaving Madame's employ.

The oversized tunic is clearly Raven's, from the deep burgundy color to the feathers splayed about it in iconography and the like, but Cinder feels… warm, as she dons the tunic. She feels something welcoming and happy about it and feels a sense of calm come over her.

The coat is puffy, and would be too small on Raven, but, based on the emblem stitched onto the shoulder, this is Summer's coat, and now Cinder feels its heavy weight settle comfortingly across her shoulders.

"I… thank you, Ma'am."

Her voice trips over the first syllables. And Raven's gruff tone replies evenly.

"She would have wanted you to be clothed in the best she could, I've never seen better than that one."

Raven turns away from Cinder, and when the girl turns to look at her from the corner of one eye, she sees Raven hurriedly wipe something away from her face, before the woman marches to the door and turns.

"Quickly now, little Kite, up on my back, we have a great distance to walk in order to reach the ground you can walk safely upon. The snows are deep here, and the ice underneath is more treacherous than anything."

As Cinder clambers onto Raven's back, the other woman wraps her arms around Cinder's feet and pulls them taut against her upper stomach.

"Hold on tight, and… Little Kite?"

Cinder looks up, meeting eyes with the taller huntress.

"No more usage of your semblance. Not until we have you trained, ok? It's dangerous and out here, we can't treat things easily."

Cinder nods. Acquiescing to the request immediately, this woman governed if she lived or died, she owed it to her to listen, especially for such a simple request.

The snow pressed down, and the wind howled overhead as the two left the cabin, and yet, somehow, a part of Cinder had never felt warmer.

Another ember sprouted to life inside the small, amber-eyed girl's chest.

A/N: More conversations! What does Ironwood want? What does Raven mean when she calls her powers a curse? I'm excited to see you all next time!

 

[Ember]

Cinder wonders if she has made a mistake by following Raven. Earlier in the morning, the two had reached a cliffside, overlooking a long, beautiful stretch of trees with only thin snowfall. The storm had finally broken as Cinder was set down, and then even more as Raven set down her pack and began to pull a long coil of rope and a hammer, alongside several long and slender metal spikes with cut-out holes near the top.

"Time for your training. You will climb down the cliff."

Raven spoke matter-of-factly and so seriously that Cinder found herself nodding before she even processed what had just been said. By the time her head had caught up, Raven had already begun winding a strange set of ropes, and buckles to Cinder herself, and was tightening it around her inner thigh by the time she processes that Raven has just asked Cinder to climb down a cliffside, on her own.

"Um…"

Raven looks down at the girl, tightening her harness just a little more, and Cinder sees the woman move towards the cliff.

"This cliff is perhaps 90 feet tall. Given the work you've done and the muscle you have, I want you to make it 30 feet down before I carry you to the bottom."

Cinder stares at Raven with something close to incredulity in her gaze, and the woman meets her amber eyes with those red ones and doesn't budge. She extends her hand, holding that bag of spikes, and points to the sharpened points.

"Use these to anchor yourself to the wall, and then secure your rope to each of the spikes. Do you know how to tie the correct knots?"

Cinder flinches as Raven's seriousness fails to drop, and she walks closer to the cliff, inspecting the gigantic drop. Her vision seemed to almost tunnel down deeper focusing on the sharp, daggerlike protrusions, spearing from the cliff, tearing at the sky and screaming their bladed faces for her flesh. Cinder flinched, nearly scaring herself over the edge, until Raven's hand once more caught on her collar, and hauled her back from the edge.

"Not yet, can you tie the knots? No? Here… let me show you."

Raven sat down on the snow and gestured for Cinder to do the same with the cloak the young girl had draped across her shoulders. Upon doing so, Cinder is passed a length of thin, strong, and light rope. She stares at it, until Raven's hand, gloved and soft, touches her chin and directs her gaze across to Raven's own hands, which hold another, similar coil of rope.

Raven's hands move as if by magic, and Cinder watches as the rope took the shape she'd seen the window cleaners use in Raven's grip. If she recalled, they'd said it was something called a fisherman's knot… she wasn't sure.

"This is a double fisherman's knot. It isn't quite what I'll be teaching you as a focus, but it's good to learn it now, because this might save your life one day."

Cinder nods, and then, Raven shows her again, this time much much slower. Cinder follows along, noting as the rope snaps back and forth, under and over, until the knot takes shape, and then, Raven is holding her hands and taking the gloves she's worn until this moment off.

"I'll teach you again, but this time, follow the motions my hands make, place your hands over mine, yes, just like that. Fingers over my own. Close your eyes."

Cinder obeys, letting her eyes shut, a part of her realizes she has closed those eyes in the presence of someone who could kill her, someone who is so exceptionally lethal that killing her wouldn't even really be a problem for her. But… Raven's grip is smooth and careful as she moves around so Cinder is sat upon her lap, and then, her hands are moving and her voice speaks once more.

"Follow along, hands over mine, and feel how the knot takes shape, understood?"

Cinder nods, and her hands follow Raven's own as the larger woman's fingers dextrously shape and twist the knot into being. Then, Raven is moving, and Cinder feels the chill of the air settle back in across her shoulders. She hadn't quite realized that Raven produced so much warmth before…
"Now, its your turn. Do your best, then pay attention when I correct you, alright?"

Cinder is uncertain of just how much time she spends atop that cliff face, tying, untying, and retying three separate knots. Raven calls them essential and shows her how they link into the spikes that she will use to descend the cliffsides, which Raven calls rappelling. Cinder believed she was going to lose hope of ever getting it correct, but Raven once more motivated her to continue with words she'd never heard from the woman before.

"I was tying these knots at age 10, like you, and hunter and huntress students don't learn them until the second year at Beacon. You'll be better than a first-year student, someone 7 years your senior, if you learn how to do these three today."

Those words, that Cinder would be better, that she'd be more powerful, than even a first-year Beacon Student at such a thing, set a raging blaze akindle in her chest, and the girl threw herself into learning the knots, so focused, that she didn't notice when Raven made a fire and began heating up the last of the stew she'd prepared at the cabin.

It is only when the smell and the steam from the bowl visibly sets itself into her vision, that Cinder blearily looks up, spotting that she's being fed, the girl falls upon the bowl with the savagery of a wolf pack, devouring everything, then looking back at Raven, who is running her fingers along the three knots Cinder has been practicing for the last hours.

"Well done."

Cinder is halfway through her second serving of stew when she catches what Raven says. The small girl looking up quizzically, meeting the gaze of the red eyed woman, who simply quirks one side of her face up, her lips ever so small with their smile.

"You're as ready as I can make you in the time we have to descend."

Cinder finishes her stew, feeling suddenly more than a little nauseous and more than a little worried. The girl mechanically dumps snow into the bowl, scourging the sides before pouring the slightly brown mixture back out, she towels off the bowl, before handing it back to Raven, who is packing their food away.

But as she does so, Cinder watches the woman twist to one side, and she winces, it's hard to see, and Cinder would have missed it had she not at that exact moment looked for it, but it's there, and Raven winced hard. Immediately, Cinder's heart is pounding, and she remembers the fight, remembers when Raven was stabbed through her stomach by the stinger of Tyrian. Her heart begins to pound, and the woman thinks back to the flowers and the herbs Raven's been applying every day whenever she thinks Cinder doesn't notice.

Raven's getting weaker, and she's running out of herbs, they need to stop and heal… but the cabin wasn't safe for them, and the tundras out here are nearly barren and lifeless. There are few game animals that Cinder has seen, and the herbs Raven relied upon, the flowers that grew in the densest Atlesian forests, she's uncertain if they grow here.

Perhaps that's why the woman isn't simply carrying Cinder down the cliffs, as she had previously, the snow is thick here, coming up to Cinder's ankles, even in the boots she wears. The small girl's mind moves a thousand miles a minute, how deadly is Tyrian's poison? How dangerous is their situation? They've only been a day's travel from the cabin, could she haul Raven back to there if she had to? Could she build a shelter? She'd seen the one Raven threw together with her tent and tarp during the storm… could Cinder accomplish the same thing?

She would have to try if it happened, and so, when the woman finished placing the meal kits they ate with back into her pack, and shouldered it, she turned to Cinder and pointed to the long rope she'd secured to a vast, Atlesian pine tree a good distance away.

"Ready?"

Cinder swallows heavily, her throat dry and her muscles twitching. She still remembers the close calls she's had on the roof of the hotel, this… this is a far, far larger gap and a more lethal fall.

To her utter horror, that is the last thing Raven says, before the woman leans backward, and falls from the cliff, her arms outstretched until, as Cinder watches, she slows, and eventually stops cold, floating with her eyes blazing in violet energy a good 30 feet down. She cocks her head slightly at Cinder, and then, smiling that ever so present half smile at her, gestures to the wall.

"After you, little Kite."

Cinder takes a step forwards, staggering her breath and carefully, ever so carefully looking over the assembled cliffs and the edges. Raven made it look so easy, but Raven was also flying, so in Cinder's opinion, she was cheating.

As if the other woman could sense her, Raven said from below.

"I could scale this in my sleep, it's quite a simple cliff. The longer you take the harder the first step will be, place your legs just below that ledge, and begin to descend, letting the rope out every 10 feet until you can hammer in another spike.

Cinder listens to the words, and somehow, they slow her hammering heart, and with shaking legs, the woman begins to clamber over the cliff, placing her feet on the small ledge, she feels out with the balls of her feet. Finding it stable, Cinder slowly releases her arm, and latches tightly onto the rope, holding it against herself as she shakily takes out one of the pitons.

Nominally, she should be stronger, but with Raven's insistence, the girl gently taps the piton into the icy rock, until it's so thoroughly embedded that only the loop in the head is visible. Gingerly, Cinder places the hammer back into her harness, and then strings the rope through the eyelet. It takes a little bit of time for her to tie the knot, securing it, and she finds herself breathing hard, staring over the leading edge of the cliff and looking straight down.

That was a mistake, and the drop only seems even larger, as Raven floats in the air some 25 feet down, arms crossed over her chest and one eyebrow raised. The woman looks to Cinder, then speaks simply.

"Time to keep going, little Kite. I trust in your ability to come down."

Cinder wants to yell at her that she isn't a climber, that she has no idea what she's doing, and that Raven must be insane, must be utterly mad if she thinks that Cinder, in all her ten-year-old level of strength, will be able to scale this cliff, especially without aura! Without the superhuman strength of her soul!

How can she step further? Her legs lock tight as she clings to the ledge, the wind whistling through her hair and biting at her skin. It's cold up here, and Cinder can feel the pain sink into her bones as the wind savagely whips her. She steps to one side, pressing herself into the cliff, and then, then she looks back to Raven, only to find the other woman still in her same position, still just watching Cinder delicately, smiling that infernal, thrice damned cocky smirk with only half her face!

Cinder feels in that moment, something akin to spite and frustration boiling up through her, and she lets that temper into her body, temper into who she is. Before she even realizes what she's doing, she steps down, and her foot slips.

Instantly, adrenaline pumps through her body as the ropes on her harness tighten and thoroughly immerse themselves into her muscles and body, painfully jerking her tightly as they hold her in mid-air. Cinder doesn't even realize she's screaming at first until her knees and arms smack painfully into the sheer cliff and she's scrambling for purchase. Something she finds, eventually, as her eyes open and her voice trails off. She feels something warm tickling the back of her neck and then hears a calm, gentle voice speak out.

"Do you see, little Kite? The harness will catch you and hold you in place, now, is this a secure point?"

Cinder cracks an eye open, staring at the even, smooth expanse of ice just above a knotted, jagged gouge in the rocks below. She nods briefly and then turns to face Raven with something akin to slight anger in her tone.

"Why didn't you tell me…?"

Raven responds by laughing in her face and replies a moment after.

"Little Kite, I cannot hold your wings open for you, eventually, you will have to fly, but in this case, I was going to catch you should any of the many safety measures you are wearing would fail. You will need to learn to fly on your own, especially with such a dangerous career as a huntress ahead of you."

Cinder's anger cools rapidly, the explanation making immediate sense to her at some level, the girl knows and understands that while Raven's methods are harsh… she's not punishing the girl for asking her questions, nor even her near shout of anger at the way Raven had her "spread her own wings" in this case.

"Now, you have a further 65 feet to climb, I will be watching you as you rappel, you have nothing to fear."

Cinder's body trembles briefly at the mention of 65 feet, but as the girl looks down at the snowy tundra below, the strong, tall pine trees stretching their needle-laden boughs high above the ground, she feels less uncertain about this. Her hands no longer shake as she hammers the piton into the wall, nor do they struggle to tie the knot into the eyelet.

Then, she is letting rope out, and her legs are sliding down against the wall, Cinder looks for and spots a tiny ledge just below the normal 12-foot range she should drop in increments, and the girl's eyes widen as the ledge rushes up towards her.

She's almost too slow, with her sling-bound arm, to stop her descent, but while she lands heavily enough to cause a spike of pain to rocket through the bones in her legs, the girl does land on the ledge, and her hands are already rapidly hammering a piton into the rock face.

As soon as she is done, Raven is pressing something steaming and warm into her hands, the thick smell of Ozone and chocolate in the air.

"Drink, then look."

Her voice is strong and holds a hint of something that Cinder doesn't recognize in its tone. A note of positive energy bleeds out as Raven flashes a half-smirk at the girl before she turns down to the next leap.

"Only 52 feet to go, you will make this."

For a moment, Raven's lips seem to move further, but no sound emerges, and the woman's gaze quickly becomes shadowed. Cinder wants to ask, wants to demand an answer from her protector, and yet… something in those dull red orbs stops her from opening her mouth, instead, a simple nod is delivered to Raven, who nods once in return and then descends out of view, taking the hot cocoa with her. Cinder wants to have taken just a little more of a sip, but she's got a distance to go, and that distance can't be solved with a hot drink.

She looks out and down, peeping over her shoulder, here, the cliffs are far, far more smooth, the stone worn clean from wind and weather forced into a narrow tunnel between the trees and the rocks themselves. By her own estimates, Cinder would guess that the next clear ledge is a good 20 feet below her current location.

Too far, she'll have to stop her descent, and rely on the harness to keep her floating while she hammers in another piton… unless…

For a moment that quickly turns into a minute, Cinder contemplates whether this would be an opportunity to use her semblance… she might be able to gain something out of it by softening the rock, letting her find an easier hand or leg hold. She could do it… but how long would it take? Would Raven notice her? Would she be punished for doing so?

Her power needed focus, and strong emotions… could she even manifest those trapped on this ledge?

She thought about it, only for Raven to interrupt her train of thought.

"The ice and rocks are dangerous here, little Kite, and this face isn't as stable as it appears. Melting, causing heat, or water on this face could cause you to fall as the pitons slide free. Not to mention that you do not have the protection, and natural immunity to the effects of your semblance. You were capable of melting sand into glass with such a power, the sheer heat you manifested, would burn your hands to the bone."

Raven smirks up at her, and then, that smile turns much, much more genuine as she simply replies.

"Just… come down, be gentle with yourself, power and strength have different meanings, Cinder. To have power is not to have strength, and vice versa. Summer is one of the strongest people I know, and while she was powerful, she was not the strongest I have ever known."

Raven's words are strange to Cinder, what did it mean to be strong, if you weren't powerful? How could one be powerful, but not strong? The girl puzzled over it for a time, standing suspended against the cliff. She could agree that Raven made some level of sense, one could be physically strong and lack the powers that Raven had, or one could have those powers and lack the strength of others. Cinder herself likely fell into that category, someone who was fully capable of causing damage with her semblance, and yet she lacked the strength to take the heat of her own semblance.

But she couldn't stay up here, thinking about it, and as the girl looked down, she found herself searching not for the skull-crushing drop, but the next part of the cliff that she'd have to scale down. The thought occurred to her, that she wasn't as scared as she had been, nervous? Yes. But she was no longer terrified, and her legs no longer shook like leaves in the howling Atlesian gale.

Carefully, she picked out the next two locations, and then, Cinder leaned back and let go, and she shot downwards as if launched from a cannon. The girl felt the wind soar through her hair, and let her lips open wide, an expression of sheer joy bursting forth a moment later as she smiled and screamed her joy for the world.

All too soon, she was arrested in her rappelling, and the girl breathed in and out heavily as she panted from exuberant joy at the sheer experience of landing evenly, Cinder shot a look at Raven and caught for just a moment, the woman's lips turned up in a genuine, small smile, but then her eyes see the thin film of stars in Raven's own, and the woman turns away from Cinder. At that moment, the girl feels a pit tear itself open in her stomach, as Raven wipes at her eyes, and Cinder chooses to simply keep going.

She has no words to temper the loss that Raven feels, nor even a true understanding of how truly awful it must have been. Cinder has never had, nor lost a friend such as Raven had, nor has she understood how much she reminds Raven of a younger Summer.

Instead, Cinder takes another leap, falling, soaring, and landing, now a scant 20 feet above the floor. Another set, another piton hammered into the ice wall, another rope knot tied, and another point secured for Cinder to fall deeper and scale lower. But she has to slow down now, the smoothness has given way to a razor-edged and dangerous set of spiked rocks and twisted ice near the base. Cinder now slides down foot by foot, landing every so often to tie or hammer in another piton, the girl slow in her machinations, and slower in her descent. A part of Cinder roars at the indignation of having to take it even this slow, she wants to run, wants to soar down the cliff like one of the birds that soar above her…

Wait, birds…

Cinder looks up, sharp eyes piercing the sky, and at that moment, she calmly looks down once more, it is a 15-foot drop to the floor, a clear 15-foot drop that she can't land evenly. She cannot take such a landing, but… those birds are nevermore, a trio of larger ones. From here, they look to be the size of large birds of prey, and Cinder knows well enough to know that they are likely far, far larger than that. Far, far larger than one would be capable of defeating, and so the girl makes her choice.

"Raven!"

She calls out, drawing the boot knife and severing the line, and as she begins to fall, she sees Raven dart for her, even as the three black shapes of the nevermore tear down from the sky, sensing that she's seen them and that she's about to escape.

Raven reacts instantly and dives after Cinder as she falls, and for that moment, as Raven dives down to rescue her, as Raven soars from just above her, Cinder feels genuine, true fear covering her lips and face. She can see the massive masked face of the enormous nevermore, see the red in its eyes as it opens its beak and releases an ear-piercing, screeching cry that steals the breath from Cinder's lungs. The girl desperately squeezes her eyes shut, and in that moment she fears the ground rushing up to meet her, rushing up to collapse with and slaughter her, and yet…

The collision never comes, instead, she finds a gentle, light chuckle, and a slightly labored voice simply speaking.

"Good eye, little kite."

Cinder snaps her eyes open, finding Raven holding her tight, the sound of a near deafening smash as the nevermore collides with the ground in an ungainly heap and the snapping and crashing of trees.

Had Raven known about the nevermores? Cinder concludes that she must have, she must have known that they were circling, and was judging if Cinder would make the right choice, would leap and try to get to cover. If she would… survive the trial.

"Hang on tight, little one. This is the dicey part."

The bone-shaking screech echoing through the trees behind them informs Cinder that no, that impact hadn't killed the big feathered bastard. It seemed to have just made it angrier. She squeezed as tight as her single arm could, locking tight to Raven's neck as the maiden shot a glance over the pair of them.

"Mm. Not going to work that well, huh? Cinder, tell me when it gets within 30 feet of us."

Cinder, staggered and stunned by the sudden request for her assistance, stammers out her agreement.

"Uh-y-yes ma'am."

Raven snorts and then speaks once more.

"No Ma'am, just call me Raven, or Rae."

Cinder nods, turning her gaze to the back of the massive Grimm as it tears through the canopy behind them. Already, Cinder's gaze spots that its impact with the ground, and the canopy, has damaged it, long sections of branch impale its wings and body. But in the true spirit of infernal rage, the damned bird just keeps coming, it just keeps burning towards them, wings crushing everything in their way.

It's too far, even now, and as Cinder sees it, she sees it trying to extricate itself from the treetops. Trying to take to the skies above, and while it's close, it's not close enough for whatever Raven has planned.

Cinder's mind moves fast, and the woman tears the spear Raven fashioned for her, the blunt end coming free in her one good arm, poised atop Raven's back, she wraps her broken arm in its sling tight to Raven, and screams from the pain as the spear is let fly from her hand.

This one is the one she carved, half the original, cut down to size and sharpened to a fairly nasty point, and to Cinder's utter horror. Completely ineffective against the Nevermore.

The spear skittered off the creature's bone mask, vanishing into the forest, and Cinder nearly loses her grip on Raven's body, before her throwing arm latches tight to the woman's armored form. She can barely hold on, as Raven rolls to the left and dives under a particularly large tree, the nevermore crashing up and through the trees. It flaps its wings once, and that gust of wind knocks Raven to the right, the woman suddenly whirling Cinder around. Cinder realizes at that moment, that Raven is unable to avoid the branch ahead of her, and has swung Cinder around from her front so the impact only hits Raven against the back.

Her mind whirls back to Madame, to the last things that the woman ever said to her, to the last things spoken, how she'd taken Tyrian's rage upon her own shoulders and died for it. For Cinder herself. Was this how Raven was going to die too? Was this how she was going to be left alone once more? No… no Cinder couldn't let that happen, she couldn't.

"Hold on, this is going to hurt."

Rage and anguish and sorrow at what could happen boiled up and through Cinder, and the girl's eyes snapped open wide. She thinks she sees an amber light burn on the branch ahead of them, she thinks she remembers moving her hand forwards, crushing it into a fist, and closing her eyes, bracing herself for the horrible.

What she is certain she remembers is the gut-wrenching snap of the branch, and then the soft, warm feeling of something crashing against her skin as the hit she's expecting never comes. As Raven soars through the rapidly enflamed branch, the ash cascades down onto Cinder's skin.

Raven is looking at her, she can feel her protector's burning gaze upon her, and as Cinder cracks open her eyes and look up into those strange red orbs, she sees that same emotion that she saw earlier when Raven had looked at her so curiously, it is not happiness… not happiness that Cinder can process, at least… but it is an emotion that seems to be positive. Raven even laughs, throwing her head back, with that wild, unruly mane of black hair showering down and tickling the edge of Cinder's exposed forehead.

"Well done, little kite. Well done indeed. Hold on tight."

The woman darts down, and this time, her hand and arm wrap tight to Cinder's waist, and there is a keening, drawing, shining ring as Raven draws the massive blade at her hip.

Cinder sees that gleaming, beautiful blade curve up sharply, held still in the air. Raven shifts her grip, lowering Cinder to one side of her, angling the blade just a touch-up. Cinder has approximately half a second to wonder what Raven is doing, before the Nevermore bursts through the canopy behind them and above them, and Raven's blade carves its wing clean from its body.

The thing shrieks as it finds itself unable to fly, and Cinder, in wide-eyed wonder, watches as the Nevermore plummets from the sky and slaps into the terrain. Raven continues the motion, swinging her blade down further and letting it soar free from her hand. The crimson length of steel and dust pierced into the core of the nevermore's body and gutted the creature with a flash of brilliant flame.

When Raven set Cinder down on the floor of the forest, the woman leaned down and pulled her sword free of the rapidly decaying corpse, thick black fluids staining the ground as the Grimm disintegrated at Raven's request. The huntress flicked her blade out, sending the same black fluids cascading outwards and then onto the ground as she ran a rag over it. Raven kicked the rapidly decaying form of the Grimm, shattering the bone fragments on its head, then, she turned to Cinder and spoke.

"Do you know why I kicked the Grimm's mask?"

Cinder shrugs her shoulders, the other woman's tone is inquisitive, and questioning, but not outwardly hostile, and that's something that puts Cinder into a relative state of ease. Raven, simply hums, her own face unreadable to the young girl.

"Are you familiar with the Grimm that belong to the emotion known as "Dread"?"

Cinder shakes her head, she knows next to nothing of the Grimm subtypes, only that huntresses and huntsmen fight an eternal war to destroy them utterly.

Raven sighs, and beckons the girl closer, pointing to the backpack, she indicates the largest pocket, and, in a tone that suggests she is tired, gently asks.

"If you can set up the tents, I will tell you all I know of the Dreaded."

Cinder nods, she's watched Raven set up the tent before, and she's seen it enough and retraced it in her head enough to know how to set it up, and while it's tall for her, it shouldn't be hard to construct it, nor should it be particularly hard to piece together in the first place.

She shakes out the tarp, placing it evenly on the ground and weighing it down with rocks at each corner until she can hammer in the stakes that will anchor the tent to the floor of the spruce-like taiga that surrounds them. Raven watches, until, in Cinder's opinion, she's fairly sure that the girl can actually build what she was asked to, and then Raven takes a sip of water and begins her tale.

"They will teach you this later as well, but it is important to know about Dread Grimm now, given what could potentially happen if we were to happen upon one."

A pause as Cinder snaps the central tent pole into place, Raven's red eyes tracking the motions of Cinder's arms as she carefully sockets the central pole into the fabric of the tent, before raising it up.

"Dread grimm are embodiments of forms of dread, where some, such as beowulven or ursae are simpler emotions, such as wrath or rage, and are truly nothing more than mindless, self driven monsters. It is grimm categorized into others that are the most dangerous to a huntress or huntsman."

Raven paused briefly and turned to cast her gaze to the sky.

"Dread grimm can take on a variety of forms, but one of the popular choices is nevermore, and they symbolize the dread of us as beings. They can take upon features akin to our worst nightmares made real, and they are all the more powerful, should they be in proximity to you before they strike."

Cinder, listening, fighting the tent into a standing position and slightly panting from the effort, the girl turns and asks.

"What's… the worst one you've ever fought?"

Raven smirks, and then she reaches into her bodice and removes a small vial on a long chain. Inside it, swirls a Grimm bone, immersed in a liquid, pulsing with red energy and strange, carved markings.

"It took the form of my closest friend, and in many ways, my family. It took her face and voice and tried to convince me it was her. Then it tried to tear my head off the moment I turned my back on it."

Cinder's blood pools in her legs, the thought of a Grimm taking on the face of something… like who? Would it be Summer she faced? Would it be the half-remembered faces of her parents? Would it be the cherubic innocence of her younger sister?

Had she always had a little sister?

A part of Cinder hurts as she thinks about that, the memory so crystal clear that it feels as though someone has left it there. As though someone had simply pulled it from a shelf and placed it in the forefront of her mind. Why is she remembering this now? They were dead! Dead and gone! She'd sobbed for days! She'd lost them! Why did they have to be so present in her head now!?

"Little Kite…"

Raven's touch startles Cinder out of her mood, the woman's grip firm and warm as Raven begins to speak once more.

"I killed it, burst my hand through its heart and tore the beating, broken, awful thing in half with my bare hands. The very core of it was this, thing…"

Raven's face screws up with disgust and even something akin to rage as she holds it up to the light. In the dying rays of the sun, Cinder swears she feels something cold look over Raven's shoulder at her. She feels as though the thing is staring at her once more.

"Dread Grimm don't die easily. You can tear them up and grind them down, but they leave fragments of bone behind, and those are concentrated negativity. Dread Grimm like the Nuckleavee form only when there are such high concentrations of sorrow and dread that they eclipse all other emotions."

Raven tucks the thing back into her shirt.

"This one is nearly dead, and it's been a 6 month wait for it to fade to this extent. But in the next few days, I'll be able to crush it and scatter the disintegrating powder permanently. I don't expect you to ever face one, but you need to know it can wear the face and the voice of those you are close to, especially if you dread an outcome of them."

Raven's face darkens.

"For that reason, if something wearing Summer's face comes out of the darkness, I want you to wake me up immediately. Do not tell it anything other than that it isn't real. Is that clear?"

Cinder nods, white in the face, as Raven tugs her in and closes her arms around her shoulders.

"I truly wish that it were possible for things to be different, but this place will not allow complacence."

Cinder nods, not quite understanding much of Raven's words beyond that she seems genuinely apologetic that this need even be said. But to Cinder, this makes logical sense, if something wearing Summer's face and even vaguely resembling her walked out from the forest, she would likely run to her. Allowing the Grimm a perfect opportunity to tear the girl limb from limb.

"With that said, finish the tent, we have company."

Raven stands up, and Cinder sees the woman pull a white mask from her bag, slipping it on and over her entire face, it looks like a Grimm, and Cinder feels a pang of fear shoot through her. The girl almost unconsciously reaches for a belt knife that isn't quite there as her ears finally pick up the sound.

CLOP, CLOP, CLOP

That's a horse, what is a horse doing out in the midst of Atlas' tundras? Even those who make a home within the tundra don't use horses, the snows are too deep for them…

Cinder looks up and spots a traveler entering the clearing, it's a young woman, perhaps Raven's age if a few years her junior, with short, cropped brown hair and a set of yellow-brown eyes. Strapped to the side of her horse hung a heavy, thick staff with faintly glowing dust crystals at each end. Cinder accidentally makes eye contact, and at that moment, everything freezes.

The other woman stares into her, and Cinder feels as though she's analyzing everything about Cinder herself, staring into and almost ripping out her soul by virtue of existing. It's a uniquely terrifying experience, and Cinder can't help herself as she freezes completely.

In that gaze is something powerful, something wild and untamed and vicious and strong enough to tear Cinder in half if it wished. The girl feels pure, animal panic comes over her, and she genuinely tries to move, but finds her muscles refusing to even make an attempt to do so. She can't move, can't think, can't even really breathe, and then, the tension is dispelled with a single cough from Raven.

"Amber. Release your gaze."

The woman tears her gaze from Cinder, who finds herself capable of breathing once more and collapses into the tent's sidewall, breathing heavily. She's not sure what's happening anymore, she's not sure what's gone wrong, or what the hell she'd just been forced to experience, but she knows enough to know that she never wants to ever feel it happen again.

"Raven Branwen… it has been years, hasn't it?"

Raven turns to look at Cinder first, ignoring the newcomer as she assesses Cinder's condition until Cinder waved her off. She wasn't certain of what had happened, but she was fine, and she could breathe again.

"Nearly 9 since we last saw each other. Does the wizard still keep you locked away in his tower?"

The other woman laughs, its a rich, beautiful sound, and yet Cinder can hear how brittle it is.

"Of course he does. Would there truly be any doubt?"

Raven stares at the woman for a time longer, and then she speaks in a harder, more harsh tone.

"Third year, Beacon, what did Qrow do to you and Summer?"

The other woman flinches, and Cinder sees her cheeks color a brilliant red.

"Raven… do I have to answe-"

Raven cuts her off, stepping forwards and placing a hand on her sword.

"You and I both know this is dread territory. We're too close to the wreckage of the fourth fleet and its field hospital."

Amber flinched and finally gave in.

"You make an excellent point. Fine. Qrow switched mine and Summer's wardrobes with each other, then scheduled our missions a week apart, I had to wear skirts that were too small for a week, and Summer looked like a child. When we caught him, we gave his wardrobe a makeover."
Raven laughs, letting go of her blade and saying, in unison with Amber.

"And then the rat bastard wore it better than the both of us."

She extends a hand to the warrior, beckoning her down and off the horse. Something which Amber quietly obliged, swinging her legs over the back of the great animal and landing herself on the snow. A hand casually unstrapped her staff, and the woman gently whispered something to her steed, which trotted towards the nearby shrubs.

"So, what brings Raven Branwen out into the middle of the Atlesian Tundra, especially so far from Summer Rose?"

She's not looking at Raven as she speaks, but Cinder is, and as Cinder hears the mention of Summer, she sees Raven's face flash through emotions ranging from crippling sadness to rage to utter relief before she composes herself.

"Standard mission. Transporting little Cinder here out of the wreckage of her village, I'll be dropping her at Mistral's orphanage, first chance I get."

Amber's face fell, and she turned to Cinder, kneeling gently in front of the girl, she quickly wrapped her in a hug.

Cinder decided at that moment that Amber was alright.

She was no Summer, and her hug was nowhere near as warm, but her kindness shone through the action, especially because the battle-hardened warrior very clearly could see that Cinder's hand had never left the belt knife. Her choice to immediately choose affection over asking Cinder to disarm showed the younger girl that she had a great deal of faith in Cinder not harming her.

"I am so sorry, little one. Everything will be ok, alright?"

Raven cuts in, perhaps to save Cinder the indignity of lying, perhaps to save her in other ways.

"Don't be too sad for the fates of those abusers. Cinder had a shock collar on when I found her, staggering through the snow on the outskirts of the village's walls. She'd survived only because her emotions were dulled by the abuse she'd gone through."

When Amber looks back down at Cinder, her eyes are shining gently with tears and she spits the next words.

"Then those bastards got what they deserved. Everything will be fine now. Raven's the best huntress I know next to Summer Rose, and she'll get you back safe and sound."

Cinder merely nodded. Choosing to enjoy the warmth of the hug for just a moment until Amber pulled away and returned to her horse. The woman clicked her tongue, and the great animal turned and walked straight to her, presenting the saddlebags on its left flank, as the woman began to gently take from them.

"I have cheese and fresh Winterfruit, as well as a few salamis left. I can at the very least ensure you reach the next town successfully. Raven, do you need a healing poultice for that wound? It looks nasty."

Her tone is now all business, and she tosses a small bag towards Cinder, who barely manages to catch it, the ripe smell of delicious Winterfruit, a tough-skinned, hardy, and warm fruit that only grew in the depths of Atlesian geothermal forests greets her nose. She's heard of these things before, heard of how good they taste and how hard they are to find. Those forests, being warm and wonderful, attracted Grimm in the near thousands. It was difficult at such a level that even Madame only ever bought a single Winterfruit on the birthdays of herself and her twins.

Cinder has never tried one, but now she wants to, she desperately wants to. Her mouth already waters from the heady, delicious scent that is now cloying and playing with her nostrils. She wants it so badly that as she shoots a look toward Raven, she can see the other woman smirking.

"Help yourself, little Kite."

Cinder tears open the bag, and pulls the large fruit from within the burlap.

She feels almost like crying, beholding the massive fruit in her hands, the size of a child's head, her own head, its hard skin a mottled, beautiful blue and white. She knows it would be improper to tear into it, but she's having a very, very hard time resisting the urge to do so.

"Use that knife of yours to strip the skin of the fruit, Raven can use it to wrap her wound and it will help her heal."

Cinder nods, pulling her knife, she waits until Raven isn't looking her way, and then reaches deep into herself as she had earlier. This time, it's a conscious desire that manifests what she wants.

The blade of her little knife begins to steam, and as Cinder stops the flow of energy into the blade, she slumps, her arms falling to one side as if everything overwhelms her all at once. She sees Raven dart towards her, the woman departing from the ground in a mad dash for her, even as Amber reaches for her staff and stares at the borders of the campsite. The horse seems fine, and Cinder vaguely remembers seeing and hearing Raven cry something out.

She vaguely wonders why that sensation hurts in her chest, right before unconsciousness claims her.

Cinder is floating on a sea of warmth, her arms and legs heavy and languid as she swims gently through the pools. She can feel another presence with her, something looking at her, someone looking at her through the steam, and yet as she tries to swim towards them… her legs and arms become so heavy that she's unable to truly resist the call to slumber once more.

"About time, little one. You had us both worried."

Cinder groggily stirs, her head aching, the faces of Amber and Raven swimming into focus as the two women appear in front of her.

"That, little Kite, is why your semblance is dangerous."

Raven purrs, matter of factly.
"One of the side effects of not having a body trained to be a huntress is that the strain of a semblance is something you are completely unprepared for. You tried to heat the blade, right? What did it feel like?"

Cinder shrugs her shoulders, she's terrified that she's about to be punished, and her brain, still sleepy, is uncertain of whether or not she still wears the shock collar that Madame loved to put on her so much.

"Mmm…"

Luckily, it is Amber who saves her from answering more questions.

"Raven… it's been a long day for her, from what you've said, the poor thing is probably exhausted, and you're not making things much better. Go to sleep, and I'll have her out here with me for the evening."

Raven seems to pause in the midst of forming another thought, freezing in the act of planning… something, before she nods.

"I will take the third watch, then. Amber, she is in your care. Do you understand?"

The other woman waved Raven off, stating.

"As if you have to even ask. We'll be fine."

Raven pursed her lips, barely, and then she was gone, and her tent was zipping up behind her.

Amber didn't speak for a time, pressing a small roll filled with cheese and cured meat that is thick and spicy on Cinder's tongue. The girl is so cold that it tastes heavenly, even with the burning in her mouth from the heavy spices. Her lips curving must have given something away, as Amber laughs gently.

"Like it, huh? That's Valean salami, a cured meat made from animals and preserved using a special mixture. I get the milder ones, but I'm sure the hotter ones are more to Raven's preference."

Amber pauses for a brief moment. Before she asks, gently.

"How did you end up with Raven? Did she really rescue you from a ruined village that kept you as a slave? Or is Raven being paranoid about an old friend's intentions?"

Cinder isn't sure how to reply, at least, not at first, does she lie and say that it is exactly as Raven said? Or does she-

"Please don't lie to me, I'm very good at sniffing them out, and I'd really hate to have to interrogate you or Raven."

Her tone is perfectly polite, perfectly friendly, and yet… Cinder freezes as it plays across her face and ears. Something isn't right, something that tells the girl that while she cannot possibly tell the full truth, as Raven has hidden Summer's involvement, she might have to tell the partial truth.

Raven had been good for her, in the past few days she'd fed Cinder everything she wanted, she'd given her so much food the girl had almost felt fit to burst and pop, and yet she'd also let her sleep, trained her, and even praised her for a job well done on multiple occasions. She couldn't betray that. She didn't trust Raven yet, but she absolutely didn't trust Amber, who wore a smile that was strange precisely because-

That was it! Cinder realizes with a sudden burst of inspiration. Amber is a poor woman's replica of Summer. Summer cared, and was genuine about it, she knew damned well what she said and what she meant, and while she had a streak of viciousness that Cinder thinks would have given even Amber and Raven pause… this woman was different.

Amber is kind, yes, but she is not genuine. She does not quite care about Cinder as much as she wants Cinder and Raven to believe she does. More to that point, she is far, far less experienced in hiding her emotions and hiding that lack of caring from others.

Then… what does she want?
"Well? I'm waiting, little one."

Cinder freezes up, her internal thought process interrupted abruptly as Amber turns those fearsome chips of gemstones she calls eyes on her.

"Raven saved my life. I was a slave to those in Atlas. She saved me from them."

Amber smiles, closing her eyes.

"That lines up with what I was told by Captain Ironwood. Seems she didn't kidnap you then, right?"

Cinder rapidly shakes her head. Eyes wide and frightened, and just then, Amber lets out a simple sigh and seems to almost… deflate, visibly.

"Good. Eugh. I hate politics."

Cinder stands up, looking at the huntress, who for all intents and purposes, is doing an excellent impression of someone a third of her age.

"Ummm… why do you ask? Why are you out here Miss Amber?"

Cinder isn't quite sure why she suddenly feels much more at ease, perhaps it is that Amber has stopped putting on airs that aggravate Cinder's own experience with the Madame? But Amber sits back up, knocking a bit of snow off her cape, and then smiling at Cinder, she speaks softly.

"I'm… not really sure, actually. My friend Ozpin sent me out here, he wanted me to find something he called "the temple of the old ones", then I'd be released for a time. But… I don't even really know what I'm supposed to be looking for. Then I get out here and the moment I'm in CCT range, my scroll blows up and Ozpin has me gallivanting off after an explosion in Atlas' warehouse district."

Cinder flinches.

"Yeah… I thought you and Raven had something to do with that. Something about a huntress engaging a wanted criminal and bringing the building down on him with the help of her partner. Ironwood said it was the Masque from Mistral, and that's when I knew it was Raven. Because seriously, only one huntress wears a big ole Grimm mask that's just as tacky as the creatures themselves."

Cinder looks at Amber, looks at this woman that had switched from threatening and terrifying to utterly kind and warm, and she has no idea what to do.

"Let me guess, Raven's training you to be a huntress now, right? She's going to take you with her and then ship you off to Beacon, right?"

Cinder nods, happy about her future and kicking her legs gently through the piling on snow.

"Well! Here, I'm usually pretty far from contact with everyone, but I do send letters out fairly frequently, do you know how to read and write?"

Cinder nods shyly, and Amber smiles evenly.

"Wonderful! Do you want to hear about all my crazy adventures? Tell me about what you're doing for training?"

She leaned in and whispered.

"How much Raven's driving you nuts?"

Cinder can't help it, and she giggles, the sharp, soft sound immediately getting a wide, happy smile from Amber.

"If you do, then here, if you're with Raven… hmm, the Beacon PO box should be a safe enough place."

Cinder frowns. You need full names and addresses to send things to people, right? She only knows this woman as Amber… so she'll need to ask.

"How do I reach you?"

Amber looked up from her pad of stationary and tapped her quill on her cheek.

"Mmmm, here. Let me give you this!"

She took out a sheet of that thick, heavy paper, scrawling down on it a single message.

"Amber Sustrai, Dormir Huntress Box."

This is where I'll be for the foreseeable future, so write your letters to this place, and they'll be delivered to the PO box. I'll tell you if I'm sent off to another place, and give you the Huntress box and town of wherever I'll be staying, that ok?"

Cinder nods, mutely. She can't believe her luck, not one, but two powerful huntresses, both willing to tell her where they've traveled in the case of Amber, or train her to be a huntress among the best like Raven!?

She thinks she might be in heaven if this is what heaven feels like.

A/N: Do enjoy, and there is a reveal... somewhere in here that I hope catches some of you off guard~! Comments, critiques, praise, etc give me life, and I always read them, so if you enjoy what I'm doing here, feel free to leave a comment!

 

[Ember]

Amber said her goodbyes to both Cinder and Raven the next morning, although only after extracting a promise from Cinder that she'd write to her at her next opportunity. The morning had dawned bright but cold and Amber had cheerily waved goodbye as she and her horse had headed deeper into the Atlesian forests. After Raven and Cinder herself had eaten, the girl was finally able to enjoy the Winterfruits that Amber had brought with her, and enjoy it she did.

Winterfruits, due to their proximity to geothermal pools, absorbed all sorts of nutrients and salts, this made the external layers of flesh within the multicolored, massive fruit salty. But that gave way to a gooey, incredibly sweet and sour core that in many ways was fully capable of being a meal, and Amber had given both Cinder and Raven a sack of the massive things. The two finished their breakfast, with Raven consuming a cup of coffee and taking the peel of the Winterfruit to treat her wound. Cinder didn't understand exactly what she was doing, but she understood that based on the gritted teeth and the vein bulging in Raven's neck, the process couldn't be anything but extremely painful.

It was afterwards that Raven and Cinder began to walk further towards the coast, towards the small fishing villages that could see them delivered to Argus and from there to Mistral itself. Cinder finds herself openly happy - the Winterfruit is, of course, a part of her joy, but the girl finds herself genuinely tasting the air - and enjoying the sense of freedom that pervades the two of them. It is just Raven and her, just the two of them, and just the forest, the trees, and their surroundings.

She even laughs on more than one occasion, tossing the snow into the air and watching it drift down, she is so far from Atlas that even the lights of the city can't be seen anymore and that sensation is so freeing for her. She's so far from the Glass Unicorn now that they couldn't ever find her, even if they wished to do so!

But… that thought does call another one into question, why did Raven not correct the captain when he believed she'd been kidnapped by Tyrian? Why did she not tell Ironwood that Raven had taken Cinder for her own safety? The desire to ask eventually leads to a long silence, with no real play or dancing, and it must have gotten to pale-faced Raven because the woman eventually speaks.

"What is it, little kite?"

Cinder freezes; She was trying to be discreet again, and she'd failed to be discreet and failed to focus herself elsewhere, instead staring at Raven like the nevermore they'd fought yesterday. She chooses her words carefully and finally gives in.

"Why… why didn't you tell Ironwood about me?"

Raven stops in the snow, turning her gaze to the smaller girl, and then she beckons Cinder closer to her. Raven drops to one knee, and gently cups her hand under Cinder's chin.

"Atlas' laws are unforgiving to orphans and those adopted. Madame and her descendants have power of attorney over you until the day you turn 17. That means they have control over every facet of your life. I do not wish for such a thing to occur, and Summer would not have left you behind. That, combined with your semblance and the horrific living conditions, led me to take the liberty of removing you from their grip."

Cinder stares as Raven closes something in her hands. She can feel the supple, soft nature of the pinions, and the cold, hard center of the ornament.

"I took the liberty of taking this from your former siblings right before we left to fight Tyrian. We couldn't find you but assumed you wouldn't leave this behind, especially in their care willingly. Summer wanted you to have it, and when you fled the hotel, we both assumed the worst."

Cinder looks down at the feathered ornament in her hand and tries her hardest not to cry. The beautiful, blue and black and green feathers, with a hard cut, beautiful gemstone in the center is the first thing she was given as a genuine gift that wasn't food. She remembers when Summer had pressed it into her hands, she remembers when Summer had simply shushed her protests and told her to take it as a gift of her emancipation.

"I am glad, for both her and my own sake, that we can give it back to you. Keep it close, ok?"

Cinder nods her head, shaking and stifling, and trying not to cry. She fails, eventually, as the emotions that the small piece of jewelry evokes overwhelm her mental barriers, and she finds herself sobbing into Raven's shoulders. Happy and sad, relieved and crushed, she's happy that she has this small keepsake, and yet a part of her knows with utter certainty that Summer will never return as she was.

Raven awkwardly holds her for a moment, before the older woman herself tightens her grip around Cinder, and she holds the girl tight to her, picking her up easily and continuing their trek towards the coast. Raven speaks softly, perhaps she thought Cinder wouldn't hear her, but she does.

"It's going to be ok."

Perhaps Raven thinks that Cinder won't hear the way that the older woman cries, perhaps she thinks she will think the droplets cascading from her eyes will be mistaken for snow,but as Raven cries, Cinder feels closer to her in just that moment, than she has up until this moment. Raven is a harsh woman, gruff, uncompromising, but… these moments make Cinder feel welcome, they make her feel as though the world isn't just out to get her.

It makes her feel at home, that Raven feels as though she can finally cry around Cinder. That she can finally express some of the genuine, profound, and painful loss she experienced at the hands of the scorpion faunus, Tyrian.

Tyrian. Cinder's eyes cloud, her face darkening over Raven's shoulder. She feels her lips peel back into a snarl, her sobs giving way to boiling, bubbling, powerful rage that courses through her and makes her squeeze Raven just that much more tightly. Tyrian. This was all his fault, he broke Summer, he hurt Raven, and he nearly took Cinder for some purpose she never knew of.

A part of Cinder wrenches at the realization that if she had Raven's power… she'd be able to stop such a thing from ever happening again. Raven… Raven had saved her, with Summer. Raven had lied to Captain Ironwood, and more to that degree, she'd swear by her protector. Cinder didn't know why she was so willing to defy Ironwood, even with what Raven had said, it felt to Cinder like too much risk, and she didn't like that, but… if she could lessen that risk? If she could make it easier on Raven, then… then the world would be hers. She could lessen the pain that Raven had gone through. She could see it through, and gain power, but that wasn't all, right? Raven had said that just because one was powerful, it didn't mean that they were strong… what did that mean, specifically?

Cinder speaks, her voice trembling from the tears and anger and anguish.

"You told me people who are powerful aren't strong. What did you mean?"

Raven's reply communicates a number of immediate things to Cinder.
"Power is ability, power is my ability to cut grimm down, to murder all who would oppose me, and to defeat my opponents. Strength… is different."

Her voice is strong, composed, and rich, she has stopped her tears. She is answering Cinder's questions as she carries her forwards and answers the girl's curiosity with solid, hard belief.

"Strength is the capacity to live for others over yourself. To live for those whom you care for, to live most of all for everyone you must live for. Such as your family, your friends… and your lovers."

Raven's voice catches towards the end, and Cinder realizes, that Raven and Summer weren't… just friends. She'd not truly thought about it before, but Clove and Iris had spoken of such a thing. They had always been demeaning, always dismissive of others, and the girl now understands that Raven and Summer had something akin to what her parents had. Her face colors a brilliant red as she realizes this, and the flush doesn't fade as Raven continues.

"It was Summer who taught me the difference between the two. Summer was the one who taught me what mattered most, in a strange fashion. Because, little Kite, it is not in one's capability for destruction that they rest strength. It is in their capability to love and laugh. Summer was full of laughter, and I want you to be the same, at the very least around your friends."

Cinder nods. She doesn't quite understand it, how can she? She has not had love or laughter like Raven wishes she had until… until Raven had arrived in her life. Her face was red and blushing as she realized that she'd laughed and smiled not just in front of another person. But that person had seen and acknowledged it.

Cinder is not a girl who has had much in her life. But at this moment, blushing furiously and carried across the shoulders of Raven, she genuinely, quietly realizes that she's rarely been happier than she has been with Raven.

Is that enough of a reason to keep following her? Cinder isn't sure. She doesn't want to trust Raven, she doesn't want to put herself into that position. Should she swear to herself that she'll run at the first sign of any behavior like the Madame?

She's not sure why as she even voices the thought internally, her gut twists and turns into knots. The crimson maiden lied to Ironwood for her, she lied to protect Cinder, to save her from a homelife that she hated. To save her from Iris and Clove being the ones to inherit control over her. Raven had done that for some reason that still eluded Cinder, she'd chosen to put herself into a vulnerable position. Chosen to place herself there, for… what?

"Little Kite… ask your question. You've fallen quiet again."

Cinder startles on Raven's shoulders, her legs shifting slightly as the woman looks up at her, those red eyes rolled nearly to the back of her head to meet with Cinder's eyes, even as the girl, embarrassed, flushes brilliantly.

"Why…?"

It takes a moment, and she's faltering, the sheer terror that Raven evokes, even if she's being nice right now, still courses through Cinder, and her mind is cast back to the fight, to the utter detachment on Raven's face. She'd killed before, and Cinder realized that with something akin to startle as the woman set her down on the ground.

Raven placed Cinder down gently, and yet, Cinder's hand ever so slightly grazed the woman's bare wrist as her clothing shifted and her feet hit the dirt. What she felt there terrified Cinder.

Raven was sick, her skin cold and clammy, and running under it was hot blood that was too hot against her skin, her veins looked sickly, dark purple offshoots in the blue. Her eyes widened, instantly, as Raven snatched her wrist back and quickly covered it up. The woman's tone was biting and cold, but present as she hissed.

"No need for concern. I'm fine."

But she wasn't, and that only continued to make itself apparent as Cinder slowly watched the way her impromptu caretaker moved. Raven was deeply ill, her wound continuing to bother her, weren't huntresses supposed to heal faster? Wasn't that something their aura gave them? Fast and effective healing!? Wasn't that how Atlas' prized ACE-OPS units operated? Far behind enemy lines and assigned to tasks the common soldiery never could hope to complete? Why the hell was this happening?

Was it the venom? Shouldn't aura work on venoms?

"I will be fine. His venom is merely a little longer lasting than I expected, is all."

Cinder knows at that moment, from the tightness of Raven's lips to the way she holds her side, that she is lying. She is lying to Cinder right now, just like she lied to Ironwood, trying to keep the little girl from panicking, from losing her mind in the moment, and attracting Grimm. Cinder knows on principle one person cannot be singled out in a mix of thousands. But… that was the density of population, and out here in the wilds? The only other people were whatever scouts the native populations of Atlas had, Amber, and themselves. The grimm would smell them from miles away, would sense them from so far away that they couldn't even remotely expect to hide their presence.

"What about-"

Raven cuts the girl off with an ever so slight motion, her clammy hand locking tight over Cinder's mouth as she tugs her behind the nearest pine. Cinder can feel the ground shaking under them, can feel something coming closer, and she looks at Raven with wide-eyed, utter terror in her gaze as she sees the woman's face turn grim. Something is coming, something big and nasty and Raven isn't sure she can beat it, Raven isn't sure she can fight it at all.

"Little Kite. There is a village to the north, towards the coast. Search for the red lines in the snow. Make your way there on my signal, and do not question me here, girl. You need the time."

Cinder nods, wide eyed. She feels a twist in her gut, a twist that makes an awful truth bear forwards.

Truth. Raven believes she could die here.

Truth. Raven is buying her time.

Truth. Raven is sacrificing herself for her. Just as Summer did for Raven.

Truth. Summer would disapprove of this.

Cinder shakes her head, she isn't sure how she knows that, she just does. It flashes into her head, even as she draws her half spear, the wooden edge of the pole having been filed down even further. Even more pressing was that feeling as it came closer. The steps on the ground, the vibrations radiating up and into Cinder's legs, her instincts screaming at her to run.

She turns to look at Raven, and she sees the woman's eyes light up with a purple-red, brilliant blaze. Extending her eyes outwards as if they had wings of pure flame, Raven activated her maiden powers, and all around her, nature itself seemed to pause.

Cinder watches the subtle motions, as the trees themselves lean closer to Raven, as she concentrates, and then, as she whips around to Cinder and yells.

"RUN!"

Raven is pleased to note Cinder runs instantly, and a part of her twitches at her mercy, at her willingness to lay down her life for this girl. She tells herself that she simply needs Cinder away from this place, she needs her gone, she needs her out of the blast zone of her cataclysmically powerful maiden powers.

Raven floated towards the sky, turning around the pine tree to face her enemy. The form of a trio of enormous wrath grimm, mammoths, greeted her. Raven smirked, feeling her dry, chapped lips burst and a few droplets of bitter blood meet her tongue. She mentally cursed, the poison must have progressed much further than she'd thought. If it was already circulating in enough density to be poisoning her bloodstream, she'd need more poultice, and she'd need it fast.

A shame, that these grimm had likely tracked her ward's presence by the girl's realization of just how sick Raven was. It was not a concern to the older woman, she'd survived a sucking gut wound and had a limb blown off in the past. Luckily they'd had an actual healer on hand for that one.

Her gaze turned stormy, remembering the most powerful biokinetic she'd ever encountered, a girl who smelled of pine and old stories. A woman who'd died in the mountain Glenn disaster.

The grimm could smell the tinge of sadness she felt, and Raven nods to herself, that will keep them engaged with her, and not the running footsteps of Cinder. Her little kite.

A part of her realizes it is strange to call the girl "hers" after such a short time, but the girl in some ways had been instrumental in combat, she was clearly powerful, and a survivor through and through. She was powerful, and she rang so true of just who Summer had desperately buried beneath her niceness and genuine nature.

Raven draws her blade with a flicker of energy, and she lets the storm sing through her, normal aura makes one superhuman to varying degrees, Raven herself knew her limits. But when the maidens sang with her, when the spirit of spring itself coursed through her blood, it was power and freedom like no other.

The woman flickered forwards, moving at such speed, that the piggish excuse of a brain in the mammoth's skull had split seconds to process what was happening as Raven danced around it, floating through the air and letting her blade carve its hide up like butter.

Bone plating sundered, and flesh that bled pitch parted with shrieks of agony and rage. The mammoths, all disciples of the grimm of wrath, bellowed, and for a moment, Raven is caught in that bestial, primal, murderous rage, for a moment, she indulges it, striking her blade downwards and shearing a limb clean from the mammoth in the lead of the pack. The shadowy limb quickly dissipated into a faint smog that quickly began to choke the battlefield. Rage flowed through her, the kind that had eyes bulging and muscles pumping, the kind that sang in the pit fights of Mistral, and the lynchings of Atlas. The kind that was distinctly, utterly wrong to feel running through you.

So Raven focused, and she purged it, pumping it clean from her system as her blade came up with a flick of her wrist. The mammoth that had attempted to crush her with one of its tusks found itself brutally surprised as the woman appeared with a pitter-patter of feet on the tusk itself. Raven opened her eyes and brought the fury of the storm into herself as she ran forwards. Here, she had no natural storm, no natural fury overwhelming her calm and forcing emotions to the surface, here it was just her and the song of maidens long dead.

Raven soars past one of the mammoth's, her blade drawing a line through its flank, she's breathing hard, the massive creature regenerating its limb and closing the wounds on its flank as it turns to regard her with something coming close to burgeoning respect.

Then its mask cracked, and Raven grimaced as the tusks began to sprout barbs.

Shit. Alpha.

Grimm evolved as they aged, every hunter knew that, and the most dangerous were the alphas, but those alphas were uncommon at worst and typically extremely rare at best. This one must have just hit its threshold.

Raven twists to one side, but she's not fast enough to evade the blow as the two compatriots of the alpha announce their return to the battle with renewed vigor, and cruel, tortuous intelligence behind their eyes.

Alpha's made other grimm smarter. But in what way was specific to the emotion of the alpha? Dread made them more cunning, Obsession made them better stalkers, but Wrath… Wrath made them better combat thinkers.

Raven hated Wrath alphas.

Her form shattered a pine tree as she was slammed through it, and yet, even as she landed she was rolling to the side, a heavy mammoth tusk slamming into where her body was laying not a second earlier.

This fight had just gotten far, far more dangerous. Wrath alphas were directly as dangerous as the beast they'd formed from. Mammoths, already being strong grimm on their own, grew immensely more deadly in a pack, and even more so when led by an alpha.

There was a reason the standard issue solution for them was a flyby by a cruiser class vessel in Atlas' navy.

There was an equally good reason such things were overseen by a team of 12 or more huntresses and huntsmen.

Raven grimaced as the tree she'd rolled next to, exploded into a cloud of splintered bark and sap-drowned wood. The debris caked her face as her blade parried the second tusk, shearing part of it off, part of it that rapidly began to crackle and reform.

"Dammit Qrow. Fucking semblance."

Raven leapt backward and cast a brief glance over her shoulder, a thin upturn of lips saw Cinder running like a pack of hellhounds was after her.

That upturn of lips rapidly turned into a frown as Raven noted the shadows stalking Cinder, three, juvenile Beowulf. The experienced huntress's eyes narrow, even as she leaps upwards into the air, only to realize approximately 3 seconds later why that was a terrible idea.

The alpha had thrown a tree at her.

Raven was not an Atlesian cruiser, covered by meters-thick armor plating and hardlight shields. She did not have an array of point defense guns capable of shredding such a thing, so instead, she focused her aura and the storm forwards, charging said aura with an electrical discharge powerful enough to emulate lightning.

It was not enough.

The sheer kinetic force shredded aura and then cut into the flesh beneath it with abandon, even as Raven's aura flickered brightly, absorbing the impact, even after discharging the blast of pure lightning forwards, even after it blew through a section of the trunk, the woman still took the hit.

Raven smashed back first into a tree, luckily, this time she smashed through the bark, and was able to get enough of a handle on herself that she could float free, slowing her velocity and searching for the-

Another tree, torn from the earth and hurled through the air. This one aimed at where it thought she was moving.

Unluckily for the alpha, Raven had already moved there, and this time, her blade flicked up on time and she cut the lump of timber in half with a blow from Omen that send the flaming tree towards the earth at speed.

Gritting her teeth, Raven could feel the rage beginning to course through her again, and it took conscious effort, mixed with frantic dashes in midair to temper that boiling anger down. It took enough effort that she genuinely struggled to control that rage, enough effort that she took another glancing hit from the tusks of the mammoth as she dove back under the treetops to duel it once more.

She'd kill them, she had to do so.


Cinder ran, her footsteps picking up the pace, her eyes finding the places that wouldn't doom her to a nasty fall and a quick death at the hands of the stalking beowulf. She'd seen them the moment she'd broken free of the tree cover, three, young, from Raven's lessons on the creatures, their bone spikes still dulled near the tips, and the red glow in their eyes was tinged with more orange than the deep crimson they would have if they aged significantly.

Cinder ducked behind a rock, drawing her spear, and remembering Raven's muttered lessons over the fire the past few nights.

Beowulf hunted via scent in close proximity, and the same emotion sensing powers in long range. They were drawn most strongly to intense hunger, which was not necessarily hunger for food. It could be a hunger for anything.

They were associated with greed, and they fed off of the gluttony of their kills. The larger the kills hunger, the stronger the beowulf got from feeding on it. They were also fiercely territorial and subordinate to the strongest in the pack. There were three in this pack, and one was larger… it must have fed recently. A thought confirmed when the wind changed and the rank scent hit Cinder like a bus.

It had fed very, very recently. Within the last day, if she had to guess. Which spelled disastrous thoughts for the village Raven had sent her to find.

But. That emotion gave her clarity, she could think. Her lust for power, her greed, would attract them close enough, that would beacon for the young one to reach her. It would be its undoing.

Cinder concentrated on her wants for power, on how it would have felt to have what Raven had, even now, a peal of thunder and crackling wood shattered the air behind her at the forest's edge. On how freeing it would have been, how much she want-

That was enough, the claws curled around the rock, and Cinder struck. She drew on the semblance, drew on the power, and forced it into the head of the spear.

This time, rather than a concentrated object, she'd wanted heat, and fast. The spear levelled forwards and pierced deep into the shadowy flesh of the beowulf.

It screamed, and Cinder leaped forwards and ran for it. She only barely made out something else over the baleful howling.

A high pitched whine.

That was odd… why was…?

Her eyes widened, the flour in the kitchen, the spark!

Cinder threw herself down, hands rushing to cover her ears.

The loud, shrieking POP announced the detonation of the spearhead. The girl turning back to gaze, with ringing ears, at the remnants of the three beowulf.

One of them twitched, half its side dismantled and left as an exposed mess of shadowy flesh and bone.

The others had simply, ceased to exist.

There was nothing left. Cinder realized as the one that had appeared to survive began to dissipate into the wind.

She cast her gaze back to the forest, and as she took a step forwards, searing, blinding, raging pain soared from her stomach outwards. She fell, her legs turning to jelly instantly, snapping out from under her as she fought to keep her stomach's contents inside her.

A faint gaze at her wrists and arms saw black lines twisting across her flesh, lines of blazing, burning agony that had her jamming her arms into the snow.

She'd burned herself… how was that possi-

The steam from the area, from the detonation of the spear.

Cinder realizes, in that exact moment, why Raven wants her to never use her semblance.

She is immune to the heat, she is immune to the generation, but she is hardly immune to the superheated air currents, the steam, and the side effects. Once such things made contact with her skin, they instantly burned her, because she lacked aura to protect herself.

It made sense now, but it deeply hurt to know that she'd failed once more because of her sheer arrogance. Cinder's confidence in her power, in that knowledge that it would never hurt her directly had been her undoing. The lines that traced her arms, cut deep into her flesh, burned deep into the skin carved her like a butcher's roast.

She had to keep going, had to keep going more, even if the village was dead, there might- no, there had to be medicine there. She could see the faint wisps of smoke rising now, deep in the forests to the north, she could sense the warmth she might find there.

So Cinder picked herself up, ignored the rivulets of blood that ran over her burned arms, and she ran as hard as she could.


Raven flinches sharply as the first of the mammoths falls to its final stand. Omen poised, she delivers the final strike, and the mammoth shudders briefly as Omen ignites the traces of fire dust left behind in the creature's shadowy, patchwork flesh. The tracework lines ignited at once, burning and blazing thousands of paths through the creature, faster than it could regenerate even next to its alpha.

The mammoth collapsed into burned lumps of rapidly desiccating flesh. Raven grimaced at the smell and leaped upwards and above the next Mammoth as it charged into that faint, openly present clearing that she'd lured the first one to.

The second one was damaged, trails of ice and fire dust emblazoned into its flesh that she'd activated too early. But it was slowing it down, slowing it down enough that as the tusks came for her once more, Raven bit down and danced to the left, letting the maidens sing with her, and wincing as she felt the slow, careful siphoning of memory away. She no longer remembered what Qrow's bread pudding tasted like.

Dammit.

The maiden, the performer of spring, and the warrior of the fresh rain and new growth stood tall and leveled her weapon at the charging mammoth. A manic, wild grin formed on her face, and she charged forwards, the blade drawn from Omen's sheathe was a brilliant, viridian green, and as it cut into the grimm, Raven bit down hard enough on her lip to taste blood. Her blade tore free with the tinkling sound of glass breaking, and Raven turned, breathing heavily, to see the second one rapidly fighting against an onset of massive rose vines covered in thorns larger than her head.

"Poor dumb creature. Still weak and pathetic, even with your alpha's help."

Raven's voice held nothing but cold, calculating viciousness as her blade severed the Mammoth's head from its body with a fire dust blade. The brilliant flare of flame scourges it, preventing even the semblance of regeneration from taking hold of its now rapidly disintegrating corpse.

The alpha's trumpeting roar sounded over the trees, and Raven ducked behind one of them, hand clasped to the wound that had reopened in her side. She could feel the warmth cascading down to her hips, and deeper, dying the dark fabric of her long underwear scarlet and black. She lifted Omen, realizing the blade itself felt much, much heavier than it had any true right to feel. The massive weapon wasn't heavy, gravity dust crystals, cut and refracted, had lowered its mass a long time ago, and yet now it felt as though it was as heavy as the day Summer had passed it to her, all those years ago in Beacon.

She smiled at the memory, that grin widening as the furious roaring of the alpha rapidly grew. If there was one thing hunting grimm hated more than anything, it was any expression of positivity in the fight. So Raven focused on that memory, she remembered everything about that day, from the smudges of soot and faint burns on Summer's arms, to the beautiful shape of the sheathe and the dust blades, to her lover's brilliant gaze as she and Tai stared at Raven with something akin to pride.

The alpha charged her tree, and Raven moved.

She didn't call the Maiden's powers, she could have used them, but they threatened to tear more of who she was away in their song, and from the way, Amber had spoken and looked, Raven shuddered to think of the implications.

Control had been the most important lesson in using the powers of the maiden, Raven's powers manifested like a song, a chorus of every prior maiden before her singing as one. It was all she could do to not be swept away utterly by the tide of such voices.

As she leaped away, the alpha mammoth charging through the tree and once more reducing the bark to so many splinters, Raven flicked her blade out and threw her aura into the center of that ice-cold length of metal and dust.

She felt the sword pulse once and then swept it out in a long, defiant strike at the mammoth. The dust blade vibrated once, and then it detonated in a curving spray of ice and shards, leaving naught but the thin metal core behind.

This time, the roar from the alpha was exhausted and panting, ice dogged its''s flesh, sunken into barbed shapes so vicious Raven almost winced, but instead, she was resheathing Omen and twisting to the side to avoid the blind retaliation from the mammoth's tusks that would have crushed her chest into bloody paste.

Omen clicked and whirred, and Raven felt the weight change as a deep purple and black dust blade locked into the hilt, she ducked and whirled, the tusks of the massive Alpha whistling over her head as she let her arms draw Omen cleanly and then, then she darted forwards and slammed the blade deep.

Nominally, Alpha grimm had bone plating thick enough to flat-out nullify edged blades.

Nominally, what Raven had just done was suicide.

Had she been in Beacon, Summer would have slapped her.

She was not in Beacon, she was not suicidal, and she wasn't using a normal blade.

Omen's customized, gravity dust blade sheared through bone plating, punched deep into the guts of the alpha, and then, with an ominous whine, the blade began the creature's execution.

So much for keeping a low profile and running from Ironwood's spies.

Raven darted away, planting her feet forwards and shoving as hard as she could as Omen detached the blade and retracted into her sheath. Raven ran because she knew what would come next.

Gravity dust, manipulation of density and the force that kept them anchored, and the most utterly dangerous if left uncontained.

She barely made it out of the trees in time as the whine reached a crescendo and then, the shattering sound of broken glass greeted her as with a final, animalistic scream , the mammoth died.

Raven has barely enough time to throw herself into the snow as a second sun momentarily blooms from within the forest. Barely enough time to cover her ears after plugging them, barely enough time to slam her entire body 3 feet deep into a snowdrift pile.

She hopes Cinder has gotten far enough away, or all of this will be for nothing.


Cinder feels the wave of pressure hit her first, causing her ears to snap and pop, then a wave of scorching, searing heat runs over her and knocks the wind from her lungs. The girl half turns towards the forest, before every single instinct she has screams at her to throw herself down.

Cinder obeys and only catches a glimpse of the second sun blooming in the forests of Atlas before she sees the wave of fire and buries her head into the snow. She's screaming, she knows she's screaming, but as the flames wash over her and cool air blesses her blistered, sunburned skin, she staggers to her feet and sees a 50 foot expanse of forest, utterly devastated. In the dead center is, for the briefest of moments, a flicker of pure darkness, and then it's gone, and Cinder can see that a form is straightening up and standing up.

Raven, Cinder knows, and her feet immediately move towards the other woman, running and running and tearing up the snowpack around her as she tears into the woman's side at speed and melts into her grip.

She isn't sure when she started crying, or how Raven's hugging her tight and close, but she's happy, she's relieved and feeling the sheer rush of survival. Because once more, Raven has survived something that should have killed her.

The crimson maiden looks down at Cinder with exhaustion and care in equal measure, her arm resting securely on Cinder's shoulders and tugging her in close. Then, she speaks, and her words chill Cinder to the bone.

"We are being stalked by the man who killed Summer."

Cinder wants to panic at that moment, and she doesn't understand why he hasn't struck out at them, and once more, it is Raven who answers her questions, the woman's tone firm and gentle.

"He sends Grimm after us, he chooses to make me waste my most potent weapons, blunting my claws before he closes for the kill. We must reach the village."

She nods to the plumes of fire smoke in the distance, and Cinder doesn't have the heart to tell her that she's fairly sure that the village has been overrun and killed by the Grimm. Instead, she clings tight to Raven's hand and lets the other woman walk with her.

She turns to the forest once more, and Raven dryly chuckles.

"A powerful weapon, but ineffective and spares no thought for allies. It merely tears apart anything it is embedded into."

She gestures to the massive blade, and Cinder sees that the mechanisms on the blade are fouled, twisted, and stretched in a form that cannot be natural. Raven herself chooses to simply grimace.

"Gravity dust."

As if that explained what Cinder had just witnessed. She shoots a look that clearly communicates that she feels, and stifles a pained expression when Raven's good-natured chuckling turns quickly into pained coughing, the woman reaching for her stomach.

She's even paler now.

Cinder frowns, but Raven distracts her, scooping the girl up and placing her on her shoulders, and beginning to speak about it.

"Gravity dust is inherently unstable in crystal form. If you bind it to metal that instability can be held in a form of stasis, like ice, that prevents it from doing what you just witnessed. But… the moment that seal is broken, it begins to tear itself and everything around it apart."

Raven points to the twisted, pulled, and stretched mechanisms of the blade's hilt, and Cinder can see where the delicate mechanisms twist, the girl pulls her own spear from her pack, the hilt now little more than splintered and charred wood, even as Raven points to her arms.

"Semblance, hmm?"

Cinder nods, the woman turning her gaze to Raven's own injuries, which mark her form in the twisted and cut segments of cloth, hastily tied around deep bruising and likely shattered bone. Cinder flinches at the realization that Raven's arm hangs limp at one side, and her left leg moves stiffly and slower than it had priorly. She makes a move to get down, trying to slide free from Raven's shoulders, only for the warrior to lock her back up there with a grip like iron before she spoke.

"You remind me of Summer."

Cinder flinches, and Raven continues, unabated.

"You ask me why I do all of this for you, why I saved you, why I took you with me, why I fought an alpha grimm for you."

Raven looks up at her.

"Because you remind me of Summer, and her last request was to keep you safe. To keep you out of harm's way."

Cinder does not have words for such a thing. But she flinches anyway, as Raven's tone darts lower, into octaves of danger.

"I swore to fulfill her requests, and she was the closest person to me next to the father of my child. I won- I can't leave another behind."

Cinder raises an eyebrow, and Raven, as if sensing it, sighs.

"Yes. I did something awful, I will never forgive myself for it."

Cinder's mind conjures a question, shoving it forward.

What if she did?

But the girl does not speak, only listens as Raven continues to tell her stories. Tell her stories of Raven and Summer in their youth, how the girl had been shy and wary, how she'd been terrified of her bloodthirst, and how Raven had been in her own words "prickly" and difficult to get along with.

How she'd felt so insulted by the shy, weakling's presence that she'd resolved to push her to the breaking point.

And when that breaking point had come, how Raven had lost so badly it was the talk of their entire class. How her rating in the classes combat scores had sharply dipped to 4th place overnight.

Cinder doesn't even truly remember when she falls asleep in the woman's arms, only that she does.

A/N: Grimm are far, far more dangerous in this setting, especially with an alpha present~!

Anyways! Comments and the like fuel me, have a lovely morning dear readers.

 

[Ember]

CW: Extreme injuries, depiction of infected wounds.

"Little Kite, wake up."

Raven's cold voice startles Cinder awake, and the girl straightens up atop Raven's shoulders, her nose twitching as the acrid, awful smell of smoke hits it. Cinder feels the blood drain from her face, and she gazes upon what must have once been a prosperous fishing village. Now, it is no more, the walls of the village lie in ruins and shattered wood, and many of the houses have been put to flame. Cinder can see very little still standing, and the fetid warmth of the air and stench of burning flesh fills the environment with a potent Miasma.

Raven staggers, and Cinder, losing her balance, falls from the woman's back, landing on the balls of her feet and staggering backward, her caretaker falling to one knee in the snow and coughing heavily.

Cinder is running as soon as she gets her balance back, darting to Raven's side as the woman coughs, hard. When she pulls her glove away, Cinder can see dark ichor drip from her palm down onto the snow, dying it a dark shade of red mixed with black.

"Raven!"

The girl practically screams, searching her surroundings as Raven finally leans down, panting and hacking as her lungs spasm in her chest. She tries to reassure Cinder, but her arm is so weak that it slides from the girl's coat and is hastily used to prop herself up, another fit shaking her body like a leaf.

Cinder casts her eyes everywhere, past the bodies, past the decay, the death, and the dying embers. Until her eyes meet with a house that seems to have escaped the worst of the destruction. The girl dashes for it, using her training to the fullest. She covers the distance in seconds that feel like minutes, and using the little remains of her spear, slams the door open.

Cinder doesn't care when the spear splinters around her grip, she doesn't care when she nearly trips over something in the room, doesn't care when the bile rises in her throat at the realization of the body, hastily covered by a tarp. The only thing that matters is Raven right now, and Cinder has to find something, anything she can use!

The house is squat, square, a large, central room, occupied by a single person, perhaps two, Cinder notes the kitchen, located around the central hearth, and the bed placed close to the fireplace, heaped high with thick, insulating blankets. She doesn't have time to be picky, and thus, tears out into the snow once more, running for Raven's position.

Raven is even worse, now, the woman's strength seems to have fled her utterly, and Cinder is staring at her as she retches and vomits blood from her mouth, tears of the same crimson pouring from her eyes.

"L-li-little, ki-kit-kite."

Her voice is so weak that it almost shatters Cinder's mind from hearing it, and the girl moves without thinking. She slings Raven's arm up and over her shoulder, and she begins to haul Raven towards the house.

The weight is almost backbreaking, Cinder struggles and strains desperately, she is stronger than she was, and a good diet and serious exercise have helped, but Cinder is not strong enough to haul Raven singlehandedly.

Which makes it excellent when her body, catching up to her desperate need, floods her with adrenaline. Cinder grits her teeth and strains, tugging and hauling Raven forwards, desperately trying to get her to the house.

She makes it all of 60 feet before her arms scream in pain so badly that she's forced to drop Raven. The woman flopping to the ground in a manner that is so disturbingly lifeless that Cinder almost sobs, her eyes pricking with tears. She cannot survive on her own, Raven has to survive, Raven has to live, she has to. It's Cinder's only hope for getting out of this awful place.

Her mind moves rapidly, considering how she can get the woman into bed, into the cabin, into the warmth, and out of the cold.

Cinder strips off her thick overcoat, laying it over Raven's badly damaged outerwear, she turns her gaze to the gates of the village, maybe… she can't pick up or carry Raven, but she could drag her.

Cinder's eyes narrow and she runs back to Raven's side, the girl leans down to the massive, heavy sheathe at the woman's side, and she puts her tiny hands on it, and begins to detach it from Raven's belt.

It says something to Cinder's panicking mind that Raven can't even sum up the effort to stop her as she pulls the sheathe from the other woman's belt. It says something even worse that she collapses into the coat, shivering and shaking as soon as Cinder throws it over her.

Cinder doesn't have time to speculate. The cold is setting in, and night is falling. By the sun's current position, Cinder has less than 10 minutes to get Raven inside, and herself, or they will both die.

The girl twists the scabbard, divesting it of dozens of the blades of dust, she grimaces and winces, but quickly pulls a steel blade from within it. Her hands clench tightly, the burns tracing her arms hurting something horrific, but she wraps the blade in a blanket and her gloves, hoping that the razor edge is dull enough near the handle that it won't cut her hands off when she tries to cut through a section of the collapsed wall.

It's a wooden, twig construction, overlapping layers of pitch layered wood and wax poured over the whole thing to make it waterproof. Cinder inspects it carefully, the outer layers are marked with claw marks and teeth, beowulf, cut their way in. Luckily for her, they severed more than a few pieces large enough for her purposes.

Cinder raises the blade, almost overbalancing as the telescoping blade extends to its maximum reach and range. For a moment, her brain is mildly distracted with why Raven uses such an unwieldy weapon.

"Not the time, Cinder!"

Then, she drops the sword down, holding it tight as the razor edge shears through the outer wall, lopping off a lump of log that is just about the size of Cinder herself. She inspects the pitch and wax covered lump of wood, it will have to do, she needs one more.

The girl drags the sheathe and the swords, along with the log section back to Raven's prone, shivering form, a quick check of the horizon revealed she'd taken too long. They had minutes at best.

Cinder turns frantically, inspecting the surroundings, the girl's eyes land on a shattered spear, and the sigh of pure relief that bursts from her chest at that sight is audible. She moves fast, darting to the spear, shimmying out of her undercoat and lashing, frantically wrapping the coat and torn fabric from Raven's own coat around the log and the spear.

It won't hold up, but that's fine. Cinder just needs it to hold up long enough for her to get to the house.

Adrenaline rushing through her, Cinder rolls the shivering woman onto her impromptu sled, and then, muscles tense, she wraps her chilled fingers around the front of the sled and begins to haul it with every fibre of her body.

For one, single, heartstopping moment, Raven and the sled don't move, and then Cinder's pulling harder and harder, and Raven's finally sliding across the snow as Cinder hauls her towards the cabin. The dusk is beginning to fall in earnest now, and Cinder can see her breath freezing over, she shivers. She's down to just her tunic, and that's not enough for this tundra, she knows this. But it's either that or let Raven die.

She will not let Raven die.

So Cinder grits her teeth and pushes her straining muscles further, even further, and she keeps going until she's dragging Raven up the stoop of the cabin, dragging her until the fabric tears so badly that Cinder can't use the sled anymore.

The girl hauls her guardian into the house, desperately struggling to get her into the bed. Raven twitches in pain, she's still sobbing, her tears colored the pink of Madame's favorite wines. Cinder realizes its blood, and the girl thinks back to the limited, faint knowledge of medicine she's able to know.

She flushes brilliantly, she'll have to strip Raven, and rebandage the wounds on the woman with fresh bandages.

First… fire.

Cinder turns to the hearth, and lets out a deep, relieved breath. A stack of fresh firewood sits next to the central hearth, embers faintly lick at the dying remains of a prior fire.

It takes all Cinder can to not just throw logs into the fireplace, but… no. This is an emergency.

Cinder looks at her arms, and then around the cabin. She'll have to use the semblance again, she'll have to get it done.

She doesn't have a choice anymore.

The girl heaps a pair of thick, central logs into the fire, and then, she raises her arm and drags one of the fire mits over to it. Concentrating, Cinder reaches into her chest and pulls on that string of power, she pulls it out as the emotions of worry and relief mix.

A pulse, and a fire is crackling in the hearth as the heat leaves her. Cinder sits down, catching her breath and turning her gaze to look at Raven. She'd love to take pride in not burning herself with her semblance, but the worst is yet to come.

She's going to have to dress Raven's wounds.

She's going to need boiling water, and the winterfruits.

Cinder forces her exhausted body to move, forces herself to run, and she darts first to the form of Raven, quick to check her over, then towards the door, only to stop cold as she looks outside.

A full blizzard has descended over the small village, and Cinder knows that to go outside would be utter suicide. The temperatures are so cold she can see icicles forming in real time as darkness sets in around the cabin. Her eyes temper back, turning away from outside and looking back to Raven, who shivers under the blankets and coats.

Cinder grits her teeth, moving to the hearth and stove, and she rummages about in the cabinets, searching carefully and as quietly as she can for a pot.

She finds what she's looking for under the stove, hauling out an enormous stock pot. She searches carefully, looking over the room and taking stock of her options. The room is wide and open, barrels of something, possibly water in one corner, this place was well stocked for the winter, and that's a lucky, very lucky thing. Cinder can't delay, however, and forces her aching, screaming arms and legs to move, she has to get Raven treated, has to get her bandaged and into a spot where she can heal.

So… she rushes to the barrels, the first one is immediately irrelevant, full of some kind of oil, likely used for the lamps around the home. Not applicable here, Cinder instead moving to the second of three, this one contains flour, a thick cloud of the stuff hits her nose and lungs, and she coughs for a moment.

Was there no water? Did she have to tempt fate by opening that door to the blizzard outside? How long would it take for it to melt? For her to recover enough to warm up?

Her stomach growled, and Cinder shoved hunger away as she hesitantly lifted the lid on the third barrel.

Relief. Crystal clear, deep blue in the low light, water stares back at her, and Cinder hauls the stock pot up and into the barrel. Water splashes onto her tunic, but Cinder can't focus on that, instead, she drags herself to the hearth, the heavy thunking of the pot dragging on the ground behind her.

The stove of the cabin is wood powered, linked to the central hearth, and Cinder, luckily, doesn't have to figure out how it works, its identical to the one in her room. She throws the pot onto the stove and moves towards the boxes and the like that lie in the room. Medical supplies are carried by Raven, but Cinder isn't sure how much of them survived from the attacks on both of them. She'll have to make do, for the moment.

She thinks back, trying to remember what little she knows of how to treat wounds, and searching the cabin at the same time. Boxes are tumbled over, fabric and clothing strewn across the floor as Cinder looks through everything. She cannot think about Raven's shuddering, indistinct breaths, nor can she think about how the woman was crying blood, she's terrified, but… has to keep pushing.

More boxes tumble down, and then, finally, Cinder spots a faint blue fabric container, emblazoned prominently is the caduceus staff of Atlas Medical. She sighs from relief, hauling it towards the fire and the light, and unzipping it.

Bandages, cloth, jars of unknown fluid, and syrettes and syringes. Enough for her purposes.

Cinder grabs the bandages first, and only then realizes that her hands are covered in blood and dirt from earlier. While boiling the water will fix that issue, she can't treat Raven using her hands at the moment. So, instead, she searches the kit once more, and that kit doesn't fail to provide. Sanitizers and cleaning cloths are torn open and used, and Cinder grits her teeth and closes her tear filled eyes at the sting of antiseptic on open burns. Then, her hands are wrapping her forearms and hands in bandages as quickly as she can.

Every minute burned, every second, Cinder is trying but she's not fast enough, until her eyes land on a small packet inside of the medical kit.

Antivenom.

The packet is empty, but Cinder notes that the kit itself is very new, too many sealed products… could this have been from Amber? Did she carry things to trade? If so… the antitoxin had to be around here somewhere.

Her brain works a mile a minute, even as she finishes bandaging her arms and moves to attend to Raven. Still, where was that antitoxin? Where had it been placed?

Her hand draws the knife, and she rolls Raven over onto her back, then she starts her work.

Cutting away strips of fabric from Raven's torso, she winces and stifles a hiss as she sees just how bad Raven is.

Her upper chest is covered in bruises and light lacerations, so much so that Raven's natural light complexion has darkened to a purple, as she shallowly breathes, Cinder notes, with horrified fascination, the way one of her ribs shifts visibly to one side with each rise and fall.

She has to stifle her throat, feeling bile rise up at the horrified look at the woman's bones. Raven's left arm is clearly broken, limply flopping around, and Cinder can't fix that, she can bandage the woman's wounds, and suspend the arm somewhere in the hopes it won't get worse. But the ribs are beyond her ability to heal, beyond her ability to fix.

She wipes Raven's face off with a clean cloth, and startles when the woman draws in a ragged breath, she continues to cut the cloth off, until Raven is fully exposed, and shivering.

Cinder rolls out a thick, fluffy, dry towel from the pile of fabrics, its not quite as long as Raven, but as Cinder begins to clean the woman's wounds, being as gentle as she can, even as Raven releases an awful, animal moan when the girl's fingers lightly grace over the shattered rib's location.

She has to keep going, has to keep it up.

She pushes and pushes and Raven screams as her unbroken arm is trapped beneath her for a moment, her eyes opening blearily and unfocused as she looks at Cinder.

"Sum-Summer?"

Raven's staring at Cinder as she hurriedly works, her voice so feeble and faint that the young girl doesn't process what she's just heard for a moment, until… it sinks in, and suddenly Cinder is staring at Raven as the older woman cups her cheek and sobs.

"I-I'm-I'm sorry…"

Her apology falls on Cinder's head, and the girl takes an astonishing measure of comfort in the way Raven's hurt hand rests against her cheek, but then, she coughs, and Cinder remembers she has a job to do.

Out comes the knife, and it begins to cut away fabric that comes away from Raven's back stained with blood and dark ichor. Cinder starts bandaging the wounds on her back, stifling another horrified gasp as she peels away the deep stab wound's exit bandages.

Tyrian had punctured clean through the left side of Raven, and while it's clear that her aura has done most of the heavy lifting, it still has Cinder staggering to a broken bucket in one corner.

She evacuates her guts, and her mind tries to curse her out, there's a brief moment where she thinks that Madame never had to do anything like this, Clove and Iris might eventually, but only out in the wilds.

But her will is strong. If she does not move, Raven will die. She has a task, and so, feeling nauseous and staggering, she returns to the wounded woman, and begins to wrap and address the deep lacerations from tree bark on the woman's back.

On more than one occasion, Cinder has to pull pieces of bark, sticky with sap from Raven's wounds, then pour rubbing alcohol onto her bandages before she presses them into the wounds.

It takes hours.

But she makes it work.

Cinder isn't sure what time it is when she finishes. She isn't sure of much, beyond the fact that Raven looks like a mummy out of halloween, every limb covered in white bandages, and it is only then, as Cinder advances to the icebox, opening it, that she genuinely sobs from pure relief.

Even as she'd treated Raven, a part of Cinder had known that if she didn't get some antivenom into the woman, she would die. That poison had run rampant through her body, and Cinder had begun to resolve herself, to accept that she would die here.

Until she opened the ice box, storing food and meat, and found a trio of small, syringe laden packages.

All three were antivenom, all three had different symbols, and Cinder thinks back to the fight against Tyrian, no fangs, she discarded the snake vial. No spider-like features, the spider one went back into the ice box a moment later.

The tail was a scorpion's tail.

Her shaking fingers tore open the packaging, and she shakily approached Raven's still form.

With a push of her thumb, the injector goes down. The liquid, pale yellow, vanishes into Raven's body.

Now… Cinder just has to wait.

She reflects, hours into the night, as another log is heaped onto the small fire, that the worst part is the waiting, Cinder glares. She's staring at the fire, the tiredness seeping into her bones. Unable to rest until daylight, when the storm will break and they are no longer in danger of freezing to death.

Why… why is she so certain Raven will make it? The woman is in a bad way, and while wiping away the blood streaming from her eyes and mouth and nose had been at the very least something to do. She'd stopped bleeding 30 minutes previously. Is that a good sign? Or did she just not have enough blood remaining to bleed it? That sounded terrible to Cinder, and the girl hauled herself up and moved to check on Raven after a moment.

The woman is breathing deeply, much more deeply now, and her aura rapidly flickers on and off as Cinder approaches her, small popping and crackling noises jumping from her prone form to Cinder's fingers when she touches her.

The sparks feel almost like Raven does, to Cinder. She's stormy, composed and concentrated, but… warm under it.

The woman's breathing has recovered, it's shallow but quite a relief for Cinder as the woman turns to one side and exhales comfortably.

Raven is sleeping soundly, and that's enough for Cinder at this moment, that's enough for her for the rest of the night. The girl makes it back to the fire, just in time to heap a few more logs onto it, and then, she stares into those beautiful orange flames and she thinks.

Raven survived. She survived. They'd beaten the odds. She'd continue to do so as long as she could, and nothing would stop her from that.

Raven would have to survive. It was that simple, so Cinder would make her survive. She'd force the woman to keep going as long as she could, and if she couldn't?

Then Cinder would just have to carry her.

The girl stayed awake, she kept her vigil until the early rays of dawn reached her, one final check revealed that Raven was still sleeping peacefully, and Cinder curls up on the floor in front of the fireplace, she's found more blankets in her many hours awake, and now covers and wraps herself utterly in them.

In that warm cocoon, Cinder passed out and dreamed of a better world.

She floated on a flowerbed, the petals caressing her toes and the like, the soft brushes against the soles of her feet and skin.

She sets herself down, staring across the field, staring at Raven, who's turned away from her. Here, Raven is healed, here she is whole and complete, and here she is turning to Cinder and opening her arms, and Cinder is running and jumping and landing in her arms and she is safe and warm, and the world is right again.

Cinder stirs in the late afternoon, based on the position of the sun, a quick, wary inspection of the cabin revealed Raven's presence, the woman rolling over briefly, then muttering something, before going back to sleep.

Cinder feels her lips quirk up, an approximation of a smile earnestly breaking her face into a grin.

The first thing she does when she rolls from her bed is check her bandages, her skin, especially on her arms, was badly burned from her semblance. She'll need to change them, preferably with clean water. Luckily, the pot from last night has plenty left, so as the brisk air firms up Cinder's muscles and pushes her to move, she focuses all her efforts on getting boiling water first, then inspecting the pile of clothes she left haphazardly spread across the floor before she passed out last night.

The water boils away while Cinder idly hums and stretches out the fabric on several winter coats and long underwear pairs. They smell of sweat and Raven and herself, and… lots of blood, but they're wearable and dry.

They'll have to work, for now.

The girl waits until the water's been boiled, then soaks a fresh roll of bandage from the medical kit in the boiled water until she's sure anything nasty's been boiled away.

Then she peels back the bandages and wrinkles her nose as the stench of pus hits her.

The hastily applied bandages weren't great, and she was paying for her hubris now.

Cinder looks at the medical kit, hurting fingers prying a small vial marked "antiseptic" from within a pocket, she flinches, knowing how much it is about to sting, but knowing that she has no choice.

Swiftly, she holds her mouth shut and squeezes a small flow of antiseptic onto her right arm, then has to breathe in and out heavily as the fluid stings and painfully scourges her wounds clean of the infections that had been already prepared to run rampant.

One arm down. One more to go.

She flips the hand holding the antiseptic, and repeats the process, once again gritting her teeth and bearing the pain as it rushes through her.

Then, she's wrapping her burns in bandages and then a layer of gauze to hold the bandages in place should she be moving. Cinder makes certain to tie them off just like how Raven showed her for the climbing. She knows other knots, but if this one can hold her entire body weight on it, she should be completely fine to use it here.

Her hypothesis is proven correct soon after, as she stretches and feels every single arm muscle tense and threatens to lock up. She pulled muscles and hurt herself trying to haul Raven into the cabin yesterday.

Cinder winces, beginning to stretch out her arms, piece by piece, the routine that Raven had seen her observing, then taught her how to do is a relaxation one, but Cinder's not getting too much immediate relief.

Her silent motions are suddenly interrupted, as a weak, gruff voice interrupts.

"That's not quite the best way to do it."

She turns, eyes wide, and sees Raven sitting up in bed, staring at her with something resembling a bemused half-smile on her face.

"RAVEN!"

Cinder's worries, her doubts, everything falls away, Raven is alive! She's awake! She's talking!

The girl hits the older woman like a missile, and then she's sobbing and Raven is gently picking up her chin and making her look up at the beautiful maiden, there's a truly sad expression in those crimson eyes as that same, weak voice speaks once more.

"I made a promise to get you to safety, I can't leave you yet."

Cinder is too busy crying into the blankets that cover Raven's form to do much else than nod and blubber out, her speech almost incomprehensible.

"I'msorryIdidn'tknowwhattodoandhadtostripyouandcutyourclothesandtreatyourwoundsI'msorryI'msorryI'msorrypleasedon'tbemadtheylookedexpensive!"

The babbling is only interrupted when Raven gently pries the girl's head up and forces her to look up at her once more.

"Little kite… clothing can be replaced. I need to rest, do we have food?"

Cinder nods, pointing towards the small kitchen boxes and cabinets, and Raven's stomach growls loudly as the woman looks to Cinder.

"Our packs?"

The girl flinches, her eyes flying to anywhere but looking at Raven. It takes her a moment, but Raven's steady gaze eventually coaxes an answer from her.

"Outside… had to get you into the warmth."

Raven nods. Then speaks once more.

"Time to fetch them, they have food that I'll need to recover. Have you thought to scavenge the other houses?"

Cinder shakes her head, instead, she purses her lips and then steps back.

"I… was going to bury the bodies."

Raven's head snaps up, carefully studying Cinder as the woman sees her in a new light, there's something hardened and serious in that gaze.

"You're serious."

Cinder's feet shift back and forth, she gets a vague sense that Raven has never truly had a cause or desire for such a thing.

"Why?"

The question is hard, sharp, like one of the blades of Raven's sword.

"I… They died so we can live. The smoke from the village masked our fire… and the supplies they would use are now ours… it… feels wrong to leave them there when they're the reason you're still here."

Cinder points to the medical kit, lying open on the table behind her, indicating the seal on it.

Raven considers and deliberates for a moment. These people didn't mean anything to her, but… they meant something to Cinder. She'd condone it, with a few concessions.

"Very well, you may do this if, and only if, you are extremely careful. Mask your tracks, dispose of the bodies, then cover the resting places with snow."

"In the shape of the fallen?"

Raven nods once. Cinder had seen what the plan was to be, and she would obey. The older woman rolled onto her back and tried to ignore the sapping, stabbing pains in her muscles. She'd been injected with an antivenom, and it was even now working its way through her system, purging the venom's remaining traces and allowing her aura to actually work on putting her back together.

It hurt like a motherfucker, but she'd live. All thanks to the girl she'd rescued.

A part of Raven smiles at that, Cinder had pulled herself together, used what Raven had taught her and she'd made it work. She'd ensured Raven's survival.

A part of the woman long buried grinned within her. She owed a debt to someone, she owed a debt to someone that she could never repay.

Summer's ever-present grin flashed through her mind; Was this all part of her plan, then? Had she intended Raven to end up with an adorable ragamuffin like her own Yang and Summer's Ruby? Had she intended to force her to learn what she'd been missing out on?

The woman looks up, briefly, as the door of the small cabin opens and then slams shut. Cinder has left, and now… more than she has been in the past week, Raven is alone. She turns to one side, her hand moving to her chest, to the biting touch of cold silver lying against her skin. The beads of sterling are beautiful and continuously remind her of Summer's existence. She can remember the woman picking the metal out, then spending time in the forge to make the set for both of them.

In many ways, they had been precious to each other, precious to Taiyang as well. He'd never wanted anything negative to befall her, and even as she'd explained why she'd left Yang behind, why she'd chosen to introduce herself as the girl's aunt, rather than her mother…

Her heart shatters.

It's not a subtle thing, it's an ugly, breaking, crashing, cracking noise in Raven's chest, and her mind flashes to Summer, with that ever-present smile on her face, tinged with forlorn sadness as she brought the warehouse down on herself and Tyrian…

Raven startles when drips of warmth start down her cheeks, down her face, it takes her a moment to realize she's crying, that she's wondering why she's started until it hits her all at once that Summer's dead and someone is going to have to tell Qrow, someone's going to have to tell Taiyang and Yang and everyone else…

And she's the only one who can.

Raven breaks down, tears openly falling from her eyes as she sobs, the wracking motions twisting her muscles as her nose begins to run. She is glad Cinder isn't here, she doesn't know what it would do to the girl to see her in such an awful state. What it would do… what does it matter, anyway?

Summer is dead. Or gone, buried beneath tons of rubble in Atlas. She's gone and her killer's escaped.

Raven's body doesn't want to move, her brain refuses to accept the truth she knows, Summer has died. She was slain in combat, and now she is alone, she is alone in the world, without Taiyang or Qrow or anyone to rely on except a wisp of a girl of barely 11 summers.

Cinder needs her, Raven knows this, at some level, she knows this. The girl will die without her intervention to ensure she arrives safely back in Mistral or Vale. For that matter, where is Raven even trying to take the girl? Vale? To Tai and Yang and Ruby? Could she do that? Dump a girl on the man while he had 2 of his own?

No.

Something within her refuses even the thought of giving up Cinder. The girl was a born fighter and survivor. Even with second-degree burns on her arms, she'd bandaged herself and moved on to her tasks for the day. She was strong, strong like Summer had been, but Cinder didn't hide that yet. She would, in time. Her shyness was slowly giving way to a confidence that would rival Summer's, one day.

Raven flinches, her mind slowly realizing.

She said she had no one, but that wasn't strictly true, Yang and Ruby, and Taiyang himself, and Qrow would know. They'd support her, but… Cinder, her little kite, truly had no one in the world. Truly no one else, the girl wasn't descended from Madame's line, with all the differences between them, she was something unique.

How could Raven deny her little kite? How could she even remotely think that she'd just abandon her? After she owed her such a debt?

Her mind warred with itself.

Fact. She was the Spring Maiden. The forces that sent Tyrian after her, would send more.

Fact. Cinder had no one and nothing, while a formidable survivor, the girl would die out in the wilderness.

Fact. Yang was her daughter by blood. Ruby her daughter by creed. And Cinder her daughter by deed.

Fact. Summer was dead or gone. Raven didn't know which was worse.

Fact. Amber's tenure under Ozpin had been one that had slowly drained away who she was.

Fact. She couldn't go to Ozpin, nor could Taiyang.

What was the alternative? Retreat to the tribe?

Her mind thinks it over. It's a healthy possibility. The tribe would take her in, especially with new blood in the form of Cinder, she might have to establish herself as a leader first, but she could very well do so.

That… seemed like it could, or even would be for the best, right?

Something kept eating at her, and Raven worried about it, but for whatever reason, she couldn't narrow down exactly why the thought of returning to the tribe was something she felt wasn't appropriate for her to do.

Something about it just felt… wrong, in a fashion that Raven could not narrow down. It was where she'd been raised, it was where some would argue she belonged even, so… why didn't she feel comfortable committing to the tribe?

But her thoughts, her reverie, and the mourning of Summer were interrupted as Cinder entered back into the small cabin. Smoke poured from the girl for a moment, and she patted herself clear of snow before entering. Behind her, she dragged in Raven's pack, followed by her own, then set about busily within the small kitchen of the cabin.

"Bodies have been burned or dragged from their spots. I haven't scavenged the other houses yet, but I don't think we'll starve."

Cinder exited for a moment, and then, as Raven watched, the girl dragged the corpse of a rather large deer into view. A clean, fletched arrow stuck from its neck, and Raven could see her joy, written clear across her face even before she spoke.

"I got it on my first shot! Took the bow from the walls! But he just wandered towards the gates! One arrow!"

Her excitement bubbles into Raven herself, and the woman finds herself smiling indulgently at her little kite. The girl is prancing, and Raven's smile, while fleeting, sends very clear joy rippling through the girl. A faint, strange feeling burns in Raven's chest at that, the independence, sheer determination, and power on display within the girl shocks Raven. For a moment, the woman feels as though she's staring down at Summer, staring at the girl with the split lip, staring up at her after she kicked out Raven's shoulder and broke her wrist, staring at that ever-present, smug grin as the girl offered Raven a hand up.

Then it passes, and Cinder is the one speaking.

"-I think I can get a stew started, probably not as good as yours, but it'll feed us! Do… do you know how to clean that deer?"

Raven smiles a bit at that, the exuberance and genuine nature of the girl replacing the trauma for just a moment.

"Well, you'll need a knife, I should have one large enough in my bag, make sure it's not covered in dust, I think we've both had a bit too much experience with that recently."

Cinder nods once, moving to Raven's snow-covered backpack.

"You'll need to do this outside on the snow. Moving carefully with the blade-"

Cinder listens obediently, she'd seen the tear tracks running down Raven's face, the slightly discolored skin giving away the fact that the woman had been crying. Cinder knows she's mourning Summer… and while she herself is sad… she can't imagine how Raven feels in this moment.

So… instead, Cinder resolves that if she can't help the other woman get through her grief, then… she can be useful and ensure survival for both of them.

By the time Raven's finished explaining, and Cinder herself is done cutting and gutting the deer, the sun has begun to slip below the horizon, and night is rapidly falling. The girl retires into the house, hauling chunks and chunks of meat into the freezing boxes around the perimeter of the cabin, then taking enough for the stew into the house.

Raven is awake, watching, and stretching her legs, slowly and carefully, when Cinder walks into the room. Her injuries are healing fast, days of rest quickly stacking up as her aura worked at a fever pace to repair the damage. As her little kite moves to the kitchen, Raven thinks about the future, she's been doing little of that, recently. Too much survival at all costs. A part of her winces that the smoke from the destroyed village will likely only cover their tracks for a week at most if that.

But for now? She won't tell Cinder any of that, her little kite deserves one night of pure, innocent rest.

It says something that Raven's thoughts move to what she plans to do with the girl, then. Cinder has proven to be largely self-sufficient, at least for food and the like. She does not believe that dropping her onto Taiyang is right, let alone the pure fact that having to see him again makes her lip curl.

No. But Yang is there, right?

Yang is there.

Her daughter.

Her blood and flesh.

Believing that Aunt Raven and Summer are heading home soon.

An impossible choice stretches out in front of her, stretches out in front of Raven.

She could return, could attempt such a thing. Could try to tell the truth, as she'd promised Summer, all those days ago.

She owed her that much.

But could she raise Cinder there?

Taiyang would be destroyed by the news of Summer's death. She knew that all too well, she'd seen it happen when they were in their second year at Beacon. When the girl he'd been dating didn't return from a mission. When she'd come home as her weapon, after an alpha beowulf had lured the team from their defensive target, then picked them off one by one.

She'd seen the aftermath, crippling depression, and rage that didn't end. She'd seen the resulting damage when Taiyang's semblance had activated and he'd blown a quarter of a training room's shields out with a single punch. She'd seen him suffer for months, for almost a year, before Summer and she had caught him alone and made up for it.

The road had been long, their grief hadn't gone away. She'd liked Violet, in passing, but her team would have made for genuine friends she would have kept.

Now they lay, all but 2 members, dead in contested territory, torn to shreds save for a broken, delicate shattering of a human being.

She'd heard the man had ended up becoming a criminal, and idly, a part of her wondered if he'd ever had some success with the venture. The woman had disappeared soon after, apparently lost to the violence of Vale's seedy underbelly. Raven wondered if Carmel had ever truly settled down, or if she'd just let her brokenness spread until it consumed her.

Perhaps a thought for another day, as her lips curled in disgust.

Carmel had been strong, and then the loss of her team had broken her utterly. The woman was a pathetic excuse for someone Raven had once respected. She'd snapped, declaring that nothing mattered beyond her goals. Whatever those manifested into.

Last Raven had heard, she'd wandered to some stuffy preparatory academy.

Either way, a derisive snort came easily to the Branwen as she turned her head to face Cinder, across from her. The girl was in the kitchen and had a look on her face that spoke of a deep question. Something she wasn't sure that Raven would respond favorably to.

She was still scared. Still terrified.

Raven hated that, she knew she was intimidating, and it was something that she loved about Summer, the infuriating brunette had never been scared of her.

Now, more than ever, she wished that she was here. Because then she could make sense of this girl's reluctance to speak plainly, even when Raven had so clearly proven that she wasn't about to harm her.

What a strange feeling.

This tightness in her chest was unfamiliar, as Cinder finally asked her question.

"When… when can I get another weapon?"

Raven's up, or at least, trying to get up, before her little kite rushes to her and places hands that are far, far firmer than they should be, had it been so long?

"Please… stay down, rest. You're beaten up and if you die I'm next!"

Cinder calls to her, directly, so quickly that Raven finds it impossible to move, or well, it's not impossible. But she doesn't want to shove her little Kite forwards or displace her, as the girl moves and steps back.

"I scavenged a bow from the village… but my spear is gone, and… the villager's weapons aren't even slightly as good as what you use."

Raven barks a laugh that has her entire stomach shattering with pain. Of course, a villager's spear would be inferior to Omen. Summer godsdamned Rose forged it. The best weapon tinkerer in the world.

Cinder shrinks away, and Raven finds a pit in her stomach opening wide in her abdomen as the girl's eyes start to glimmer.

"No… I didn't mean it like that. Just… these spears are blunt, dustless-headed weapons. Why would they compare to Omen?"

Cinder's eyes widen.

"Omen…?"

Raven draws the weapon from her side, showing the beautiful if marred hilt to the girl.

"Omen is my blade, it was forged by Summer Rose, the best weaponsmith to ever come from Beacon's vaunted halls and vaults. She made it to be superior to everything save for Dawning Rose, Taiyang's gauntlets, and even Harbinger, although my idiot brother never let her near his scythe."

Raven smiled at the memory. Before she turned to Cinder.

"If you want a blade to match Omen, we'll have to track my idiot brother down, and then we will make you a weapon befitting such a lofty ideal. Until then, well… let me fix that."

Raven opened her mind and stretched out her hands.

This time it felt different as the flames ignited upon her eyes. It didn't hurt in the way it did when she used Spring's power for combat, it didn't feel like the rush of a chorus of indistinct voices. Raven focused on a specific memory, the face of Summer Rose, sparks reflecting off her eyes, as the forge hammer came up and down, the slight singes on her eyebrows denoting her earlier failures, equally as much as the pile of discarded hilts and blades.

She remembers watching as Taiyang infused his semblance into the alloys made to reinforce the hilt, she remembers watching the liquid metal ripple as pure kinetic energy forced the alloy into a stronger, more flexible, and masterful alloy than the normal steel.

She remembers the fires of the forge reflecting off of his blue eyes, the slight smirk on his face as he looks at her with open, naked warmth and unabashed love that has her, the great Raven fucking Branwen, blushing like a damned schoolgirl.

She should have killed him where he stood.

Now he's laughing at her side-turned face, and Summer's joining in, the heavy work gloves covering her hands and shielding her from the sparks, but not her face, never her face.

Raven knows why she refuses, even if she doesn't understand it.

"Weapons have souls, Rae, and I need to sing yours into shape, I need her to willingly take my hand or else she won't be ready for her form~!"

She inclined her head at the piles of broken hilts and blades.

Raven knew they had to be exhausted, this was the fourth day that Summer and Tai and she had been in the forges, and they were burning the midnight oil, long after the rest of Beacon had gone to sleep, after even Qrow had chickened out of helping, chasing after Victoria Gold in the senior class again.

Raven wondered if she'd only break his arm this time. Or if he'd come back with barely hidden hickeys snared on his neck like two times ago.

She snorts with laughter, and Tai smiles that heart-meltingly bright smile, his lips fully quirking up. He wasn't okay, she could see it in his eyes. But Summer and… her own closeness to him had been helping him recover.

The memory doesn't fade out of existence, like the other times she's used her powers, and she opens her eyes as she hears Cinder breathe in sharply.

This time, the blade is a sword, styled after Omen, but shorter, better suited for a child, black and blue lines of her power run through the cyan, pierced blade, and it is ice cold to the touch. Raven extends a hand, offering the weapon to Cinder, who takes it and startles.

For Cinder, being passed a weapon that for all intents and purposes looked like something out of a literal fairytale hadn't been a recent thought in her life, and yet… as she held the weapon in one hand, she could feel the raging currents of… something within the blade.

She only holds it for a moment, and yet she feels a part of her hunger fade into fear first, then terror. This is power, and it is dangerous in such a manner that she feels as though the weapon would be fully capable of killing her where she sat if she mishandled it. A fear that is proved immediately correct as tendrils of literal lightning run through the blade, shocking the air around them like striking vipers.

And yet… a part of her feels… almost right holding it. It is not the power, she can tell, but the blade is… not incorrect. The curved weapon is clearly a step in the right direction, but Cinder isn't sure what form her weapon should take… yet.

"I will summon one for you at the beginning of each day. They do not last long, perhaps 8 or so hours. But they will be a suitable replacement for a mediocre at best spear."

Cinder relinquished the blade to Raven without being asked, a current of fear burning in her eyes as Raven looked at her, and the older woman grasped her arm firmly.

"Do not pour your semblance into this blade. It will destabilize the powers within it."

Cinder nods, eyes wide, as Raven's power dissipates the weapon into pale blue motes of dust.

"This will last until we reach Argus, and then… I will see about getting you trained and certified for a true weapon. Alright?"

Cinder nodded, her cheeks dusted faintly with a pink blush as Raven reaches out and ruffles her hair. The hardened warrior, the hardened monster slayer, and the protector loses her mask in that moment. Her voice, faint and barely there, whispers, right into Cinder's ears.

"You're… so much like her. I'm sorry Cinder. I'm sorry I failed to protect Summer. I'm sorry I put you through what I've put you through."

Raven pulls Cinder closer, and places one hand on the girls chest, and the other on her forehead.

Cinder feels something tingle, ever so briefly.

"You… no. Not yet."

Then the hands leave, and Raven smiles sadly.

"When you can land a hit on me in training… I'll unlock your aura."

Cinder looks at the woman, disbelieving.

Raven only nods, and Cinder feels the licking embers in her chest burst into fire.

Raven wanted her to prove herself? Then she'd be the best-damned huntress to ever live. Surpassing even Raven if she so had to!

A/N: Enjoy a more mellow chapter beyond Cinder learning very quickly that she's going to need to be better~! We're going to be picking up the pace soon, but we'll get one more low-key chapter before that happens!~

 

[Ember]

Where is she?

When… is she?

Raven stares evenly across what is clearly the battlefield she and Summer had manufactured. She must be delirious because Summer is…

That's right. The woman standing in front of her is dead. The woman with her red and black hair is dead and gone. Her scythe is beyond destroyed, and yet, there she stands with a cocky smirk on her lips, hands on her hips, and the same attitude that earned her every teacher at Beacon's ire.

"Oh hi Rae~!"

That voice is loud and bright. Painfully so, and Raven winces, covering her side with one hand, and one ear with the other.

"Oh? Was that too loud? Should I be quieter for the deadbeat who abandoned her daughter? "

That voice is all Summer, so full of direct cheer and happiness, and yet its as vicious as a jagged, rusty knife. Raven flinches, and her partner and lover only keep going.

"The High Bandit Queen of the Branwen Tribe! Raven Branwen!~ Take a look, ladies and gentlemen~!"

She smiles at Raven, all teeth and sharpened fangs.

"Look at this honest to the gods, damned failure."

Raven flinched again, and Summer stalked closer to her.

"What~? Didn't like that, did you? Well, it's true. You failed to protect me. You're treating Cinder like the next coming of the bitch who tried to drag you back to the tribe in our fourth year."

Raven flinches again, and then blinding pain is her world, as Summer reaches into her stomach wound and pushes her down, straddling the woman, her hand up to its elbows in Raven's gore.

They'd been like this before, and yet Raven felt nothing more than terror as the grinning rictus of Summer wrenched and tore something free of Raven's chest.

"You didn't really ever need this, now did you? You'll just break it, after all, so give it to me, let it be safe with me, mmkay~?"

She stood, dragging the dripping form of Raven's heart with her as she walked away from her.

She tried, she reached out, feeble fingers stretching for Summer, the woman carrying her bleeding heart away, and then her partner was turning back to face her and she was grinning.

"Don't worry Rae, I'm sure you'll ditch that girl too, maybe then, when she's been torn apart by Tyrian and the grimm, maybe then I'll let you have your heart back."

Those lips split her face apart, a rictus smile of fanged teeth below eyes of midnight black.

"Until then~? I think I'm going to keep you right here~ Stuck with me, and we're going to relive every single thing that broke you~ I wonder how long it'll take-"

Raven startled awake at the touch of a cool compress on her head, her left hand has already drawn the knife that Cinder made her sleep with and pressed it against the smooth flesh of the intruder.

"Raven… please."

Cinder, it was Cinder, of fucking course it was Cinder.

Shaking hands dropped the blade to the blankets over her legs. She'd not had good sleep, Cinder had forced her to sit up in bed, wrapping blankets to the best of the girl's ability only around the wound, not covering it, and she changed those bandages frequently enough that Raven had no real idea of how bad the wound was. Only faint pulses of foul stenches and worry creased the girl's forehead.

Cinder looked no worse for wear… to a degree, Raven could see that the girl had been terrified, and the remnants of that fear were still present in her eyes as she stripped away the covers and began changing the bandages.

"I've done what I can, but it's going to get worse before it gets better."

Confidence, surefire and quick, and Raven looks at Cinder with something akin to a new gaze, it doesn't make sense to her. How does Cinder know this? The girl coughs once, gently, and then answers the unasked question.

"I read about it. Also… Iris got really, really sick after a hunger grimm entered the outer areas of Atlas, and… she nearly died, but then got better. It will likely be the same for you."

Cinder's tone and diction had begun to shift, and Raven noted the changes, Cinder no longer cowered, she no longer seemed of that terrified girl, and yet as she stared at the girl, that terror and shyness manifested in slight, ever so gentle steps from side to side.

"May I go now? Dinner will burn…"

Raven let the girl go with a nod, softening her eyes as she thought back on the dream. Summer had taken her heart, violently tearing it free of her chest, and as little Cinder made her way back to the kitchen. Raven closed her eyes and let the tears flow evenly down her head until they gently hit against her lips.

It hurt, it hurt so much more now.

She wanted to resent Ironwood, no, she wanted to hate him. He'd withheld that information from her and Summer, he'd withheld that Tyrian, the fucking bastard, had a semblance that shut down or nullified aura! How could he!?

He'd gotten Summer killed. In her honest opinion. And Raven knew right then that she would never forgive him for that.

She blinked through bleary eyes, trying to fight the urge to give in and just let that sadness swallow her. It was tempting, very tempting, to do that. To let it all swallow her up, but two things stopped her from that.

One was Yang.

Her daughter, given up to Taiyang and Summer because Raven couldn't raise the girl and she wasn't dumb enough to pretend that she could. Summer had accused Raven of abandoning her, and that was indeed what she'd done. But Raven could… fix things, right?

She could come back, she could try, she could tell Yang and be there every step of the way as her daughter raged and hated and tore at her.

That would be what Summer would want.

But what about Cinder?

The girl she likely owed her life to, and the girl who even now had burrowed into her heart and refused to leave. How would she react if Raven just returned to Taiyang and Yang and Ruby? How would he react at all?

Tai… may have ditched the more problematic parts of his upbringing when he'd been with them, but the man's insistence on blood relations likely meant he wouldn't see Cinder as family, even if Raven, Yang, and Ruby did. That would hurt the girl, even Raven could tell that. Cinder longed for acceptance from someone who was a family member. She longed to be loved in the way that Summer had done for Raven. That was something that Raven could give her, but it was the only thing that Raven could give her. Taiyang would be right in his refusal to treat her as a daughter because she wouldn't be one of his.

She couldn't hate him for that, even if she wanted to.

Or could she?

She'd never had a family outside of Qrow, and he was her brother by blood… and by action. He'd stood by her in school, in the tribe, and in Beacon beyond. He was… in many ways, family.

Summer and Taiyang, too. Taiyang and her had been there, for each other. Summer had… joined them, and her heart, and her sense of self had made her better.

How could… she just deposit Cinder into that family and expect it to work out?

She's shaken firmly from her reverie by Cinder, who gently presses a warm bowl of soup and a small selection of pills into Raven's free hand.

"Eat and drink. Then sleep."

The girl's tone is direct and… almost forceful. The pills in Raven's hands are clearly labeled as antibiotics, and Raven obeys Cinder, swallowing the pills into her dry mouth even as Cinder herself begins to change her bandages once again.

Raven doesn't look as the bandages come away green and yellow and red. She doesn't want to see how bad it is as Cinder sucks in a breath and then begins to change the gauze pads that surround Raven's wounds. She'd done her best to bandage and heal the woman, and it was clear that Raven's aura was pushing back against the raging infection.

But it would take time, and until that time was finished, Raven had a jagged, rough, and vicious hole drilled right through the core of her being. A hole that took up entirely too much of her skin and even now sent shudders through Cinder's body as she finished wrapping the bandages.

She hadn't been asked by Raven how long they'd spent in the village, but Cinder wasn't about to tell the older woman that this had been the fifth day she'd walked in and found the older woman sobbing in her bed, before turning away and leaving before she could be detected.

Cinder didn't… really understand loss, she'd been so young when her parents had died that she even now only barely remembered them. She'd never really had friends at the orphanage… so that option was out, and then Madame and her daughters had spit on her definition of what "family" was supposed to be like.

So for Raven, she just tries to help, she tries to ease the older woman's healing, she tries to assist wherever she can, changing bandages, and dosing her protector with the antibiotics she'll need to fight the raging infection.

Raven is rarely lucid, rarely able to hold a conversation, but she's been invaluable in communicating one thing. How to use the weapons her powers generate.

Cinder's found the most success with a bow that shouldn't work, as it lacked a string, but by exerting in the same way she would with the bow she scavenged from the ruins, the girl found the form of crystalline arrows of pure ice manifested.

Each one was so cold that they could, and would, as Cinder had found out, snap-freeze anything she'd shot at with the weapon. Her arrows also refused to truly behave as she would have assumed, they flew straighter and more quickly than any she shot from the scavenged bow. Something that Cinder was frustrated by, while she valued the weapon that Raven had given her, she'd had to stop practicing only with it after her training with the bow hadn't gone well. She was adapting, but training with both weapons was a problem. Already, a part of the girl's mind whirled at just how inconvenient such a weapon truly was to use. She couldn't generate one on her own, relying on Raven for such a thing was useful in a pinch, however the weapons had limited uses, and the bow was good for only between 10 to 12 shots depending on how much Cinder exerted herself.

On a more positive note, she was gaining weight and muscle mass at a rate that would inevitably help with the training that she was certain Raven would push her through. But… her mind was more interested in what had happened a few nights previous. When Raven placed a hand on her chest and forehead. What had that meant? Why had she felt a flicker like her power was… acting up? As if the spark that felt like her power was going to do… something.

She nocked a normal arrow, pulling the string back and releasing it in one smooth, even motion. The shaft of wood, tipped with a barbed head, flew from her weapon with unerring precision and violence behind it.

The snowman crudely shaped as a target burst in half as Cinder's arrow pierced straight through the core of the body and punched out the back. Joining half a dozen of its fellows behind the snowman's cooling corpse.

Cinder flinched, her aim had been off, she'd aimed for center mass, and clipped it, but the shot was too far left.

It would have torn clean through the lungs, according to the medical book she'd found in the ruins. A disabling shot against a human, but barely an annoyance amongst one of the grimm. Once more, Cinder found herself sucking in irritation about how impractical and stupid the creatures of grimm actually were.

Beowulf were all but immune to massed gunfire, they had no real organs capable of sustaining damage, and dust was one of the only things capable of putting them down for good. Once more, Cinder desperately wished that she'd found talent with firearms instead of bows of all things.

With a firearm, at the very least, she could fight a grimm on fairly even footing provided she went for the eyes or nose.

But no, her talents were directly aimed at a weapon that was all but useless against both humans, shielded by aura, and grimm, shielded by their bone armor and casual disregard for the laws of organic life.

But that frustration passed quickly as Cinder worked hard to tamp it down, negative emotions could draw more grimm to them. They didn't need that; Instead, she focused on the joy of simple exertion and the rush that hit her as she began a running survey of the village.

The small town didn't appear to have a name and had been encircled at one point by a sturdy wall of pine tree-harvested logs, covered with thick tar and insulated against the weather firmly. This wall had decayed over the years, evidently as the villagers felt they were safe. Cinder narrowed her eyes disdainfully. Out here, complacency would get you killed, and that, that was likely exactly what had happened. As Cinder neared the southern perimeter of the walls, she noted the fresh tar and the reinforced construction. Someone, likely the original residents of hers and Raven's shelter, had worked hard to rebuild this place into something sturdy but hadn't spared the resources to do so for the rest of the town.

She rested a hand against the wood and pushed into her core with her semblance.

Raven had made her promise, but her semblance was something that Cinder was now more confident in her usage. The burn marks on her arms had already fled her skin, and she only had a few scars left in areas that had been caused over the years by Madame.

In some ways, Cinder felt fairly confident that she was capable of calling on that flame within. Raven had told her that everyone's semblance felt different, although some with similar semblances, such as blood relations, might transfer parts of their semblances down. The only exception to such a thing, of course, was the Schnee family semblance.

For Raven, she said that her semblance had felt like pulling a storm apart with her hands, all crackling energy and power. For Cinder, her semblance felt like a raging bonfire, and when she let it run through her it felt oftentimes as though it would threaten to consume every single part of her in flame.

As Cinder touched up against the reservoir of her semblance, she felt that raging flame once more. A moment passed and she withdrew, gasping for air as every part of her seemed ready to ignite. Heat flushed through her body, leaving her sweating in her heavy layers against the cold. Every single muscle in her body tensed and then released with a gasp as Cinder let go of a breath she hadn't realized she was holding in.

Her power coiled in her gut like a writhing snake, all vicious, stealthily concealed rage. Waiting and willing to burst forth with all the presence of a raging inferno.

Cinder cut herself off from the tether to her semblance, turning back to the walls of the village and continuing her run.

She passed back through the hole in the walls, shoving the chunks of wood back into place to obscure her entrance to the village proper. Luckily, the gate on the north side had been shattered by the grimm, collapsing into a massive pile at the foot of the snow within the village after the last blizzard. Now, the only real way in or out for humans was to crawl through the small opening that Cinder had come through.

The girl stared evenly forwards, looking around the piles of snow and ruined buildings, and then returning to the clearing in the center of the village itself. It was clear now, mostly due to Cinder's work over the past few days, barring the snowman shooting range that she'd set up for practicing her archery.

The air was cool, but not quite as cold as it could have been, or as cold as it would be later in the evening. So Cinder decided to spend some time with her semblance. Not activating it, but… merely, touching against the raging flames.

She sat down in the center of the square and began to direct her focus inwards.

This wasn't something that came easily. Fire scared her, it scared her because she knew that where raging infernos were, grimm always followed, and her semblance felt like such an inferno.

She let her eyes slide closed and reached for the flames.

Instantly, she had to stifle a gasp as every single part of her body began to radiate heat. Heat that poured from her like the sun warming one on a summer day.

The fire raged at her, threatening to consume her, to burn her.

It wasn't enough, she wasn't focused- it hurt it hurt it hurt.

Her veins were enflamed, and she had to let it go.

Instantly, the fire was tempered low, the heat suffusing from Cinder with a rush that felt intoxicatingly good.

She gasped out her breath, staring up and around, her hair soaked through with sweat.

With some consternation, she noted the low position of the sun. Had it been hours since she'd sat down? Then… her eyes alit on the near circle of snow that had melted all the way down into the grassland beneath.

Shock colored her expression, more so as she felt no burns, no… nothing. Her skin was unmarred, unaffected.

It should have come as a total surprise when flickers of faint, brilliant orange suffused her skin.

What was happening to her?

Cinder marveled at the flickering field as it faded, then clenched her fingers tightly. She had to ask Raven about this. Had to talk to the woman about what had happened to her, what had begun to happen to her!

What was she going to do?

Was this her aura?

By the time she'd barged into the house, Raven was awake and looking at her, she'd remained in bed, but very clearly missed Cinder, the woman's voice, weak and haggard, pouring forth after a moment.

"I was wondering if you'd been hurt."

She didn't say " I was worried " but Cinder could hear it and see it in the way she looked at her. The girl looked down at herself and winced.

She was soaked in sweat and looked like she'd walked through a thunderstorm.

"I… can explain."

Raven arched an eyebrow and spoke, in a completely deadpan tone.

"I didn't hear a storm."

Cinder winced again, why did she feel like she was in trouble?

"I… wanted to practice with my semblance… Not using it! Just… touching against it, letting that power flow through me, I thought that maybe I'd be able to channel it without it burning against me!"

Raven didn't say anything, but a tiny part of her lips seemed to quirk up as Cinder rambled, until she couldn't hold it in any longer, and a soft, barely there chuckle passed her lips.

"Relax. What did you learn?"

Cinder freezes as she hears the chuckle and then relaxes visibly in front of Raven before she answers.

"It felt like a raging bonfire. As if I were to burn away to ash in the face of it."

Raven considered this, then spoke quietly.

"I've heard someone say a similar thing before."

She paused, trying to remember the circumstances… she'd been in Vacuo, for the second Vytal Festival… had Summer been with her? Had Tai or Qrow?

She couldn't… remember.

Why couldn't she remember!?

But she remembered the woman who'd spoken to her in regard to her semblance.

"I… remember someone speaking to me about a similar semblance, she could generate pulses of severe and extreme heat from her hands. She described it as a blast furnace, threatening to burn her away completely. She tamed it by letting the heat out through her hands in slow, measured pulses. Perhaps you could do the same?"

Now it is Cinder's turn to think and consider, she only tried to gently touch against her semblance, but it felt as though it would consume her whole when she'd done so.

"Next… time?"

Raven nodded to Cinder, continuing to speak after a moment.

"Yes. You are not incorrect that training with your semblance, even without aura, is beneficial. But, you must be careful, little kite, your semblance is a powerful one, and it could seriously injure you if you are not careful."

Cinder nodded, her eyes focused on Raven's midsection as she advanced forwards and towards the bedridden woman.

"Should I change your bandages?"

Raven nodded gently and winced as Cinder brought out the antiseptic and antibiotics for the wound. Cinder's smile, though, was much more positive as she looked up at Raven, the bandages deposited gently into the bucket at the foot of Raven's bed.

"It's getting better, your aura is working on it, closing the internal injuries. It just looks like a really bad cut now."

Raven knew this, but it was refreshing to have Cinder tell her such a thing. But as she studied the girl's hands, Raven noticed a telltale flicker.

"Your hands…"

Cinder flinched.

"Yes… my semblance… reacted? I'm not sure."

Raven stretched her hand down, taking Cinder's hands in her own, she reached into the core of her chest, where her aura resided, and pushed it outwards.

The sparking contact that crackled against her hands confirmed her suspicions. Cinder hadn't awakened her aura, yet. But it was coming to the surface in response to the events the girl had participated in. The traumas and events of the past few weeks had begun the process of naturally awakening Cinder's aura. It was pushing to the surface of her skin, likely shielding her from the worst of her semblance's powers.

But it wasn't a complete awakening. At the current moment, Cinder's aura would be handicapped, only protecting her from the worst injuries she'd endure. It would do for training purposes. It would be important for both of them to consider as they would leave the village.

If she wanted to train Cinder to be her better, she'd need to very carefully do so, tempering her blows while teaching her that Raven was more than capable of dispensing lethal force with such attacks.

She winced and hissed in pain as a tender spot on her stomach shifted with Cinder's careful application of gauze. The girl looked up apologetically but only caught Raven's hand resting on and ruffling her hair.

"It's ok. Keep going. The sooner it heals enough to stitch closed, the better."

Cinder had the gall to look horrified by such a realization. Only for Raven to hiss in pain while chuckling softly.

"My body cannot heal this naturally, we'll have to stitch it closed. And yes, you'll be helping hold my arms steady while I do so."

Cinder looked just a little green, and stepped back, breathing in deeply for a moment, before she stepped forwards and continued to bandage the wound. Raven's traitorous mind reminded her, in that moment, that once more, she looked so much like Summer.

Her heart squeezed and ached.

Her lover was dead and gone, and she'd have to tell Taiyang and…

And her daughter.

Yang was her daughter.

Cinder was a family member by action and creed.

She'd not run, she'd stuck by Raven's side, even after Raven had been so badly wounded that she would struggle to take care of her. Certainly, a part of Raven acknowledged that the girl would likely die on her own out here, but she could easily have robbed Raven for every penny, then run crying to Ironwood, who would have jumped at the chance to advance his own career.

Instead, she stuck by Raven, taking care of her wounds and soaking up her knowledge like a sponge as much as she could. She was eager to train, and Raven had promised her, well, Summer had promised to train her.

She'd be trained. She had to be trained.

Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months before she knew it, Cinder training her semblance in the mornings and changing Raven's bandages in the evenings. It was on the second week there that she'd been able to stitch the woman's wounds closed, finally closing Tyrian's wounds.

It had been another week before Raven was moving comfortably, but in that time she'd become a fearsome monster of a training officer.

She'd made Cinder run and exert until she was exhausted, then made her keep going until she collapsed. Archery drills, fighting with melee weapons, studying her semblance and its effects on everything she could.

Forcing the girl into fights against Raven felt brutally unfair to Cinder, Raven was not only vastly more experienced, but used it too, leveling her superior speed, strength, and skills against Cinder's pitiful ones.

They fought for hours, sparring until Cinder looked more like a walking bruise than anything else.

Drills included tracking Raven through the forests, killing minor grimm, and stalking her mentor to the best of her abilities.

She was rewarded with half smiles and contentedness from Raven when she did well.

Praise was rare but valued deeply by Cinder. The first instance came when she'd been able to forge an arrow from her semblance alone.

That glass arrow now hung above the mantle and fireplace in the small cabin she and Raven shared. It was a smoky color, shot through with flecks of light grey ash, remnants from its creation. Cinder felt something akin to pride every time she looked at it, every time she saw that single, simple, slightly misshapen arrow, she was reminded of Raven's agreement and Raven's pride.

It was always a subtle, gentle thing. The firm feeling of Raven ruffling her hair after a training session left them both sweating after Cinder had scored her first real hit against the talented, strong maiden.

She remembered the fierce smile when Cinder had infused her semblance into an arrow and detonated the snow and target with the resulting explosion. She remembered the look of pure pride on the woman's face when Cinder had taken down a beowulf single-handedly while remaining unharmed.

Strength filled her every time that Raven praised her, every time that she landed a single hit on the woman, every time. It was always a rush of pure bliss that ran through her. Always something powerful and to be cherished.

It was surprising how little it took for Cinder to lose track of time, until more than a few months had passed, and the winter was now beginning to give way to spring. It was easy for the days of training, learning, and healing to blend together until Raven had fully returned to form. It was only later, towards the beginning of spring in earnest, that Raven asked Cinder a question that the girl didn't have an answer for.

"How did you mask our presence?"

Cinder shook her head, the pair had brought down a large buck the previous week, and the slow-roasted shoulder had been delightful, especially when combined with dried vegetables and the like, scavenged from the ruins of the other houses' root cellars. Cinder paused to finish her bite of the thick, rich meal, before stating simply.

"I didn't. I tried for a few weeks, but I wasn't strong enough to get far enough into the forest for it to be sufficient. Eventually I just… stopped."

Raven wanted to rip her apart for her stupidity, and based on the way her mouth had set into a hard line, and she'd placed her silverware down, she was about to do so.

"That was stupid. We are either incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky, I do not know which is which."

Cinder shrank in on herself, her shoulders clumping together at the forefront of her body.

"Fortunately for you, I already have a suitable punishment in mind."

Cinder can barely meet Raven's eyes, and she sees a look that might be described as smug on the tall woman's face.

"Pack runs. For the next week."

Cinder's forehead hits the table.

She hated pack runs, it was effectively an excuse for Raven to fill a backpack full of rocks and make Cinder run, while she chased her.

Cinder despised them.

She couldn't argue with the results, admittedly, and a part of her knew that she really was getting off comparatively light, given that they'd been unharmed for their tenure within the village itself. If they'd been forced out, or if Tyrian had come back… she suspected Raven would have been much harsher had that occurred.

Luckily… she'd be able to survive this, and she'd only come out of it stronger.

A part of Cinder relished how much her training had presented results.

She was stronger, faster, and tougher than she'd ever been before, she could run for miles through the snow, scale cliffs and trees covered and sunk in ice. She could hit a silver lien card from over a hundred feet with both Raven's magic arrows and her own. She could carve through bark, wood, and stone in single blows with the sharpened forms of twin blades. They were crude, cruel implements, weapons designed to maim and twist flesh even as they scythed through it like butter.

Cinder would be the first to admit she'd taken cues from Dawning Rose when constructing the weapons, each one represented a short blade, curved like the sharpened half moons that had made up that weapon. They were cruel and primitive, but neither she nor Raven had the experience necessary to forge a superior item, let alone the tools.

So they made do. The two had long since moved beyond basic training, and now the clashes looked, for all intents and purposes, as though they were trying to kill each other.

Blows were thrown that cracked against bone and smashed and cut skin, weapons were bared with all the intensity of violence and murder.

And Cinder loved every single second of it.

There was something in the exuberant declaration of your intentions to harm another, manifested through drawn weapons and bared, hissing teeth. Her aura had partially activated, as Raven had said, it had given her a shroud, a potent one, for lethal injuries, but her training was progressing so rapidly at this time that she personally would have astounded her old self.

She flipped backward, balancing on her hands for a half second, and earning a strike to the calves for her trouble.

They'd been going at it since sunrise, and Raven and Cinder both looked worse for wear, Raven was still blearily blinking from when Cinder had thrown dust into her eyes, and Cinder had what felt like dozens of minor cuts and nasty bruises.

"Too slow!"

Cinder growled, coiling her muscles and extending her left leg forward into a kick that nailed Raven in the wrist. Against any other human, it would have disarmed them.

Raven had aura and retaliated by kicking Cinder in the stomach and throwing her backward across the snow.

"How many times have I told you…"

Cinder cut her off.

"Not to try and disarm you, yes, your aura is reinforcing your strength and muscles. I can feel it."

Her guardian chuckled, a half snort before she stifled it and advanced towards Cinder's prone form, extending a hand down to the woman.

"Up you get, one more bout?"

Cinder nodded, stepping back and kicking out her hands for a moment, noting the position of her weapons, one to her right, up a small hill where Raven had tossed it, the other to her left a scant 5 feet from her.

Her eyes narrowed, and with an explosion of fresh snow, she and Raven launched themselves at each other Cinder going to the right, and Raven launching to block her.

Cinder ducked and rolled, skidding under Raven as the woman launched herself like a panther over Cinder. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough to entirely dodge the swipe from Omen, and the blade's flat slapped against her knuckles as she threw herself to one side.

But, she'd guessed her position correctly, and, skidding up the hill, one hand latched onto the front of her blade and she pulled, hard.

The sharp jerking of her body hurt like a bitch, but it stopped her skid and let her pick herself up. A month ago, she likely would have felt her arms twist and shatter for such an offense, but now? Corded with excellent musculature and strength? She held on tight and stood, one curved blade leveled off, and pointed to Raven.

"Good recovery, still took a hit to the hand, but that's better than the last dozen times."

Raven's smug arrogance wasn't undeserved. From what she'd been doing and training with Cinder, Cinder knew one thing.

Raven was good, probably the best fighter that Cinder had ever seen, even with the televised exploits of the ACE-OPS and the like, Raven was simply faster, stronger, and tougher than them.

She'd seen and experienced all of that over the past few weeks and more. However, there was one thing that she'd almost never seen Raven use.

The maiden powers, as she'd called them. The strange elemental ones, nor her semblance, Cinder wondered why, if she could generate portals at will, why wasn't she exploiting them.

She darted to the right as Raven came in once more and immediately regretted her decision as Raven planted a boot into her ribs and sent her tumbling butt over kettle into the snow. By the time Cinder had extricated herself from the snow pile, Raven's blade was at her throat, and the woman wore her ever-present, cocky smirk.

"Do you always have to use Omen? She hurts my throat."

Raven didn't even remotely let that cocky smirk fall.

"Of course, Besides, don't be demoralized over this loss. You lasted approximately 4 seconds more than yesterday, and 12 more since last week."

Cinder tried to take her words to heart, but… something within her still hurt when she thought about it.

"It would be rather insulting if you could actually defeat me, don't you think?"

Raven's voice is gentle, and her hand has already moved to ruffle Cinder's hair, the girl trying, and failing to stop her guardian from doing so.

"I've had over a decade and a half of experience as a huntress and huntress candidate, you can't beat me in a fight, because I have that experience, and because the powers of the maiden effectively give me a cheat code."

Cinder looked up in shock. Raven smiled that half smile at her, though from the way her eyes moved, Cinder could see that the expression was tired and wan.

"The powers of the maiden strengthen my aura and slow my aging."

She flexed her arms briefly, flaring her dark red aura for Cinder to see, before continuing to speak.

"As far as I'm aware, I am roughly 24 years old physically, though I am nearing the age of 31."

Cinder's eyes widened instantly, Raven was young… but she'd not expected that, would the maiden powers give her that too if she were to inherit them!?

"It's a curse… little kite. An awful curse, that steals who you are as a tribute for its powers."

Raven rarely speaks about what the maiden's powers are, instead always stating that they're nothing more than a curse and that if she had her way, no one would ever receive them again, simply because of how much of a curse they were. Cinder isn't entirely sure she believes Raven in that regard, but the woman seems to be fine with making her magical weapons for Cinder's training, and on more than one occasion when they've fought Grimm. So why was she so insistent on such a thing? Why deny Cinder such power? Wouldn't it keep her safe?

"But… enough talk of curses, let me give you the gift I promised you."

One hand was on the side of her head, the other on her chest, just over her heart. A part of Cinder feels an almost song begin to sing through her, a melody that sets her teeth on edge and tears at who she is.

It feels like her semblance, yet different. Her semblance is a roaring blaze, threatening to consume everything in its path, this is a warmth that is hers and hers alone. She is only barely listening as Raven begins, but her mind parses the chant even as Raven says it.

"For it is at our weakest and most vulnerable that we achieve the strength to do what is right. Through the pain and agony, our walls are ripped away, and we are remade in a crucible of our past mistakes. Infinite in potential, bearing our past mistakes upon our brow, I release your soul, and by my legacy, set you free."

It started as a warmth, a glow, and then Cinder is inhaling deeply, and her body is alive and her senses are sharper than they've ever been before. Every detail on Raven's face stands out, every single fluttering motion of the birds in the copse of trees around the village, every single thought, a scant moment is all it takes for Cinder to see what she wants. Her muscles strengthen, her body stronger, tougher, and now refining to near the peak of who she was. Everything is in tune with her motions and thoughts, and as she raises her arms and steps back, breathing hard, she sees that Raven is letting a small, genuine and gentle smile cross her face.

"How does it feel, little kite?"

Cinder breathes in once, exhales, then clenches a fist.

"It feels… good."

She purrs. Her voice is a ripple of water moving through the air as she concentrates. Her semblance no longer feels untamed, no longer feels impossible to assert her will over.

It has gone from a vast, impassable, and distressingly powerful bonfire, to a vast reservoir of pure, total power.

She holds a hand out, and heat haze forms across her fingertips, her aura not sparking, but instead shifting and twisting around the heat. She can feel it, but it will not harm her, she will not have any issues with such a power at her disposal.

"We need to test your strength, speed, and endurance with aura. You'll be able to go for a great deal longer, but we need to know that now."

Cinder nods, and then, at Raven's prompting, she leaps directly into the air, clearing just below the edge of the roof of the house nearest to her. Fingers latch onto that leading edge, and then she's pulling herself up to the roof with nary a wasted breath.

Cinder lands like a cat, on her legs and haunches, and then, once more with Raven nodding, she takes a running jump off the edge of the roof, aiming for the snow flats around Raven.

The impact jars her, but it doesn't hurt, and as she rolls to break her fall, Cinder snaps a hand out, grabbing tight to one of the wooden poles, deeply embedded in the snow, that serves as her impromptu training area.

The only warning she gets is the sharp crack, as her hand closes too tightly on the pole, before with a splintering CRASH it snaps free and sends Cinder plummeting into the snow, head first.

She should have been hurt, an impact like that would normally do damage, and yet, instead, she feels a sharp, stabbing pain, but running her hands over her forehead shows no signs of injury. She looks to the pole, trying to locate the area where the wood snapped, and then, she's pausing.

" Did I do that? "

Deep finger indents are carved into the wood itself, nail marks left behind around a tattered splintered hole. Raven, softly chuckling, extends a hand to Cinder and smiles down at the girl.

"What did I tell you? You're tougher and stronger than you were, and to an extent that seems to be a little surprising, hmm~?"

Cinder balls up snow, and throws it at her. Which only makes Raven laugh harder.

"Now, draw up your blades, little Kite. We fight until you can no longer walk."

Cinder, slumped across Raven's shoulders, really should have seen this coming. A part of her had wanted to beat Raven at her own game, land a strike on her that would make her do… something out of the ordinary.

How wrong she'd been.

If anything, with aura allowed and the kid gloves off, Raven had been even more vicious. Cinder's chest and back, she was fairly sure, were a lovely shade of purple and blue, and she'd failed to land a single hit on the woman. Failed to land even a single, slight hit. She'd gotten cocky, and overconfident in her new power, and Raven had promptly reminded her why she was a huntress.

Cinder's hip still hurt from the impact of Raven's boot against it, and her face was flushed with embarrassment as her guardian carried her like a sack of potatoes. She didn't like relying on Raven for this, and yet, she really couldn't move, her legs were too sore.

Raven hasn't spoken in some time, and Cinder wonders why she's not said much.

" I am such an idiot. "

Raven's internal monologue reminds her repeatedly of that fact.

She'd said after the girl landed a hit on her! Not before! Yes, she'd technically nailed Raven in the eyes with some grit, but that wasn't a hit! Not by most definitions!

She'd given an eleven-year-old girl her aura. Yes, she'd have received it at 11-12, like most other huntress candidates, but they weren't at a safe place for that to take place, at all! She'd have to watch for symptoms of aura poisoning or worse, and she wasn't sure she could cure the instability.

Again, they'd nominally do this in a city, where the students and fellow peers attending the school with the prospective candidates would easily be able to note any symptoms, but for now, she'd just have to make do.

Her plans changed as she reached the cabin she and Cinder shared. There, in the snow, were fresh tracks, human tracks.

Raven's eyes narrow, and she runs quickly over the plans she and Cinder had made.

"Cinder, plan delta, make for shore."

The girl nods once, adrenaline spiking her body as Raven sets her down and jerks her head towards a cabin on the far side of town that was little more than a ruin. It contained the bug-out bags the two had placed there months ago, containing weeks of rations, extra warm clothing, kindling, and all the other survival essentials.

As Cinder made her way towards the bags, Raven concentrated and drew a perfect replica of Omen, save it being made of her maiden's powers. Strangely, the powers hadn't taken a memory this time, and Raven had a moment to wonder why before she chose to shove that concern aside. She had a murderous scorpion to track first, and that murderous scorpion had to be nearby.

They'd spent perhaps 5 months in this small village, so when Raven came out, looking for the trail, she found it leading to nothing more than a slight dusting of snow and tracks that seemed to vanish.

Tyrian.

Raven turned and saw that Cinder was already gone, good, the girl had taken the broom as well, and was obscuring her tracks as she made for the coast. Raven, for her part, could rely on Cinder's aura-enhanced strength to carry both packs, while she quickly scouted the area.

She'd gotten frighteningly good at rapid transformations with Ozpin's magic.

A moment later, a large raven took to the sky, searching around the village and finding little to no evidence of anyone nearby.

That made no sense, it hadn't been their tracks, so where was Tyrian?

Raven circled back, orbiting Cinder's position as the girl made her way towards the shore, likely half a day's travel from their current location.

She circled down after another hour of scouting, Tyrian couldn't catch them now, even if he was still after them. Transforming midair, the woman landed in an easy crouch near Cinder, straightening up and turning to face out and over the expanse of the Atlesian seas in front of them.

A/N: We are reaching the end of the first arc soon, expect many things to begin to shift or be set up as we enter Arc 2 with Cinder and Raven and the ongoing journey back to Anima.

As always, leave a comment, kudo, etc if you like what I do, and I'll try to reply to comments when I get a chance!

 

[Baughn]

I'm still reading, you're just posting these faster than I can read!

It's still good, too. Alas, no-one has bought my recommendations as yet...

 

[Ember]

I'm still reading, you're just posting these faster than I can read!

It's still good, too. Alas, no-one has bought my recommendations as yet...

Click to shrink...

Take all the time you need! I'm glad you're still enjoying it!

 

[Ember]

Argus was beautiful, from at least, a certain point of view. To Cinder, it reminded her uncomfortably of Atlas, with the regimented, cold, perfect city floating above the embers of the old, trading all the personality of such roots for a feeble dream of safety.

In just the past few weeks, the girl had gotten a crash course on Grimm sea life and sea life in general. That had been enough to utterly shatter any conceptions that she'd had about coastal cities and safety. The small boat that she and Raven had taken, rated for crossing the channels between the shipping lanes and hailing, really, flagging down larger boats, had given her an ample opportunity to watch radar and sonar contacts ping on the central displays. As the girl lay back on her bunk, the humming of the hotel's small temperature unit in her ears, she reflected on the journey as she'd taken it.

The first time she'd seen a leviathan, Cinder had nearly pissed herself from the fear. The shape had blotted out their sonar for almost 10 minutes, calmly swimming below them at such a depth that it had to be truly enormous to show up as it did. Raven had calmly leaned over, ruffled Cinder's hair, and told her that it likely couldn't even sense the two of them, even with Cinder's sudden spike in fear.

It had been a great relief, when the vast creature had turned away from them, heading to the east, towards the deepest parts of the oceans. A relief that had Cinder sagging with a released breath she hadn't even realized she was holding in.

She'd seen the flocks of birds and fish swarm around her and Raven's small ship, and when they'd been picked up by an Atlesian steamer, 4 days into their journey, the girl had been all too happy to leave the dingy barge behind for something with genuine, real power behind it as it moved.

That the vessel was very clearly a retired Q-ship had helped matters tremendously. But when she'd sat down to speak to Raven about it, in the privacy of a guest cabin, closely located to the vessels overtuned, vastly out of spec engines, her guardian had simply said.

"My reputation is vast. Summer and I have saved more than we ever let die, and none are more grateful to us than the sea captains who rely on the lanes for trade. It would be a great disservice to everything that we have bled for if they were to disrespect us."

She hadn't said anything else, that night, and Cinder had felt Raven's gaze upon her for a long, long time before she'd fallen asleep.

It said something to the girl that Raven even now refused to relax or let up on the watch rotation she occupied. Was nowhere in this woman's opinion safe? Or did she simply catch her rest when the crew were occupying Cinder with tasks and training alike?

Cinder suspected the latter, even if a part of her wondered if the former was more accurate.

She liked the crew, she'd decided. They were honest, hard-working, and to a fault, boisterous and rowdy and alive in a way that astounded her. She spent long hours of the day watching them jive and banter with each other, waiting with bated breath whenever arguments erupted that seemed always steps away from violence, until… without a thought, that had faded away like a fleeting breeze.

She'd wondered how they could snap at each other, how they could bray and argue and fight, and return to working side by side with each other scant minutes later whenever a daily crisis came up.

Raven wasn't helpful there, either. She'd only said a short sentence in response to Cinder's question, on the second day of their travel, and that sentence had only confused Cinder further.

"They are not like us, they do not have semblances or aura, they are mortal and they are whole."

Raven was frustrating like that sometimes. She'd speak in riddles, with a smug half-smile playing with her lips, until Cinder either gave up, or worried whatever the meaning of the sentence had been down to the bone. Often overthinking it to complexity that it simply couldn't have.

For the above, she'd puzzled over it for a day or more, wondering if Raven had meant that the crew weren't physically scarred, or why not having a semblance or aura made you… somehow more?

She'd stopped thinking so hard when one of the deckhands, a tall, very athletic woman with dark red hair she kept tied up, had slapped her on the back and told her in an accent so thick it was almost unintelligible.

"Qui' mutterin' to ya'self. Ya gon' burst a blood tube doin' tha'."

Cinder had stopped doing that at that moment and desperately tried to hide the blush from covering her face.

It really wasn't her fault that people who had that spark of life to them did things to her heart and stomach, and filled her mind with hope for the future, hope where she could fly or do whatever she'd set her mind to.

She'd spent the rest of the afternoon a dopey, near mindless wreck, thoroughly frustrating Raven, for once, when the third time she'd put Cinder down on the mat in a row had only resulted in the girl staggering to her feet and rushing the taller woman.

She'd needed to land something of a hit, or feel something that made the weird flopping in her stomach go away.

Contrary to Raven's stupid, smug, arrogant face, Cinder would get over these silly things whenever she wanted too! She could stop at any time she wanted, and she could absolutely stop wandering around on deck observing Diana at work.

She'd overheard the girl's name from someone, she wasn't really sure, but she liked watching her interact with the others aboard.

She had an infectious cheer and smile that lit up rooms, and Cinder could very easily see why the younger members of the crew gravitated toward her.

Raven only made it worse, waggling her eyebrows and smiling every time she caught Cinder staring, which was frequent, and every time that she wandered by and watched Cinder's eyes track across the deck.

Arguably, it was only just as frustrating as the fact that Cinder couldn't string a sentence together when Diana talked to her, which wasn't that common, but it happened, usually the woman would watch the girl and her guardian train, and yet, only at the end or in the middle, always preventing Cinder from noticing her.

It was infuriating.

Luckily for Cinder, her training regimen was starting to genuinely show serious effects, perhaps that was the aura boosting her regeneration? She wasn't sure, but Raven had been able to coax another couple pounds of muscle into banded cords that enhanced and flexed wonderfully when Cinder moved, and her motions were now more grace and feline than anything a normal human could do.

The first time she'd startled a crewmember by simply standing still near the shadows, then moving suddenly when he'd turned her into his peripheral vision had been an addicting rush.

This wasn't power like Raven's powers, but it was a power all its own, a power that let her start moving around the ship like a ghost. Which was where she started to hear things and see others.

Diana, for one, was running from something in Atlas.

Something big and military shaped, and something that she was terrified would find her remaining family back home.

Or so her letters had read. Cinder didn't know who "L" was, but the letters were open and vulnerable in a way so many people weren't.

The captain, one Barnes, was a man of unwavering focus on his ship and his crew, and that focus had rewarded him with deep scars and enough night terrors to fill an entire horror novel. That and the strange necklace he wore under his shirt, with three small items on it, Cinder reflected calmly on such a thing as she hung from a vent on the ceiling of his suite.

The string was thick, natural leather, aged and cared for. One charm, a bullet casing, scorch and dust markings where it had been fired. One, a locket sealed and even partially melted shut. One small ornament, a bottle full of clear amber liquid.

Cinder puzzled over what it meant, the spent cartridge… a friend lost in the line of duty? Barnes didn't carry himself as a soldier? The liquid was likely alcohol, perhaps something important to him? A lost vintage from an outlying town or village now swallowed by the grimm? What was the locket containing? What secrets did the necklace allow her to puzzle out about who Barnes was?

Cinder hauled herself back through the vents before any of the crew was awake beyond the night watchmen, and she'd gotten very, very good at avoiding their routes and shifts.

She'd returned to her room, watching Raven stalk the place in something akin to slight worry, the way her forehead creased just "so" under the dim light of the dust lantern swinging from the ceiling.

She saw the way the woman obsessively tinkered with Omen, reshaping and delicately repairing the mechanisms that Cinder herself had written off as complete loss.

Was Raven insane or was she that good? Cinder hadn't thought the blade operable, or even salvageable. But it seemed that Raven didn't share her judgment, and instead, merely turned to face her before asking.

"What did you learn? What did you see?"

These questions had begun almost immediately after Raven had caught her trying to sneak in on the second time she'd tried it. They always took the forms of lessons, in a strange fashion, always addressed towards what she could have, and what she did, learn. Raven never punished her if she forgot or failed to notice things, but the woman always challenged Cinder to think more clearly about what she was seeing, and what she was going to actually be able to use. Should a need arise, of course.

"Captain has a necklace, old bullet casing, sealed locket, sealed bottle of liquid on an old leather cord."

Raven nodded as Cinder continued.

"Suspicion is old war, lost family, and was addicted, carries the liquid with him to remind himself of something he lost, perhaps family or deeper relationship."

Unconsciously, Cinder had begun to hold her hands behind her back when giving these sorts of informal reports. While they quickly did seem formal, Raven was only half listening most of the time, if Cinder had said something of interest, she would speak up, but that was rare.

In this instance, she stopped her motions of fiddling with the blade, turning to look at Cinder and asking a simple question.
"Why?"

That could have meant any number of things, but the girl went with "motives" reinforcing her guesswork.

"Carries the locket to remind himself of family lost, so he doesn't forget, carries the bullet to remind himself of what caused the loss, carries the alcohol to remind himself of what he did in the wake of the death."

Raven nods.

"A succinct and good hypothesis, not one we can prove without direct evidence, but a good one nonetheless. What will this hypothesis provide insight into?"

Cinder easily responds.

"His motivations are towards any he considers family or adjacent, he served, so military hold a soft spot, yet he still likely blames commanders for the death of his loved ones, hence his retiring."

Another nod, encouraging, Cinder continued.

"The crew are prioritized over his ship, even more so than normal, and to such a degree that he will make them always go first in the event of a catastrophe. Will likely sacrifice himself to ensure their survival."

"Diana is the favorite, former Atlesian military, likely was tracked for the academy, didn't join, based on personal bias? Perhaps…"

Raven shrugged, her own reply cryptic as ever.

"Hone your edges, and use those guesses to judge the things about others that makes them useful to you. Summer figured out much from what she was able to discern, and yet, in equal measure, she was always a step ahead of much of anything anyone sought to hide from her."

Raven stops speaking after that, and Cinder and her pass the rest of the night in silence, Cinder sleeping, and Raven keeping watch once more.

The girl remembers the next morning because it is Raven shaking her awake and pointing, soundlessly, to the singular television screen that illustrates the news. The headlines point to one thing, something that has Raven's eyes hard and cold and viciously angry.

Beacon Headmaster and a surprise visit to Atlas? More at 10 pm, from Central News Atlas!

Raven's gaze was locked to the screen, but Cinder's, Cinder's gaze was hard locked to her guardian and her expression, more accurately.

Cinder has seen Raven annoyed, but she has never seen her furious with anger, until this exact moment. Raven's gaze is so tightly wound at the screen, at the picture of the young man with white hair and small black glasses. She wonders why Raven seems to hate this man so much, she wonders why the woman's every muscle is tight with exertion and the threat of imminent violence.

Raven's hands do not grasp for Omen, instead, they sit tightly clenched as the woman stares directly ahead. Gaze hardened and her eyes staring blankly forwards at the man on screen as if he were nothing more than a monster.

"Who… who is that?"

Cinder's quiet and gentle question is met by a hiss and a spit of anger from Raven.

"Its name is Ozma, it wears the skin of a man named Ozpin. Don't trust it ever, no matter what lies or platitudes it plies you with."

Then, Raven stopped talking, and Cinder was left in the quiet until the broadcast continued unabated.

In a surprising, but welcome turn of events, headmaster Ozpin of Beacon Academy announced his surprise visit to Atlas to congratulate newly appointed Lieutenant General James Ironwood, for his successful handling of what we are now calling the dockyard uprising riots. As well as his newly implemented equality for all programs.

Cinder tuned out the news for a moment, looking back at Raven, noting she hadn't moved, and hadn't shifted, her muscles stark and contracted. Once more, Cinder reflected on the fact that her guardian seemed about to destroy the cabin and everything else within it in a blaze of potent, powerful lightning.

She made the decision, at that moment, to make herself scarce.

The decks weren't quiet, but the noise was a welcome distraction as Cinder ran laps around the upper deck, Raven was furious and Cinder really wasn't feeling like she'd want to test that woman's particular limits, not on this day. Absolutely.

The entertainment value of Diana didn't cease, however, as Cinder recovered from the morning's workout, lying prone atop the bridge's prominent tower.

Diana was working again, the young woman stretching out a series of lines that linked to the vessels dust powered skimmers, retracting and propelling the massive vessel evenly throughout the waves.

Cinder's eyes tracked her, and then… they spotted something, rather, someone else. She'd seen the flash of the lifeboat's movement before but had assumed it was merely the tarp coverings that secured and protected it from inclement weather.

This time, she quickly picked up on something akin to genuine, natural movement and turned her gaze to the lifeboat itself.

Initially, she saw nothing, and could smell the sea but little else, until she focused, on doing what Raven had trained her to do.

Aura liked forming a defensive barrier once you'd trained enough to do so, in fact, it was almost completely natural to do so with enough training. The strange part of it was pushing it into what you were, using your muscles and the like to augment who you were and what you could do.

In this case, Cinder focused very firmly, very calmly, directly onto the nerves that allowed her to see, and with a slight, gentle push, she tugged the warmth of aura into her eyes and blinked.

Everything was suddenly much starker and much more in detail, she felt her body begin to flood her system with adrenaline, fighting off the weariness from earlier and preparing her for combat, the expectation, likely that she would be needing to fight.

In this case, Cinder chose not to fight, or react, instead, she just froze her gaze on the lifeboat.

Now? With the enhanced sight, she could make out faint motions and careful movements. She watched as something, perhaps a grimm? No, they bore specific tells, even the more humanoid ones, and this one was proportioned correctly for a human.

What was it?

Cinder's gaze is interrupted as Diana walks past the lifeboat, with her vision sharpened, Cinder is able to see many things in a greater light, from the way that Diana smiles to the way she walks, and Cinder finds herself quite unable to stop the very brilliant flush that spreads across her cheeks as a result.

By the time she's dragged her eyes away from Diana and her confidence, the figure is gone.

Mentally cursing herself, Cinder resolves herself to tell Raven about the little stowaway later, it would be important for her guardian to know, at the very least, and perhaps they'd do something about it, or Cinder could track the figure.

Why had they been messing with the lifeboats?

That had to be a question for later.

Nightfall.

She'd return at Nightfall, and inspect the boat thoroughly.

What was the saying about best laid plans and failing upon contact with the enemy? Cinder hadn't had a moment to truly comprehend that statement until she'd tried to return at night and found that the lifeboat had been meticulously cleaned of any identifiers, and more to that point, that someone had placed a very cold, very sharp blade at the corner of her neck.

"Who are you? How did you find me?"

The tone is lilting, high, and dangerous, and Cinder almost whirls to evaluate her apparent attacker, but the moment she indicates movement, the girl's grip on her knife tickles the underside of Cinder's chin.

"Ah ah ah, not a move or I'll give you a Dockyard Smile from ear to ear."

The threat is clear, this woman would kill her if she moved, so Cinder answers her questions.

"I saw you with aura enhanced sight. You are not as stealthy to me as you are to the crew."

"Aura enhanc-?"

Cinder interrupts the other woman with immediate motion, she slams her head backwards, and hears a satisfying crunch as bone met nose, the knife dropped with a clatter to the deck, and Cinder whirled and turned to face her attacker.

It was a girl, perhaps her age, with strange discolorations on her face, holding her nose as a few drops of blood spilled freely, but as her body flickered gray, Cinder stifled a disgusted sigh.

Why did everyone misuse their aura? It wasn't that hard to have a constant shield, and sure, not everyone had strong aura, but this girl should have been fine, but… on that note, why did she have aura?

Cinder narrows her eyes, flicking the small belt knife she routinely carried, even aboard the ship, open. This girl wasn't part of the crew, she was a stowaway, and she had aura.

"Really?"

Then, as the girl spoke, Cinder saw it, a dark series of lines running from the hollow of her throat down her body, a series of lines that flickered and meshed together as the girl's skin turned bright red and she advanced on Cinder.

"Why would you… I just wanted to talk!"

Cinder raises an eyebrow, talk?

"You put a knife to my throat."

"You were sneaking about like you were trying to stab me!"

"I didn't even have a knife out!"

"You walked like a warrior!"

"What warrior is 12 years old!?"

"Haven't you seen Mistral Mechmories?"

"That was a fictional character!?"

The other girl paused, and Cinder with her, the girl is the first to start, sheathing the massive combat knife at her hip.

"I… I'm sorry, start over?"

Cinder sighed, and nodded once, sheathing her own belt knife.

"Who are you? What are you doing onboard this ship?"

The faunus girl paused, and seemed to be weighing her options carefully, she didn't notice the black bird take up a position behind her, a good 10 feet above her, but Cinder did.

How had Raven noticed? Had she heard the argument!? Had she been following Cinder?

The girl wasn't sure, but now, Cinder had more confidence in her actions, and her questions.

"Call me Sunny."

Cinder's eyes almost narrow, but she stops them from doing so, she takes in the other girl's body language, and notes the pupils and the way she's breathing.

She was lying. Well, two could play at that game.

"Lavender, lav for short."

"Well, Lav, what are you doing with your aura openly displayed on this ship? Aren't you worried about the Grimm?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ugh, have you nev- has no one? Natural aura unlock?"

Cinder pauses, the other girl visibly frustrated, her skin a shade of light red.

"No. Unlocked by someone who's… in a different form now."

The raven on the decks made eye contact with Cinder enough to simply shake its head, Cinder thought she caught a whiff of sheer disapproval from the way that it moved, but she was sure she imagined it.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

The other girl's skin turned a shade of blue, sorrow perhaps?

"It's fine. But what did you mean?"

The other girl snaps one finger, turning back to face Cinder at that.

"Right, sorry, aura openly attracts grimm."

Cinder froze, Raven had never said anything like this before, was it her fault they'd been stalked by the grimm? Was it her fault that everything bad had happened to them if the grimm were attract-

No. It couldn't be, Raven openly wore her aura on her entire body, constantly. She never let it drop unless she was sleeping, and she rarely slept. What did that even remotely mean? They'd not been flooded by Grimm ever, even with Raven's aura active, so… what did that mean?

"I… are you sure, Sunny?"

Cinder doesn't miss the way the girl almost flinches away from herself, the pseudonym clearly not something she was used to being addressed as or by.

"That's what I was always told… restrain your aura lest the grimm narrow in on you because of it."

"But… why haven't the academies fallen then?"

"I don't know, I'm not from here…"

"Like Atlas has its fleet, and its walls, but Mistral's academy is only inside the walls of the city, so how could they not get overrun, wouldn't that be like a beacon to them?"

The other girl shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know, only that I was told to avoid pulling out my aura almost all the time because of it."

"But… what if you got ambushed!?"

That stopped "Sunny" in her tracks, and her wide gray eyes meet Cinder's own.

"Ambushed… what do you mean?"

Cinder freezes, she'd revealed too much, normal 12 year old girls didn't have the experiences she did… was she trying to convince this girl that she was normal?

"I uh… there are grimm that can sneak up on you, right?"

Sunny stared at Cinder, eyes narrowed and, it seemed, something on the tip of her tongue. But the two stopped speaking for long enough that Cinder missed when Raven arrived and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Time to return, you've spent enough out here and created enough noise for an evening."

Cinder turned back to look for the other girl, but "Sunny" was already gone.

As they returned to the cabin, Cinder asked Raven if aura could attract the creatures of grimm.

"No. What attracts them is the emotions, which you feel strongly, and which are, if not quite broadcast, but made more apparent to others who can look. I knew a man who had a semblance that let him read others emotions, and it was more powerful against anyone who had aura. Something in the way our emotions express themselves upon our souls means that others pick up on them easier. But simply put, there isn't enough understanding to confirm that or deny it."

She lapsed into silence, and Cinder processed the information. She had been quick to pick up on the other girl's body language, very quick, in fact, so was that simply her aura reading into "Sunny's" emotional state? Or was she just reading into it naturally?

If emotions attracted the grimm, as she'd seen with the beowulf in the tundra, then why weren't people weaponizing such a thing? Why weren't people using it to lure grimm away from the cities and destroy them there? How had Atlas not realized this or capitalized on this? It only would require some huntresses to bait away a group of Grimm, then cut their emotions off with their aura.

"It's not that simple. You aren't meant to be emotionless, you aren't meant to be brokenly robotic. Huntresses and huntsmen can't turn it off at will, they can't disable who they are."

Raven turned the doorknob and let herself and Cinder into the cabin, lying on the table was the form of Omen, the guts of the weapon spread across the table. With a start, Cinder recognized a small ceramic crucible and a few small bars of silvery grey metal. This must have been something Raven kept for battlefield repairs if necessary, but the woman could barely believe that she kept it all on hand, and raising an eyebrow, Raven responds before she can ask.

"Lightning is perfectly capable of heating the crucible to my desired temperature."

Cinder needs to pick her jaw up from the floor. She's familiar with what lightning is capable of, fully familiar with it detonating trees and leaving molten glass behind in the wake of the bolts, but the sheer control over it that one would need to have in order to use it as a heat source… let alone tempering the sheer overwhelming temperature down to a level where it wouldn't just melt anything around it…

Cinder watches in fascination as Raven calls her powers briefly, just long enough for the illusion of flames to sprout from her eyes, until the crucible glows red hot and she's tinkering with Omen's workings, shaping new components from the liquid and then, with a touch, chilling them to workability with another application of powers.

Cinder's semblance is capable of superheating, and as Raven continuously shifts between heating and cooling, Cinder reaches out a hand and focuses on the crucible. She can already feel the warmth deserting it, the heat flowing out of the material and into the ambient air. She can see the way it deserts, and the way the metal will be affected, and almost before she can think clearly, she pulls on that reservoir, opens the door to the crackling bonfire of her semblance, and pushes outwards.

The crucible heats up immediately, and Cinder can feel a strain as she gently controls the heat, forcing it to flow evenly throughout the small receptacle. She sees Raven raise an eyebrow at her when she turns back, but the woman doesn't say anything, merely nodding and getting to work.

Pouring molten metal onto the small metal portions of Omen that require it, Cinder draws the ambient heat out of the metal, taking it from there as Raven cools it with her powers, the repair work is quick, efficient and useful for both of them. Useful for Raven because within the hour, she's able to sheathe Omen and draw a dust blade from within without any issues. Useful for Cinder as she sees the inner workings of a mechashift weapon, and decides then and there that such a thing will not feature heavily in her weapon when she needs it.

By the time they're finished, Cinder is gasping for air as her semblance finally turns off. The sheer exertion beyond anything she'd ever been able to experience before. Raven calmly rests a hand on her sweaty haired head, and when she speaks, it is in a carefully neutral tone.

"Well done. Most would have fallen unconscious after semblance usage of such a long time."

Cinder tries very hard to keep from happily smiling at Raven, and while she does eventually fail, its a small smile that curves her lips up, a small smile that's matched by the genuine one that Raven wears, for the very first time since Summer died.

It's a small, heartbreaking thing, and Cinder finds herself tearing up, and then she's moving and throwing her arms around Raven's waist, and Raven's resting a hand on her head and gently ruffling her hair.

"It's ok… you've done well, little kite."

Cinder tried not to cry, she really did, and she'd even argue that she made it a whole minute.

Then the dam broke, and everything she'd gone through, from Madame, to Summer, to Iris and Clove and everyone around her, and it all shattered down on her. From Summer's sacrifice for her and Raven, from Tyrian's words, from the fighting against Grimm, from the near attack from that girl "Sunny".

Cinder sobs and cries and clutches at Raven's armor and clothes, and Raven just holds her close and doesn't say anything. Words failing the older woman as her own demons make an immediate resurgence.

Summer. She failed Summer. Taiyang, turning away from her, his hand leading a girl with hair the color of sunshine and eyes as lilac as her mothers away. Cinder, she'd trained the girl into a weapon, and had begun to reward her for that… wasn't that failure? That was just like her, wasn't it?

She wants to laugh at the hopelessness, if she returns to Yang, she'd leave Cinder behind, if she returned to Cinder, she'd leave Yang behind.

If she chose Yang, Cinder would be betrayed, and she'd sworn to Cinder and Summer she'd take care of her, if she left Yang behind… what would that do to her in the future? How would it be to grow up without Summer and with Taiyang as a depressed mess? How could she-

A kernel of an idea began to sprout.

The tribe, they were her lifeline, they'd been her lifeline. Could she use that here?

Raven chewed on her lip, one hand rubbing against Cinder's sobbing, shivering form, the other resting on her head. She wasn't good at this mothering thing, Summer had been amazing at it, and she'd then had to go and die.

Another current of red hot anger burns through Raven.

Ironwood.

She'd known James, she'd known his commitment to justice and fairness, where had that man gone? What had happened to him!? She wanted to strangle the man, she wanted to burn him so badly he'd never dream of withholding information from her again.

But another part of her simply knew that wasn't possible, Ironwood was untouchable now, as a liuetenant general, his program promising even more equality to the faunus, and his opponents decrying him as a racist scumbag.

Raven knew he wasn't, but she also wanted him crucified in the papers.

Her gaze is narrowed, and slowly, as she looks down at Cinder, the girl slowly breathing in her arms, her eyes shut, and an expression of rest on her face, she'd fallen asleep.

Right there Raven made a promise.

"Should I get my way, you will never have to fight the monster that hunts me. Should I get my way, you will grow up alongside Taiyang and Yang, as friends dear enough to fill in for me should I fail in my endeavor."

She would need to do a number of things. The first was make contact with the Branwen tribe. Argus was one of the three cities that the tribe kept dedicated lookouts in, and Raven just had to hope that she'd be able to find the woman or man that wore the tattoo.

Every different lookout had different methods of keeping touch with Branwen tribe observers. Argus' specialty, was tattoo's. Specifically a tattoo worn on the left hip, a spiraling circular blade.

She'd have to hope they could be found.

As her arms encircled Cinder and placed her into her bed, Raven turned to face the potholes, then, her mind made up, she wrote a small note on a sheet of stationary and left it on the table, then, she left the door behind, locking it behind her.

Time to find the stowaway.

The girl had nearly stabbed Cinder.

Raven had to consciously tamp down her immediate urge for violence. This girl might have been a child, but that meant nothing to the bandit queen.

Children made for excellent assassins, after all.

So when she found the little stowaway in the ship's second engine room, she wasn't surprised in the slightest. Raven watched the girl transition seamlessly from camouflage to camouflage as she made her way across the deck, avoiding the engineer and guard on night duty.

She continued to watch as the girl gently pried a metal device from within a sachet carried in her hands, and lay it flat against several small components of the engine. To Raven's eyes, they looked important, linked to the regulators of steam.

This could not be allowed to continue, this little girl and her zealotry wouldn't be allowed to slow Cinder or Raven down, at all. If that meant another little white fang spy had to be thrown overboard lacking a pint of her blood.

Then so be it.

Raven waited for the girl to finish planting her devices and sneak clear of the engine room. Then, she followed her progress to the lifeboat she'd been modifying earlier. The divots that held it on the crane had been loosened, all for the little spy to get away.

She seemed overconfident, completely ready to escape, which made Raven scoff, the woman turning to the rear of the vessel.

Far to the rear, she could just make out the flare of another vessel, bright lights extinguished, and the dark smoke from it's dust stack the only thing that gave an indication that she was steaming towards them. By Raven's estimation, she'd increased speed, trying for an interception and she'd get that interception.

Hm.

What should she do?

Would she need a ship for what she wanted to do with the tribe?

Yes.

Should she risk the lives of all crew onboard?

She could.

Should she defuse the situation?

No.

They threatened Cinder by proxy. That was their last mistake. So as the spy cut the divots and dropped to the dark waters below, Raven reached for the mask on her belt and donned the shroud of the grimm.

And the woman, the guardian of Cinder, the lover of Summer Rose, took a step back into the darkness, as Raven of the Branwen, Bandit Queen, stepped off the gunwale and plummeted towards the dark waters below.

A/N: The chapter is a tad bit shorter, but what happens next scene was far too large for this chapter, and I am not so cruel as to cut a fight scene in half just to achieve a fairly balanced word count. Expect a good show next chapter.
Letting everyone know that when Arc 1 ends, I'll be taking the week after the last chapter goes live to finish planning out Arc 2 as well as review all of Arc 1, so there will be a gap in between uploads, I'll let you all know precisely when that is when I post the last chapter of Arc 1.
Until then, be gay, do crime, and enjoy all the reading your little hearts can.

 

[Warmachine375]

At first you have my curiosity but you have my attention. I will be watching this RWBY AU story with great interest and looking forward for more in the next chapter.

 

[Ember]

Cinder, Cinder, Cinder.

Raven would have thought the girl was something she'd been able to figure out by now, and yet, she wasn't. The girl was frustratingly closed off, the moments they'd shared, the ruffling of Cinder's hair, she'd been open, but not open in the way Raven wanted.

The idle schlick of a body dropping from the front of Omen's blade wasn't even enough to arouse more than a disinterested snort from the Branwen.

She'd been expecting a half-decent fight.

Not a bunch of idiotic teenagers jumped up on drugs, violent patriotism, and passionate devotion.

The first guards on the deck of the trailing vessel hadn't even been able to scream before Omen cleaved the first man in two and took the woman's head from her shoulders.

The crew hadn't improved beyond that.

Cinder commanded Raven's thoughts and drove her decisions. Her plan, insofar as you could call it that, had been something of a unique thing. The Branwen tribe were far-flung from the mere bandits they'd been when she and Qrow had been children. They were hardly a force for good but generally picked only on those judged to be strong enough to defend themselves.

The tribe prided itself on strength, not on being dependent, but on being strong enough to rip and tear the survival of the next day from the jaws of this one.

The raids they'd done had been judged to be for maximal effectiveness and minimal damage. But… that had changed.

Summer in her dreams had reminded her, had spoken of the woman… Andromeda. A dream of tan skin on legs that had gone so far up they'd seemed to almost never end, Raven had very nearly let the woman seduce her into returning to the tribe in her third year, her childhood friend a safe, trusted person. Only for her discovery upon returning to horrify and shock her into leaving forever.

A sepulcher of carnage and monstrosity had greeted Qrow and herself at the gates, the skulls of powerful grimm, covered in the bullets and blades that had felled them, had traditionally served as a warning against attack, and a warning against grimm.

They'd been replaced by the time Raven and Qrow had arrived, by human and faunus heads, mouths open in silent, deliberate screams.

With another flick of Omen's blade, the man charging around the corner, knives drawn and footsteps far too loud, released a startled gasp as his chest parted like water around the razor-sharp blade.

Raven rolled her eyes behind the mask, they were truly horrible at this 'repelling boarders' thing.

She'd been horrified to see the man who'd taken the camp, a barrel-chested loudmouth by the name of Garrote, sitting on a throne of human bone.

Qrow had tried to kill him on sight.

Only direct intervention from Summer had saved her brother's life, and the resulting response, namely that team STRQ had fled, haunted Raven to this day.

Andromeda had died before Raven had graduated, falling with a smile on her face from the very blade Raven wore when she tried to slide a knife between Summer's ribs in passing.

It hadn't been the first kill Raven had made, but it had been the hardest.

She'd not known until much later that she'd truly loved that woman, and it had taken Taiyang and Summer a year or so to fully steal her heart away.

Raven ducked back behind the walls as a fusillade of gunfire erupted from the decks leading into the bowels of the ship. Here there were no innocent teens or new recruits, the people she faced were battle-hardened and even had their aura unlocked.

It didn't matter.

The barricade fell as Raven moved beyond the speed of normal people to process, Omen turned into a flash of crimson, and heads rolled. Viscera, parted from throats and necks, sprayed over Raven, and the woman stared down evenly at the charnel house a simple amount of motion had turned the front of the boat's inner corridors into.

A dissatisfied look crossed her face; She'd have to go for a swim to clean the blood and chunks from her clothing. Her hackles raised- she hated saltwater.

Another shout, and the telltale clicking of mecha shift weapons. Huntresses?

Raven turned down the hall, emerging into a low-ceilinged meeting and eating room, the long tables had been leveled at the door, and a tall man with dreadlocks held a shotgun the size of her torso with one hand, stabilizing the weapon on the top of the table.

A woman stood to his side, a long, flensing whip lain with blades of crystal dust in the other hand. She was fair-skinned and had a smattering of freckles across her nose, the marks on her exposed neck and shoulders spoke of a lifetime of combat in vicious circumstances.

The third member was a flaxen-haired old woman, with a great scythe held in two hands. She twirled it once, and Raven winced as the grating screech of the blades on the metal deck met her ears.

She stopped, facing them, barely paying attention as they began to speak.

"I am Barker, you've come far, little human, but you'll fall just like the Atlesian stooges before you!"

Raven wondered if Garrote had survived the intervening years. She'd have to take his head to take back the tribe in order for her plan to work.

"Fae! Master of the Vacuoan floating swords! You've come a long way to die at my hands and enhance my legend further!"

Perhaps her bond with that woman… Spring, would persist long enough to open a portal back to the tribe? She'd not felt strong bonds from any of them, and her semblance had refused to open a portal for Roland or Cleo, perhaps Spring was still alive or around?

"Wheat, master of the war scythe! You will fall at my hands!"

Master of the war scythe? Raven stooped and looked at her opponents, then she threw her head back and laughed.

Her mask made even her laughter, throaty and full and purring, into a rasping, hissing cacophony hidden behind red eye lenses the color of blood.

She didn't dignify any of them with a response beyond their boastful declarations, and after thinking for a moment, these huntresses and hunter… they were buying time for the crew to do… something.

What was it?

The man pulled the trigger, and the thunderous retort of the shotgun announced its fury, spitting buckshot into the space Raven had been a scant fraction of a second ago. As he pulled the slide back with that single, trembling hand, Raven struck a palm laced with her own aura into the whip sword woman's throat.

As she fell, gurgling and choking, Raven casually disemboweled her with a flick of Omen's blade. Panic made even the most experienced hunters fail their tasks, and a crushed windpipe was one of the very few things you had to focus your aura on to fix before it became lethal.

The "Warscythe" master sent her blade whirling forwards in a circle of hissing steel, and Raven stepped forwards, through the whirling blades, her hand came up, and she seized the old woman's neck, lifting her up, before a fist smashed into her nose, then her throat.

Choking and coughing, Raven only barely made out the click of the shotgun's loading mechanism finishing as the man raised his thunderous cannon once more, she focused her aura to the front subconsciously.

The Branwens would need to rebrand, become legitimate, flee Mistral, and head to Vale, offering intelligence and perhaps even trading favors to that old bastard of a wizard…

The spray of viscera and a few pieces of low-velocity, tumbling metal fragments covered her mask in blood and viscera as Warscythe's torso exploded. Shotguns, excellent for boarding actions, were lethal to all in their path, and this woman had only been focused on Raven, she hadn't noted her comrade.

Raven tossed the glassy-eyed woman to one side and flicked Omen forwards, the blade cleanly severing tendons in the man's remaining hand, piercing with a red-hot glow through the aura and into the man beneath.

She twisted savagely, and Omen bisected his forearm and tore flesh free, flensing the tissues away as if she'd stuck his hand into a grinder.

He made out half a scream before Omen took his head, and Raven was left with silence aside from the drip, drip, drip of blood and gore flowing down the walls.

She'd have to reclassify these people. They were pirates, not Fang. The ship was armed and intelligent enough to send a spy over, and that spy had slowed her vessel down, instead of blowing it up.

Only pirates dealt in slaves, aside from the SDC.

Which meant one thing.

There could be slaves below decks. Or conquests from other ships.

Raven narrowed her eyes behind the mask, and strode forwards, thoughts, as always, returning to Cinder and the path she'd need to take.

Branwen would need to either change or die off.

That was all.

Raven passed through to the lower deck, and cut down the crew like so much wheat. The pirates in front of her were nothing in the face of her blade, and they died easily and evenly.

It wasn't until she reached the lowest deck that she found what she searched for.



Ilia

Ilia hated the way they looked at her, and she hated the way that she'd jumped at the chance to doom others to the fate she was going to share. She petulantly kicked at the heavy shackles binding her to the boat, kicked at the door, and tried to not let her trembling upper lip show that she was terrified.

She wanted to hide away, wanted to desperately flee from that stuffy school full of stuffy humans and their judgment. When the mine had blown, when she'd heard the news, when her skin had turned as blue as the sky… when her friends, the girls she'd thought were closer to her than sisters, looked at her with naked disgust. She'd run, run from the girls she'd called her friends, and hidden from everyone who thought she was just another human.

A spit of anger ran through her, followed by something resembling misery.

She'd fled to the docks in Mantle, and taken the first boat she'd seen, that woman had been so kind, and stupid, dumb, trusting Ilia had fallen for it. She'd fallen for the soup, fallen for the gambit, and fallen for the captain of the vessel bartering her freedom in exchange for sneaking aboard the other ship when they'd caught up to her.

She'd tried to get the waist binder off but failed, she'd tried to cut it off, but the steel was nearly fused to her skin. Then the captain had seen the marks and electrocuted her, and she'd not been able to stand as he kicked her into the cells.

She'd been stuck in the cell for a week, listening to the screams of her fellow prisoners, and the horrifying, desperate, wanton cries of a woman as something had forced its way into her cell.

Ilia tried not to think about such things so much, she tried to think about anything, but she'd fallen for a stupid trick and now she was going to spend her entire life doomed to be some Pirate slave… if worse things didn't occur first.

She'd been beaten until they'd seen her skin, she'd been brutalized and hooted at, called and mocked, and told that her only value was how much value she could bring from the conquests of the other people the ship attacked.

She hated that she knew they weren't lying.

She hated it more that she knew they weren't above killing children, among… worse fates.

She missed her mommy and daddy, and a part of her wondered if she'd ever see them again. Her daddy's tired eyes, lined with exhaustion from the mines, yet holding such a spark of life to them as she talked about her day, about her friends.

Her mother's soft, serene smile, even as she hunched, her spine damaged and injured, genuine happiness coursing through her as she braided Ilia's hair, or as she stroked the girl's back or massaged her tired muscles.

She wondered if she'd ever see them again.

She wondered if they were worried about her and if they'd survived the collapse…

The wet squelch, a startled gasp, and then a rasping noise cut through Ilia's fugue as she heard something faintly from above. Shouts? Screams?

Rapid fire gunshots startled her fully to wake, were they being boarded? What was happening?

Another wet thud, and something hit the floor from the grates above.

Ilia didn't want to look up, she didn't want to see what had fallen on her, the dripping coming steady and quick now.

She looked up.

She had to resist the urge to scream.

One of the nightguards, a child taken from the ports, not knowing how to swim, lay over onto the floor, sightless, half his face torn away from his skull, broken and torn flesh dripping gore from deep, scorched cuts in his skin. The grates above him torn open as if some beast had violently shredded the metal.

Ilia made it a few feet away before she fell to one side and a stream of vomit exited her mouth rapidly.

Every motion called back to those awful, sightless eyes. To the fate she was sure she'd be sharing soon!

She heard the hunters aboard speak, their voices mumbling and faint through the decking above her head.

She heard a mocking, harsh laugh.

She heard the thuds as bodies fell to the floor and the flow of blood began to rapidly increase.

Ilia curled into the corner of her cell, she tried not to listen, tried not to shake and shudder as more thudding noises hit the floor.

The rapid running motions of feet attracted her attention as she saw a trio of guards running for the armory at the front of the cells.

She froze in utter horror as one stumbled and tripped, falling to the floor with a spear of splintered deck plating, soaked in gore so thickly it had turned maroon protruding from his back.

The other two froze, their hands shaking at the doorway to the lockers that contained weapons.

Ilia's cell was farthest from the exit, closest to the armory, of course, that armory would be the first to go if holes had breached, and she, like any other captives, would drown long before the weight could be excised from their cells.

She heard the stepping, and the splashes as boots crossed the rivers of gore that slathered the floor of the cells. Only the small edges of the wrought iron pens, designed for holding animals on long, overseas journeys, kept the floors of the pens from being as soaked as the deck.

It didn't save her from the dripping overhead.

Ilia tried so hard to force her scales to match the background, not caring as she was shocked, not caring as those footsteps, the phantom, the killer, stepped closer.

She tried to camouflage herself even as the blade of a huntress came from the corner, she tried to force it to happen as a half dozen guards, reinforcing the other two leveled firearms and opened fire.

She clamped her hands over her ears and huddled, hoping that a stray dust round wouldn't kill her.

A boy, fair-skinned and blonde-haired, flinched and fell as a ricocheting dust round took his shoulder and upper chest and dyed them as red as the seas surely were.

The face of a grimm, long black fingers curving into a red blade, turned the corner, red markings around her crimson eyes.

Ilia found herself freezing, as that, that thing , crossed her path, stepping in front of the cells, bullets sparking off its armor and cracking against that horrifying blade.

She couldn't move, ice cold fear, she would die here, she would die here and they'd never find her body and her soul would never move with her family, and her mommy and daddy were burned when they died and spent eternity in agony.

The grimm moved faster than she could even process.

A guard fell with a splattering, desperate cough, the grimm holding his severed arm up like a trophy for a moment, testing its weight as she leveled it, and then…

She threw it.

Ilia felt the impact as a desperate scream was cut off by a thick, meaty thud and a wet squelching noise.

She felt the grimm drag its blade on the floor and felt the heat on her skin as sparks flew from the bone to the metal and wood decking around her.

She heard gunfire, scattered shots deflecting off the thing's armor, shattering on the faceplate and twisting, breaking, shattering into shards of metal.

She heard a choked, strangled gasp cut off as an awful crunching noise sounded, and then a thud as the body was tossed behind the grimm.

She tried desperately to focus her efforts on anything, on staying alive, on the blue-eyed blonde across from her bleeding out in front of her.

She failed.

The thing looked down at her from the door to her cell, the thing stared at her, its long, red blade covered in dark gore and… worse things.

The pieces of scalp had her hunching over to vomit again.

What had this thing struck with? Such force… to shatter the scalp and the skull beneath it!

Ilia wanted to go home…



Raven

Raven had found it disappointing that they were so terrible at combat. They'd been a moderately successful pirate ship, clearly based on the wealth the crew toted around.

She'd not realized the night guards were children until one of the crew had screamed and begged for her life.

She'd been perhaps… 9? Age was hard to tell with the mask on. Raven had nodded her head towards the lifeboats.

She had no time to waste on victims. Not while their captain still drew breath, not while the ship could still pose a risk to Cinder.

She pressed onwards, letting the fury and rage at herself turn her into the butcher she knew the pirates feared more than anything. Her sword held not like a weapon should but in a claw-handed grip suitable for chopping and hacking and little else.

She would become their nightmares. The Hatchet Man.

She would kill them where they stood, where they slept, and where they fucked.

She would kill them to the last.

Only then would she allow herself to feel the guilt and horror for killing children.

A dry, hoarse laugh parted her lips as she saw a half dozen men and women leveling automatic firearms at her from the end of the prison gallery.

Really, an armory next to your slave pens? To weigh them down so the ship could kill them if it ever sank?

Her eyes narrowed, lips curling back to show teeth.

How disgusting.

How human.

Raven darted forwards, her first target's chest caved in by aura-enhanced strength, the man dropping with a gurgle, clawing at his collapsed lungs. Until Raven brought Omen down in an overhand chop that was as horrifically brutal as it was monstrous.

His skull split like an overripe tomato. Grey matter and darkly cropped hair, attached to fragments of bone and skin, clung to the weapon as she raised it and pointed her arm forwards.

One of the crew turned to run, sheer terror overcoming his senses as Raven moved again.

She caught him and tore his arm clean from the shoulder, he dropped as a puppet with its strings cut, and Raven glorified the spray of vital blood with a flick of Omen, soaking the foremost layer of the guards.

They would die.

They would die screaming and in pain and terror, alone and unprotected from her rampage.

None would escape.

The next men and women fared no better than the first did, Raven's fist speared one through the chest, punched into the ribcage, and then, she closed her hands and violently pulled.

Ribs and bone shattered like glass, and viscera flew across the corridors, one of the survivors, one of the slaves, screamed. It didn't matter, the woman dropped, eyes glazed over and broken. Her soul tattered and fleeing her.

Gunshots spattered against her aura, the bullets flattening against her shields and dropping to the floor in scattered pings of metal filing.

Raven's face never shifted, even as Omen cleaved through weak, flickering aura, and cut untrained men and women down in spades.

It should have surprised her that it was so pathetic, it should have surprised her more than her sudden rush of instinct to throw herself to one side, easily sidestepping a crazed spear thrust from another pirate waiting in ambush.

Instead, it only curled a portion of Raven's lips as she bisected the aura-less idiot with barely a thought and returned to thinking of the Branwens.

She would have to be their ultimatum, force them to change their course, and truly guide their way forwards. Legitimacy wouldn't come easily; Too many of the tribe enjoyed the raiding, enjoyed the pillaging, and the crushing of others. She had been one of them.

Had been.

Even these pirates couldn't put up an actual fight. Even these pirates could barely scratch her. Her aura hadn't dipped out of the green, and as Omen flashed, taking another's hand off at the wrist before her fist splattered his skull against the wall, leaving just one pirate behind.

Then… it was over.

The last one dropped into a dead faint, and Raven calmly drew a pistol from the severed limb of one of the pirates, aimed it calmly at the slumped-over, unconscious woman, and pulled the trigger a half dozen times in quick succession.

One to the head, one to the throat, two to the lungs, one to the heart, and one to the stomach.

Then, calmly, she tossed the pistol to one side, the air settling as the violence of the fight ended. The thick stench of iron filled the slave pens, and Raven calmly studied the assemblage of body parts, broken bone, and torn flesh, calmly looking for… ah, there it was.

Her fingers, gloved, dipped into a pool of dark red viscera and pulled a keyring from within, and Raven, after a moment of consideration, began unlocking cells.

No one dared move until she'd finished and turned to leave the hallway. The charnel house she left behind dripped and settled as the ship stopped rocking.

Raven felt the engines shut off under her feet, the fear and anguish she'd inflicted upon the crew could easily have caused panic, which meant one thing.

Her lips narrowed into a tight line.

Grimm.

She turned to the charnel house and spoke quietly.

"All of you, take weapons and move. It is likely the grimm have been attracted to this location. If you are strong enough to survive you will need to be quick."

Her piece said, Raven turned and progressed down another deck.

The CIC of this vessel had been retrofitted to a dorm, and Raven sighed with exasperation. Of course, the useless pirates couldn't even have a proper second bridge. Raven let out a huff of irritation as she turned and progressed back the way she'd come, the bridge would have been secured by now. Defended by the heaviest weapons, and any remaining aura or hunter-trained members of the pirate crew.

She was sick and tired of pirates. Of anything, frankly, first, it had been Tyrian, then the alpha grimm, and at this point? At this point, Raven was four steps from just slaughtering anything and anyone who dared to get into her path.

She laughed, a bit… not exactly like she hadn't done that already.

Anyone who got in her way here, anyone who even tried to justify this flesh trade… they would die and she would be the harbinger of their destruction.

The upper decks were absent of the blood and viscera that coated the lower ones, and as Raven turned a corner, her face ignited in pain and she staggered back from the blast of a shotgun.

What was it with hunters and shotguns…

Oh, right. Boarding actions.

Raven turned a sliver of her head around the corridor, evaluating the positions of the enemy.

Three were behind a much more solid barricade, two with shotguns, and one struggling to load a dust-cooled machine gun.

A corner of her lip curled in disgust.

This would take too long. She had to get back to Cinder before dawn came, and that wouldn't be easy if she couldn't punch through this defensive array.

Raven looked around the corner again, and this time, snapped her head quickly back behind cover as the machine gun operator began firing into the wall.

The heavy, high-velocity bullets, designed to put down grimm with thicker than normal armor, slammed into and then through the thin outer plating of the ship's hull. Raven frowned for a moment, then stepped back and moved away from the corridor. There were other ways of entering the bridge, after all.

The cool night air hit her as she exited onto the deck, and the salt spray of the sea washed the last of the iron scent of blood from her nose. Raven calmly walked to the front of the vessel and then looked up at the bridge house.

Even from here, she could see crew and staff running every which way, most with weapons and firearms bared.

A feral smile curved her teeth.

After the discovery of sea nevermore and sea feeling grimm, and the further discovery that normal glass wasn't strong enough to hold up to the attacks such entities could launch, all ships were retrofitted with reinforced portholes, or, in some cases, those portholes were simply removed.

This vessel hadn't had those retrofits.

So when Raven fired Omen from her sheathe at the glass, she was expecting it to crack the glass, giving her incoming kick a flaw to punch through the glass.

Instead, Omen shattered the window with the force of a clap of thunder, and Raven suddenly had to adjust her trajectory to enter the bridge at speed.

The pirates had been secure in their knowledge that a machine gun could keep her at bay, and they'd been right, but that security gave rise to overconfidence.

Raven's boot met the skull of a bridge crew, and she felt the woman's nose shatter under her feet as the woman dropped bonelessly to the deck, Omen clattering into her grip as Raven stood and surveyed the bridge crew.

Half a dozen, none armed with anything more than standard swords and pistols.

With a smile curving like a predator, Raven noted the doors to the bridge were sealed, and that meant their help, the help that had weapons that could stop her…

Was indisposed.

She flashed forwards, the woman she'd landed on left groaning behind her as Omen and Raven darted at the captain, a potbellied woman wearing a grease-stained uniform.

Her hand impacted directly onto the woman's lower ribs, and Raven felt something crack as her aura-enhanced strike shattered and punched the ribs backwards.

The woman toppled with a scream, and Raven whirled, Omen rising just in time to deflect a strong strike from a young man, close-cropped black hair wound around a pair of spiraling, long horns.

He was physically powerful, more so with aura, and yet… Raven grinned beneath the mask.

He would not be able to stop her, his aura only enhanced him, he'd not had the training to raise a shield at the flick of a thought.

Omen swept low, and as he moved to counter, she stepped into his grip, the hand holding Omen releasing it into a spinning, thrown blade that sang of death.

With both her hands-free and Omen twirling behind her towards the crew, Raven caught the strike and broke the man's arm over her shoulders. Before the scream had even begun to taper off, Raven stepped in, and slammed a palm into the man's nose.

Bone snapped, and then pushed back into the head, and he dropped.

Three down.

No.

She took in the woman Omen had impaled through the stomach.

Four down.

Raven turned as the remaining two, hiding in the back of the consoles of the bridge, looked at her.

One of them, a woman, her face clenched tight with rage and anger, and her motions screaming rage at what Raven had done, tried to raise a pistol towards the air.

Her compatriot, a dusky-skinned Vacuoan woman with a prominent pair of fox ears, seized her arm and forced it lower.

"We surrender."

Raven actually startled as the voice spoke up, fists pounding on the doors that led to the bridge's interior. She moved back to the woman she'd landed on, initially, and noted that she was unconscious. Then, the impaled survivor, gasping over Omen.

Raven wrenched her blade free and, without a second thought, beheaded the woman.

Then, she turned back to the other two women, finding the angry one tightly holding the hand of the other. Their knuckles white, the faint, rust bands that encircled each ring finger identical.

A surge of emotion ran through Raven like she'd been impaled with Omen.

Summer had worn rings like those, silver, but they'd born the images of Tai and her own symbol upon each band. Raven had worn them too, as had Taiyang.

She leveled her blade at each of the women, indicating their comrades.

"I never want to see you again. If I must, assume it will be your final day. Ensure the prisoners and victims of the flesh trade your captain took-" She kicked the woman's unconscious body for emphasis- "reach destined and safe shores. If you do not do this, I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and rip you apart."

Both nodded, and one moved to drag the woman she'd landed on as she entered the bridge behind her.

The angry one was the first to unseal the doors, and Raven heard their conversation, taking it in, absorbing the information that she heard.

"Fight's over. We surrendered. Your contracts are fulfilled."

A hushed male voice, oddly high-pitched.

"Are- you're not serious right?"

The angry woman again.

"Yes. You work for us now, if you want to, or you can take it up with her."

Three people filed into the room, looking at Raven as she calmly used the captain's stained jacket to clean the blood from her blade.

A critical, appraising eye took in each of the people facing her. The first was a young woman, the one holding the machine gun, wings spread from her back, and Raven took in the collar upon her neck, a faint green light pulsing.

The other two, one was a quiet, unassuming young man, with a streak of crimson hair in his otherwise dark coif.

He held a remote on his belt.

The other, a second woman, this one another fox faunus, the bushy, long tail hanging matted and greasy.

Raven's gaze evenly took in the scars on that woman, and the dulled, deadened look in her eyes, and then she stepped forwards.

The young man couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes as she reached out and dragged him close.

"SDC Security. Yes?"

He flinched, but Raven tore the man's coat from him, revealing the long, spiraling tattoo on his arm.

Her disgust was palpable as her tone dropped to arctic.

"And you wonder why the White Fang takes no prisoners from your ranks."

She drew Omen from its sheath, faced him, and spoke quietly.

"You, and your actions, disgust me."

And with that, Raven's eyes ignited with violet flame, and she rose from the ground.

A quick surge of aura to her eyes and she turned to the women.

"Are you strong?"

The question catches the two faunus off guard, the one with the collar moving to speak, then holding her tongue. Her compatriot, speaking in a hollow, raspy voice, scarring on her throat, answers for her.

"Yes."

Raven smirks.

"Prove it."

The game, sadistic as it is, is played up entirely for the benefit of the man in front of her. She knows his kind, she knows the type of who he is.

The two women step forwards, hesitantly, and he speaks.

"Make a move, and your families will die. Harm me in any way, and you will die."

Raven laughs, his sureness, his confidence, so direct, so interesting, and yet, as she laughs and laughs and holds her stomach, the man turns back to face her.

"We know all about the girl you took from Atlas, you hurt any of us, she'll be hunted to the ends of the earth!"

Raven pauses. Eyes narrowed.

"What?"

The man cackled, the desperate laughter of the dead and dying.

"Do you really think that Jacques Schnee wouldn't notice when his dear friend, Madame, lost her life and her youngest child the day that Masque of Mistral, someone famed for her illegal huntress actions, showed up in Mantle!? Do you think he's an idiot!?"

His voice reached a crescendo that had the two faunus women backing away, terror writ on their faces.

"He still employs the death squads."

The man cackled further.

"THE WHITE FANG KILLED HIS WIFE AND NEARLY KILLED HIS CHILDREN! THEY'RE ANIMALS!"

Raven is moving before he can finish before he can continue speaking.

Her blade drives deep into his stomach, punching through his aura and erupting out the back in a fountain of crimson gore. Then, a flick of her fingers shorts the collars and wrist restraints on the faunus.

"You two. Survive. Lead your people in a better manner. Do not kill civilians."

The two faunus women, given a second chance, run for it as Raven turns to the captain of the ship. The woman is staring at her with something resembling grizzled, calm acceptance.

"You going to kill me?"

Raven nods.

"Well, at least you're honest about it. Can you light this?"

She held up a cigarette, bloodstained fingers dripping onto the floor from her shattered nose.

Raven didn't know why she did it, but she chose to hold a hand out, and gently lit the cigarette.

"Fuck… never thought I'd see a real maiden. I thought you were myths."

Raven smiled sadly at that, unstrapping her helmet and placing it under her arms.

"We were supposed to be."

The captain looks to Raven.

"Will I have a better chance next time?"

The next life… if there was one. Raven scowls, and the captain flinches, dragging on her cigarette to calm herself.

"In another life? Perhaps. Who can say there is a "next" for any of us?"

The captain nodded once. Choking as her cigarette fell to the deck, her ribs puncturing her lungs. Raven stepped away, and the woman coughed out once.

"I… I hope you have a better place… for whatever comes next."

Raven lets a bitter smile cross her face before the helmet comes back on, and she steps away from the dying pirate. Her whispered words faded into the quiet of the bridge, only clashed by the running feet on the deck as the slaves and captives abandoned the ship.

"All for her. All for Summer."

Raven turned to the exit, and she started down the stairs, noting the launches of the varying boats and life rafts from the ship. They were not far from the coast of Anima, and it was likely these people would make it, provided they got clear before the charnel house aroused the attention of a leviathan.

Raven had taken the liberty of adjusting the ship's course, leading it away and out into the deep ocean, and she was gladdened to see that all the boats had turned towards the coast of Anima.

Summer would have been proud, a small part of her whispered to Raven as her wings spread and the large corvid took off from the bloodstained decking of the ship.

Raven tried to keep the small embers of flame at that realization from bursting up within her chest. She tried very hard to keep the emotion of pride in an action, an emotion she'd not felt for weeks, from flaring to life.

She failed.

By the time Raven landed back on the deck of the ship she and Cinder had taken berths upon, it was only a few hours to sunrise. The woman stalked back to her quarters, entering via her portals to a very awake, and very upset Cinder.

"Raven!"

The girl was rushing her, again.

Cinder hadn't expected Raven to disappear like she had, and the note, much as Cinder was sure it had been meant to reassure her, only made her more worried. The last time that Raven had vanished, she'd almost been killed by the massive Megoliath grimm! So… when the portal had burst to life and allowed a Raven, covered in blood and holding Omen, to emerge, it immediately resulted in Cinder throwing herself into the arms of the other woman. Who startlingly caught her and let out a few short, harsh barking noises through her mask.

It took a moment for Cinder to realize Raven was laughing softly… her mask distorting the sound as she spoke in that same harsh tone.

"May I take off my mask, little kite?"

Cinder nods, even if she refuses to take her arms off of Raven's midsection. The woman releases Cinder and unstraps her mask, before looking down at her little kite.

"Before you worry, none of this is my blood."

She should have been shocked as Cinder nodded her head, but the desperation in her voice as Cinder makes eye contact with her twinged her heart.

"I know… you're too strong for pirates…"

She'd known? How curious…

"How did you know?"

Raven's tone is gentle but curious, did Cinder watch her leave? Or did she know priorly?

"That girl… the chameleon faunus, no crewmember like that would be on board… especially because Diana would have flirted with them."

Raven raised an eyebrow. Cinder blushed.

"That… and I saw the things she left on the boats' engines… I turned them off, used my semblance, the crew won't ever know!"

The happiness and exuberant nature of her childlike, high-pitched voice broke into Raven's concentration as the tall woman tugged Cinder closer.

"Well done. I did not wish to reveal our presence to the captain to be anything other than an ex-military member and her daughter."

Cinder shot her a look.

"What?"

Cinder rolled her eyes.

"Raven… umm… he already knows you're a huntress… the way you dress isn't… uh, it's not like ex-military."

Surely her clothing couldn't possibly have given that away, she didn't dress like Qrow, for Oum's sake, there was no reason that anyone should have noticed!

"I… what?"

"You… don't dress like civilians, your clothing is all silk or other expensive material, it's not fitting for a military person…"

Raven has to stop and think, and remembers that it was Tai and Summer who'd bought her the silk accouterments and other parts of her outfit…

It was comfortable and light, with aura acting as insulation from temperatures, she could easily wear it anywhere, and it made Anima perfectly temperate for herself.

A minor blush colored her cheeks, as Raven yawned to the world.

"I… am rather tired. Little kite, what say you sleep in, take the day from your training?"

The expression that lit up Cinder's face as mo- Raven told her to take the day off, was radiant, and the girl would have jumped for joy, had it not been the middle of the night, so instead, she raised an eyebrow and Raven nodded once.

"Yes, take the day to yourself, explore the ship, maybe actually speak with that woman… Diana, you said her name was?"

Cinder felt her cheeks light up like someone had set her on fire. This wasn't fair, Raven was cheating! It wasn't fair to bring up the fact that Diana made her stomach turn into flip-flopping knots by smiling or looking at her! But… everything was more or less right with the world, Raven was back, she had tomorrow off from her training, and she could continue to count on Raven to always come through.

She… knew a part of it had to be her promise to Summer, but… Cinder hoped, in some part of her mind, that Raven would do what she was doing because she wanted to have Cinder… it was a traitorous thought, and quickly crushed by the logical part of Cinder's brain that was deeply thankful that she was being trained and prepared to go to a huntress academy.

Raven turned in for the night soon after, rolling the blankets on her bunk over herself, as Cinder stared from under her own covers, reflecting on how far things had come since Madame… since Madame had died…

Why had Madame called Cinder her daughter? She'd never treated her like one, that was for certain. So… why did Cinder still think of that moment, when Madame had stepped in front of Tyrian, when she'd shot at him, when she'd defended Cinder for the first time in her life!?

Why… why had she done so many awful things to Cinder under the guise of punishment? Why did it hurt so much? Why did it hurt even now?

Cinder didn't know when she fell asleep, only that she was sitting in the lobby of the Glass Unicorn and Madame was sitting across from her. Holding a newspaper in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.

"Why-"

"Why did I call you my daughter?"

Her voice is as imperious, as cold as ever. It's terrifying for Cinder, and she freezes in her tracks as Madame speaks and meets her gaze, her eyes pitch black pits with red pupils.

The eyes of grimm.

"Whyever would I tell you now? Do you think your dreams can save you from my influence? Do you think that I would give you closure now?"

Cinder flinches as every line is delivered with the subtlety of a fox in a chicken coop.

"No, I called you my daughter because I called you my daughter. There is no closure I can provide you. Because you aren't ready to hear it."

Cinder flinched awake, the sun on her face and Raven's quiet, daily motions moving through the cabin she shared with Cinder. She saw the woman divest the silks she slept in, and began strapping armor to her arms and chest as she donned the robe she always wore.

Omen was buckled on, drawn, and Cinder watched with abject fascination as Raven made sure every single dust blade shone and glowed in the morning light. Cinder's own weapon, comparably fragile, didn't dull, and while the girl checked over her arrows, she wouldn't have an excellent opportunity to use such weapons on board the pitching deck of a ship.

She could only hope that their journey would come to a close quickly.

"We will be docking to Argus by midday today. You'll need to pack your things."

Cinder's eyes widen, and she's moving as Raven finishes, shoving clothes and her arrow case into the large bag that she'd stolen from the nearly ruined village. Was it actually stealing? The owner was likely dead… Cinder supposed it didn't matter in the end, it had served her well enough, so she'd continue to use it until it stopped being useful.

By the time she'd been packed, Raven had returned with a pair of bowls of porridge and eggs for the both of them. The food was thick and filling, and the eggs were something she'd missed dearly, but they were within hours from Argus, and the crew no longer had to default to the rations that they would have to use in all other circumstances.

She'd wandered the ship, taking in the sights one last time, watching Diana finish her duties and return to her cabin to pack her bags, it startled Cinder to have realized just now, on the last day of the journey that she hadn't ever known that Diana was continuing onwards past this posting.

She supposed it only made sense, but the sheer shock of that was something she hadn't prepared for.

She would have to do better. She would have to look at everyone, especially those she was interested in, closer.

So… she spent the day stalking Diana, soaking in the knowledge of the woman that she could. She found out that Diana was a lesbian, she found out that she'd fled from Atlas after assaulting a superior officer at their huntsmen academy, she'd found out that it had been the Schnee fund for orphans that had guaranteed her entry to the combat school. She found out that Diana wrote letters to someone back in Atlas, she found out that woman was named Leona, and she found out that those two were dearly in love.

Diana's flirtatious nature was… simply who she was.

As the ship docked, Cinder tried to quash her disappointment, but Raven picked up on it as they walked into Argus.

As they'd reached the hotel, Raven had gently said.

"She wasn't the right one. You'll find such people eventually, little kite. I did, and so will you."

Cinder felt a pang of deep, profound sadness as she caught the bitter smile worn on Raven's face.

She'd loved someone like that, and… she'd lost them.

It was a thought that occupied Cinder's dreams until very late that night, as she lay awake in her bunk.

A/N: It appears I missed last nights post, apologies everyone, have a double post for my apology.

Raven... just doing Raven things.

Enjoy~! Leave comments, criticism, etc~!

 

[Ember]

Interlude: Tin Man

Huntsmen and Huntresses dominated Argus, and it was with some semblance of happiness that James Ironwood, now Lieutenant General of Atlas' navy, watched the patrols sortie out from within the base's central viewing tower.

"So, you're here for a kidnapped child?"

Ironwood didn't roll his eyes at the disbelief in the tone of the woman behind him. General Sol was a thin woman, with a deep walnut complexion that saw through everything. Her closely set, jet-black eyes followed him as he turned.

"I am here for the most powerful pyrokinetic in current documentation."

Sol's eyebrows shot up, and she reached into her desk, a muttered exclamation hitting home a moment later, a long, fat Mistrali cigar held in her fingers, the woman casually produced a flame to light it.

"Still chasing that maiden myth then?"

Ironwood shook his head.

"No definitive proof of the maidens exists."

Hard grey eyes met jet-black ones, and Sol smirked, the tugging of her lips on the right side the only hint of emotion.

"Then tell me, what brings Mettle into my office? Because I don't believe for a second it's this pyrokinetic."

The thing in the skin of James Ironwood met the eyes of the general and smiled, a vicious, predator grin.

"You were always too good at figuring out when the man let me out."

She shot back, not missing a step.

"He should have had you suppressed forever. You're a monster."

Mettle didn't let the smirk fall from Ironwood's face as it spoke, laying a thick manilla folder onto the desk of General Sol Steele.

"Approximately 3 months ago, the huntress Summer Rose and an associate, known publicly as "Masque" or "Masque of Mistral" make an appearance at The Glass Unicorn , she is there, according to what she told Jimmy, for a criminal. Neither Wizard nor Lion sanctioned her trip, which, tied with their choice of hotel, is highly unusual, especially for huntresses who made careers by camping in the woods predominantly. In stark defiance of the grimm that roam."

Mettle paused as Sol quirked an eyebrow, her face falling.

"Wizard didn't condone this?"

It shook its head.

"No. His appearance in Atlas was as sudden as it was unexpected. He flew to Jimmy's office with little more than his confidante and nothing else."

"The witch?"

"Yes."

Sol frowned, tapping her cigar with one scarred finger.

"Continue."

"Prior information gathered from patrons of The Glass Unicorn likely indicates that the "Madame" of the establishment had ties to the Spiders of Mistral, and was invested in creating powerful servants for them."

Sol's face went from a frown to a thunderous look of rage.

"We shut those experiments down."

Mettle let its teeth filled grin shine.

"Atlas publicly renounces such experimentation, and vows to stomp it out, but the girl in question was well cared for by her prior standards. It is a documented fact that natural semblance unlocks are far stronger when the target of the semblance is suffering from extreme stress or anxiety."

"So they threw one to the wolves for data?"

"Three. Three children, two biological, and one adopted from the spider's contacts."

"Circumstances of that particular child?"

"Selected for the exhibition of extreme viciousness and sadism when pushed to the limit."

"Fine. So she triggered a semblance while Rose and Masque were there?"

"No. She triggered as a result of what Summer Rose said to her on the rooftop, the first time they met."

"How powerful?"

Mettle opened the small attache case it had brought with it and placed the nearly flawless reproduction of a collar on the table in front of Sol. The woman picked it up with scarred hands and studied it.

"Subject capable of manifesting heat in excess of 1700 degrees Celsius. Her semblance manifested total telepathic control over substances under its effect."

"So your little pet project worked, Mettle?"

Her tone was flat. Mettle's took on an arctic intensity as it replied.

"Partial success for the interference of Masque and Summer Rose."

Sol folded her hands, setting the collar back down on the desk.

"Subject's semblance triggered before she acquired aura."

With that, Sol's eyes widened, and the woman growled.

"Continue."

Mettle grinned, its teeth predator sharp and its smile full of plans. It had her.

"Semblances triggering without aura are incredibly rare, as you know. Less than one in ten thousand, if predictions are to be believed. It is believed that Summer Rose is one of them, while Witch is the second known to the public,with none of the significance made clear."

"Because of the theory that semblances come from the soul itself?"

"No. Because they tap into something else, existing footage of Summer Rose's semblance reveals that she does not lose momentum through her teleportations, and an as-of-yet-unknown force acts as an almost precognitive aid in her favor. She is quite literally, a step ahead of her foes."

Sol's expression turned calculating.

"All documented cases of this are on file, yes?"

Mettle nodded its head.

"Brown Regrie, Jax Asturias, Cyrus Arc, Alexander Nikos, Taiyang Xiao-Long, Raven Branwen, Summer Rose, Tyrian Callows, and Orchid Fall."

Sol stood from her chair, the motion taking clear effort as her damaged body, deeply scarred, hauled itself free, she moved to a cabinet, placed a palm on the door, and spoke a phrase.

"Council Matter, priority immediate, authorization Echo, Romeo, India, Niner, Three, Five."

She waited for a moment, and a needlelike scanner emerged and scanned the room. Another pause and heavy shutters dropped down over the door and windows. A moment later, a pleasant buzzing filled Mettle's ears as the voice of its host was drowned out. As five paneled screens slid from the ceiling above the windows, with shadowed figures already on them, it reflected on how pointless such anonymity was. Sol knew who these men and women were, as did Mettle.

"This is unusual, Sol."

The woman stood, leaning on her sword, and spoke quietly.

"Another one in ten thousand has triggered in our borders. Ironwood was giving me his report on the matter."

The figure trailed its gaze to Mettle, who stiffened under it.

"Continue, James."

The voice was warm, grandmotherly, and melodious. Mettle turned to face the screens and gently began.

"As stated, three months prior…"

One figure interrupted, placing a hand to their temple.

"This is the Glass Unicorn incident?"

Mettle sighed.

"Yes."

"We understand, what news do you bring of it?"

"As you are aware, one of the children of Madame was missing from the scene. The adopted one."

Almost masked, paper rustled from the figure in the middle.

"Yes."

"That child is our one in ten thousand. She has exhibited telepathic control over a heat based semblance capable of generating temperatures in excess of 1700 degrees celsius. She is currently in the company of Masque of Mistral, who is likely to be an alias used by the huntress Raven Branwen."

A pause, another shuffle, and a sip from the woman in the fourth panel. She said nothing.

"As you are no doubt aware, semblances from any user can evolve and undergo strengthening, but for certain individuals, that strengthening effect is vastly pronounced."

Nods.

"This child is a calorkinetic on par with Fria in the height of her powers, and she is 10 at best."

One of the figures started, raising a hand.

"You cannot possibly be serious, the transfer machine tore the spirit of Fria out before mingling it with the spirits of dozens of maidens by force! It destroyed her utterly!"

Mettle grinned.

"And it gave us a weapon of unparalleled destruction, at the press of a button, a weapon that is clearly reaching the end of its life expectancy. This opportunity is exceptional, we cannot allow it to pass us up."

Heads began to turn and speak, that was fine, Mettle had them. They would see that for the good of the many, sometimes the one had to be sacrificed. In this case, they had done it with Fria before and they would do it again. Atlas had to be strong, had to remain a standing symbol against the grimm and whatever dark force controlled them.

Wizard did not trust James, nor did it trust Mettle. Mettle considered this the height of idiocy, it was what was needed in many cases, to make the decisions that the man would have balked at.

Which was fine. Wizard could keep his secrets, Mettle was unbothered by such things, it would merely prepare more contingencies for when Wizard decided to either tell the truth or for when he turned against Atlas.

Several of those plans hinged on obtaining this child.

Once it had its Cinder, he would shape her into a true soldier of Atlas, loyal to the kingdom above all else, and capable, even, of putting a blade in his back-

Mettle reigned James in. His feedback was not required here, and the man only barely was cognizant of the role his Cinder would play.

She would be the perfect soldier. The perfect player and she would never disobey the kingdom. After all, Mettle was Atlas. It symbolized the city, the choice to use the relic of creation to sustain its flight, the choice to divert Jacques Schnee's airship into the Grimm lands, with rescue just far enough behind it that he would see how rich the area was.

The loss of the man's wife had been unfortunate, but it appeared to have galvanized him into never letting such a thing happen to anyone again. Mettle especially appreciated his focus on the faunus, on keeping them downtrodden and obedient.

Atlas had not been raised into the sky on the backs of willing volunteers, and a docile, obedient workforce, made to believe that Jacques was the monster, while James was the angel, would only serve Mettle's purpose better in the long run.

With the way the White Fang continued to escalate, Mettle felt only satisfaction.

Jacques was an excellent queen on its board, and the White Fang was, as always, thrashing around in the dark like animals.

Mettle chuckled inwardly, waiting with its back turned, facing out over Argus, and imagining that it could see to where its Cinder lay, perhaps she thought herself safe? Did she think herself secure in the grip of a mad bandit?

It would show her the way, and it would test her and break her and reforge her anew until she was Atlas in mind, body, and soul.

"After deliberation, we are giving you tentative permission to seek this girl out. But you will have no support from us beyond clandestine, and, we cannot allow any of this to go public. If they were to find out…"

Councilor Slate tried to be intimidating, but Mettle had never had the time to bother with the false screens he and his associates hid behind. They were politicians at heart, only concerned with staying elected to embezzle funds that Mettle pretended not to notice missing, and in exchange, they greenlit its special projects.

Such as the Silver-Eyed Scouts.

Such a shame that subject MC had died during the operation, but the data they'd extracted from her… such a wealth of information, it was how they'd identified the one in ten thousand, and her eyes… such potent weapons…

Even now, Mettle smiled, feeling the comforting weight of Due Process on its hip. The weapon was far, far more potent than it had been. The research that she had provided before expiring was only the beginning.

It was such a shame that Wizard was so greedy with the silver-eyed warriors of the world.

Perhaps Jacques would have had better success tracking them down and taking them in. Perhaps his contacts in the camps would aid him, Mettle was sure they could find more of those with the unique genetic makeup.

It wasn't as if anyone was capable of seeing why they were selfish to keep such rich secrets locked away in their genetics. At least… not yet.

They would learn, and they would understand when Due Process' more… esoteric modifications saw the light of day.;

"I understand, councilor."

The sharp intake of breath was worth the loss in connection from the councilors as they fled from any semblance of Mettle.

Sol rapped her knuckles against her desk.

"Was that necessary?"

Instantly, the cocky smirk and even grin fades from Mettle's face and it is serious by the time it turns to face Sol.

"They are politicians and they are not necessary to the plan. If I must, I would sacrifice any one of them to ensure my acquisition of Cinder."

Sol's eyebrow raised.

"She is that important? Truly?"

Mettle narrowed its eyes.

"General, I believe she is the key to stopping any aggression from our enemies ever again. The influence programs have made leaps and bounds, and effectiveness is now suitable to maintaining perfect control over up to a dozen individuals. The current spate of Ace ops are incredibly effective in their assigned roles.

"And fully loyal to Atlas?"

"They would die before betraying us."

Sol let her negative look fade to a degree, turning to face Mettle, no, James. Based on the bleary-eyed look he gave her.

"How did it go?"

Sol nodded once.

"That is a relief."

James Ironwood stood and moved to the window.

"Find an orphan in a city, an orphan protected by Raven Branwen and kidnapped because of her."

Sol didn't say anything, watching him. James Ironwood turned to her and smiled before he exited her room and moved throughout the base.

A single button pressed called a woman with brilliant green eyes and a vulpine smile to where he was.

"Tortuga, report."

Her tone was calm and quiet, snarky and filled with laughter.

"Target was sighted exiting a boat with her guardian yesterday, the crew have been detained for questioning, barring one "Diana" who evaded local LEOs with skill reminiscent of the fasttrak program at Atlas. But you knew that already boss~"

Ironwood let a small smile show on his face.

"So here's the actual info, Raven put out feelers into the criminal underworld, she's looking for Branwen agents, trying to spread something, perhaps important information? Back home. So far as we know, none have responded yet, but she's frequenting a tavern by the name of Corvid's Fall in the downtown sector."

"Her little demon-spawn has been seen twice. Both times on rooftops, she's sneakier than her guardian, by alot. Her aura control is also, leagues ahead of someone who still has the stink of a fresh awakening on them."

Ironwood frowned, studying the Ace-Ops resident aura expert.

"Fresh awakening?"

The woman nodded.

"Within the past month or two, not quite sure since I only got one chance and it was a fleeting look at best."

"Curious. So Raven gave her her aura late. Very late. Can you track her?"

"Look boss, I'm the best you've got, but this girl… you were right to push her towards us. She's really good, naturally talented, and keeps sticking to routes we can't patrol because of lack of manpower."

She didn't mention the lack of local enthusiasm for their course. Argus was technically a Mistrali city, and while the majority of its population were Atlesian citizens, its police force was deeply entrenched. Ironwood frowned, putting hands over his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment.

"Alright… I'll have to sit down and talk to their commissioner. Can you arrange a scroll call with the Lion? I need to talk to him."

Tortuga flashed that foxlike smile and spoke simply.

"By your command."

By the time he reached the bottom of the elevator, he was alone. Which was a good thing, given that his presence was needed for the next parts of the plan, elsewhere.

Caroline Cordovan was waiting for him in the courtyard, flanked by a pair of Atlesian Spec-ops soldiers. Their armor would have gleamed, were it not for the vicious black paint and heavy armaments on each one. Cordovan herself offensively dubbed the pint-sized pistol by Ironwood's colleagues in Atlas until her actions saw her for a swift promotion to Commander.

She'd survived, unlocking an aura and semblance of use, if not a significant power, James knew Mettle had been interested, then lost interest in her after finding out what her semblance was. Instead, the man waited as the Spec-Ops commander approached him and spoke quietly. A long, jagged scar under her neck gave a rictus-like quality to her lips as they turned up. Her voice was now a gasping hiss as she spoke.

"Did everything turn out alright?"

He merely nodded, before continuing.

"Tortuga is surveying the city and tracking our target, with luck, we'll have locations by nightfall and can begin planning raids."

Cordovan's smile slipped just a bit.

"James… are you sure this is a good idea? She's technically an Atlesian citizen, but I'm nigh certain she'll want nothing to do with us when she finds out we orchestrated her situation on purpose."

The woman's questions would have sent Mettle into an aneurysm. James, on the other hand, simply shook his head sadly, feeling phantom pains hit every nonexistent nerve in his shoulder down.

"No… I am unsure. Mettle is sure, and Mettle is rarely, if ever wrong. I just… I worry about what Raven Branwen will do."

Cordovan's lips parted into a grin that was all teeth.

"Let me handle her. The new Ace-Ops team is shaping up wonderfully."

"Oh?"

"Cadets Amin, Zeki, Bree, and Ederne are all excellent and capable members, and Ebi's leadership lets them land larger targets than even some of the best from Atlas Academy."

Ironwood smiled at that, beckoning Cordovan onwards.

"Performance on a high bend across the board?"

"Exceeding all expectations, they can beat me in 1v1's and as a team, even Zebra and Cardigan have been bested."

Ironwood looked to the man and woman at her side, and both stiffly nodded. The two were the best specialists that Ironwood had ever trained personally, and they had never lost their edge, something about the way their semblances worked. Even at his age, a respectable 36, he was feeling the beginnings of some strain, but these two still looked and performed as well as they always had.

Lucky bastards.

Their destination was an Atlesian Manta, brand new, the prototype fighter/gunship gleamed on the tarmac, and Ironwood felt the 8-year-old inside of him jump for glee at the sleek, beautiful vessel. The Manta was a prototype of the next generation, and a part of Ironwood could already imagine how fleets of them would completely change air doctrine for the military.

As Cardigan, the red-haired woman with a cocky smirk etched permanently on her face, took a seat behind the pilot's chair, Zebra took a standing position next to himself and Cordovan at the back of the pilot's cabin, facing into the open troop hold.

"How did Sol take it?"

Ironwood winced.

"You know the rumors, that she's…"

"Bark is worse than her bite."

"Yes. That. She's deeply conflicted. She accepts Mettle's reasoning, but it's messing with her head. We're fundamentally talking about a child here, an abused child who just had freedom offered to them in the grip of someone who could, quite possibly, end any threat she would face."

"Don't remind me. Raven Branwen… of course… and she's the spring maiden too…"

Cordovan's face flinched.

"Yes. She's a maiden, the utter destruction of the warehouses could only have been caused by widespread usage of silver eyes, or the elemental fury of a maiden. Given the lack of grey dust and disintegrated matter in the evidence… Summer Rose did not fire off her silver eyes."

Cordovan winced, visibly.

"They proved it?"

Ironwood nodded his head gravely.

"Yes. The power of the silver eyes, whatever it is, it's not what Wizard thinks it is. It destroys or unmakes matter on a fundamental level until nothing is left behind but grey dust that looks… frozen, under a microscope."

"Fuck."

The lack of decorum would have been punished by another's command, but James just nodded sagely. The implications were terrifying, and they explained, so, so much. The few silver eyed warriors were simply because the incredibly destructive nature of their powers destroyed everything in their path. Leaving nothing but grey dust. No wonder Summer had been so powerful, the woman had practically been a walking WMD.

"What's the plan?"

"For now? We hope that Summer's eyes, or wherever her body is beneath all that rubble, don't start firing off. If they do, we evacuate everything for a 15-mile cordon, and try our best to lock down the city."

"And the girl and Raven?"

"Use the Ace Ops to harry Raven towards me, or send her into the jaws of the white fang, if we can spin this to aid our cause in any way, do it."

Cordovan smiled, and Ironwood felt a twinge of guilt that he had to force to subside. He knew Caroline was a racist, but she was a competent, tactical commander and one of the best on-site, besides. He had Tortuga providing a semblance of overwatch and, in her spare time, serving as a mentor to both the Ace-Ops and the young Winter Schnee.

A/N: And so we reach the end of Arc 1, it's been a lovely journey to have with you all, dear readers~! As always, leave comments and the like if you enjoyed! A discord link is attached below, for those who want to join and hang out, ask questions, etc!~

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[Ember]

The protests had begun on the second day that Cinder and Raven had arrived in Argus, with anti-White Fang sentiments spilling into the streets and beliefs manifested into crowds of angry civilians that swarmed from the dock district to the center of the city all the way to the walls. Cinder and Raven swaddled themselves into their hotel rooms, save for when Raven went out for food. It occurs to Cinder that the crowds almost seem too large to be naturally formed, while Madame did not like the faunus, even her guests were above such outright displays of militant racism.

She stares evenly as a column of a dozen or so angry men and women chant slogans and hold picket signs, she notes the way the faunus move back and forth, the way they dart from shadow to shadow in the slowly dimming lights. The protests showed no signs of slowing down or stopping anytime soon. Cinder's disbelief was only exacerbated as they continued to escalate She realized that there had to have been a sudden draw, or a sudden attack that caused the outbursts within the faunus community. But it didn't make sense to her, even so.

She resolved to ask Raven when her guardian returned from… whatever she chose to do during the days. Cinder herself was allowed a full run of the practice room that the two had rented, a feat accomplished by shoving the beds to one side. The ring was tiny, but it served decent enough for frantic and close-quarters combat. The kind that Raven was infuriatingly good at and the kind that left Cinder with bruises all over the place and a simmering sense of failure, even if the older woman tried her best to be encouraging.

Cinder squares up against the furniture once more, raising her bound fists up and concentrating inwards, pulling on the reservoir of her aura that flickered and crashed into who she was. Even now it felt like a blaze, aching to be released in a powerful burst of heat and light and all the energy she had within her.

Raven had described how addictive it was, but Cinder had underestimated that statement, she could feel it in every single patch of skin, the rush of pure power, the fact that with a whim and a twist of her will, she could make her presence pass without trace, that she could shatter concrete with a punch, that she could leap and run and charge faster than any human. That her eyes could be the better of any faunus she'd ever encounter, simply because she wished her aura to shape itself around her as such.

She pushed for stealth, for subterfuge, and felt the sensation of cool air brush over her exposed arms and legs, the gentle rush cooling her pulse and slowing her down until…

She stamped her foot, hard, and smiled as no sound emerged from where she'd hit, she breathed in and felt her heart pulse once, twice, gently. Aura cloaked every part of who she was, and while she knew Raven had told her to stay inside the hotel… surely there was no reason to not take a small, slight peek at what was happening outside?

Besides, it wasn't as if anything other than a fully trained huntress or hunter would be able to see her, and she'd just stick to ground level for that. One would think that you should stay on the rooftops for a higher vantage point… but anyone stalking Raven and herself would be hard-pressed to find her in a crowd, especially with her childlike appearance and the way she chose to move and cloak herself in aura.

She waited until the room service people entered the room, using her cloaked presence to watch them as they idly passed through the room. The maid, a dark-skinned young man, casually surveyed the room with the tired indifference that only years of experience at this place could have had. Cinder assessed his features briefly; he had the same sweeping, sharp nose and articulate features as the faunus woman in the lobby downstairs. Siblings? Or mother and child… age was difficult to tell, especially with faunus or anyone with their aura down. Raven herself was in her 30's, as she'd reminded Cinder of. But Raven looked, at Cinder's best guess, to be in her mid-twenties, a condition that the woman had laughed at, sure, it wasn't a full belly laugh or anything like what Madame had produced, but it had that small smirk around the corners of her eyes and a gentle chuffing in her throat.

Cinder had decided that she'd take that, even if she would likely have to get used to the woman never showing any form of true laughter around her, she'd take that sort of halting chuffing snickering that Raven seemed so reluctant to let show.

Cinder had her assumptions of why the woman didn't laugh and a suspicion that she wouldn't until she faced what had happened to Summer, just as she herself had to face that.

The first woman to give her genuine kindness besides her own mother, and she'd been dead not 24 hours beyond. She'd said that Cinder could rely on Raven and herself for anything, that they'd take her away.

They'd done that.

She no longer held a serious amount of mistrust for her mo- Raven. The woman had proven herself time and time again, and very likely she would continue to do so.

Cinder slipped out with the maid, following his footsteps and ever so cautiously making her way toward the other exits, normally, she would have had to exit through the lobby, but for all the advances of cloaking oneself in aura, it didn't quite fool cameras. Oh, it would static them out and mess with them, for sure, but it was draining and tiring, and she wasn't in the mood to be drenched with sweat, especially when she needed to remain calm and unobserved.

The fire door would have sounded an alarm, but Cinder evenly reached out and rested her fingers on the door, letting her aura flow out and around her, then, with a thought, she pushed a small tendril of it into the door, and then, with a deep breath in, pushed.

The tendril of intangibility flooded through the mechanism, and Cinder reappeared in view as the door clicked, and no alarm sounded. As soon as she pulled herself through, the door shutting behind her, her aura recloaked across her, and intangibility returned in the silence and quiet of motions that no longer produced noise, Cinder smiled to herself and dropped to the street below. Their room was on the second floor, and nominally, a fall like that should have injured her, but she used the training Raven had given her to catch herself and land evenly on an awning first, then on the ground itself.

From there, it was a simple event to pop out into the streets and join the crowd. The rabble-rousers had formed into two groups by the time that Cinder had reached them, a group of faunus counter-protestors and a group of humans screaming at each other across a thin line of the street. It appeared to Cinder as though some students from the local huntress academy were trying to keep the peace, although… the positions were strange, not spread out, but clustered instead…

Cinder threaded between the crush of bodies until she could get a closer look, and saw a girl at the center of their circle, she had a head of flaming red hair and a pair of piercing emerald eyes that locked onto Cinder the moment she appeared.

She'd been seen, that should have been impossible! Cinder ducked back into the crowd, withdrawing from the easy sightlines until she could catch her breath and focus her mind forward. There was no reason to have lost her composure like that, just because some pretty girl saw her through her intangibility… which meant she was strong, and she was young too!

No, bad Cinder… no more of that, instead… why was Argus using children to fight back the protestors!?

The screens that dominated the inner city of Argus may have the answer that Cinder sought, while the older, sprawling outer boroughs of Argus bore similarities and fusions between Mistrali wood and stone and Atlesian brick and mortar buildings, the inner city was made up of smooth, modern buildings in glass and steel. The ever-present, floating screens that served to continuously broadcast the news of the day dominated the streets, casting glows that clashed with the portable lights held by the protestors. Here, it was a much more unified front, with several groups chanting slogans for dozens of different humanity first groups.

Cinder felt nothing but disgust churn her gut, they were so… weak. They resorted to attacking civilians and the innocent in a pointless crusade over their own inadequacy.

She almost missed it when the news began rerunning something they'd clearly had forced upon them by Atlas. But she was paying full attention when the broadcast fizzled, and the grizzled, scarred face of a woman the program addressed as "General Sol" took to the screens. When she opened her mouth and began to speak, the harsh, grating tones of a vocal synthesizer showed if not in her throat, in the robotic nature of her tone.

"People of Argus. My citizens. I am disappointed in you, I look upon our fair city and I see nothing but wasted energy, I see nothing but a shameful excuse for conduct that would not even pass at the lowest of Atlesian academies. I see nothing but embarrassment, falling for such rabble-rousing in an effort to do… what, exactly?"

The woman stood from her desk and walked to a large window that oversaw Argus, the camera following her outstretched fist and hand until she could point to the camps outside the walls, visible from the window by the smoke of their cooking fires.

"You let these people wander about your city and you protest by attacking them? They are, in many ways, simply those less fortunate than yourselves. They attack their betters because they have no drive or desire to do better themselves! My good citizens, you're letting them win by engaging with them! Do you really want to allow this rabble to attack the streets? To ruin the businesses that you call home? Do you want to let them do this by provoking them? Or would you rather have a casus belli upon the vandals, thieves, brigands, and runabouts that would do this for no reason!"

Breathing hard, an almost wheeze pouring from her chest. She finished.

"It brings me to tears to see you all surrendering to the fang, to see you all surrendering to a policy of vandalism and pain and suffering so drastic that it justifies their actions! We must be BETTER! WE ARE CITIZENS OF ATLAS AND MISTRAL, AND WE. WILL. NOT. SURRENDER. TO. THE. RABBLE!"

The broadcast cut off a moment later with a screech of static that felt like a hammer blow and lasted for what felt like forever. Leaving Cinder staggering, before looping back to play once more. Cinder was left staring as the protestors around her seemed to take the opposite course of action.

They got more violent, why was that?

She looked around her and looked at the humans who seemed to begin to organize themselves, sorting out who and what was in their groups. She noted the way many seemed to be dispersing, how they moved about, and how they started moving.

What was happening? Before, they'd been an unorganized rabble of people, but now… now they were coordinated and frankly terrifying to behold. The sheer precision that they moved in…

Cinder detached from the main group, following a small trio of men moving with a pair of women, it wasn't the way that they walked so much as the way they had walked previously that made her suddenly wary. Just… something didn't feel right.

When one of the women diverted into an alleyway the moment her partner's concentration wasn't looking for her, Cinder waited for a touch, and then she followed. She heard quiet, hushed tones speaking across the waves, and listened, pumping her aura into her ears.

"Yes. Nightingale's influence is confirmed. All fell under her sway quickly, aura is low, but I'll wear the plugs until I can return to the camp."

As Cinder watched, the woman… no, the girl, her face was too young and round to be a woman, straightened up, tucked her hood up, and the long black gloves she wore over her hands moved into the pockets, then… she began to move. A flickering coating of aura surrounded her ears and her head.

Cinder watched with abject fascination as the woman pulled a pair of earbuds from her pocket and shoved them in, then relaxed her aura, and it shrank away.

Hearing protection? Who was Nightingale? What was she doing? Was this woman a Fang spy? If so, why was she here?

Cinder turned and began to move once more, following the woman for what felt like an hour as they moved from shadow to shadow, until she reached the outskirts of the city. There, the woman whistled one high note, and two low notes, and finally sounded something that reminded Cinder of a bird song. As the girl watched in astonishment, the other woman was suddenly pulled up into thin air, vanishing almost immediately into the night. She tried to move closer, but the sheer speed had the girl vanish completely.

Cinder is forced to abandon her search as she hears sudden voices coming closer, and the pattering of running feet that charge ceaselessly ahead.

Someone is running from something, and they aren't slowing down, it seems.

Cinder has just enough time to sequester herself behind a building as she hears two people run past her, followed shortly by another, who takes a sharp turn to the right. Then, a pair of Atlesian guards charge past her, their armor shining and white, and rifles clasped tightly to their chests as they split off. One guard moving for the duo that headed towards the walls, the other charging towards the inner city.

Cinder chose to follow the second one, was that one trying to bait her pursuers from her followers? She had to know, was this more White Fang intruders?

Her path followed to an alleyway, and she found herself staring into the darkness, cursing her lack of vision until a crackling announced the presence of the Atlesian guard as he lit some form of flare, tossing it to one side.

The harsh white glow illuminated the entire alleyway and the dirty and bruised faunus girl at the end of it. A pair of black cat ears stood proudly atop her head and a scowl on her face as she held up a splintered protest sign in one hand.

"Here~ Kitty Kitty~"

The man spoke with cruelty and something akin to greed in his voice, as he advanced on the girl, and Cinder dropped her aura cloak and stepped forwards before she even knew what she was doing.

It occurred to her later that he'd reminded her of Madame and Iris and Clove in the way he spoke to the girl, the unrestrained cruelty coursing through his lips as he strode forwards.

"Stop."
Her voice is quavering, and even as she knows that she shouldn't fight, shouldn't get into it with others, Cinder knows she can't just sit by and let this girl be harmed when she could step in.

The man does not turn on her, he places his back to a wall, leveling the rifle at the girl and drawing a dagger in his free hand.

"This is official Atlas business, Citizen, apprehension of a wanted terrorist."

His voice had turned from cruel and greedy to cold and professional, dark, small, piglike eyes stared at her. He believed in his convictions and his oath, but he also hated the faunus. Cinder studied his appearance, noting a scar that trailed on bare arm down, and then the way he carried himself. The dagger was lackadaisically pointed in her general direction, something that Raven had warned Cinder time and time again to never do, as it would be fatal in a true fight. But his rifle and stance are all towards the small faunus girl.

He'd been hurt by someone who exploited children to do it, possibly faunus?

"She's no wanted terrorist, and you and I both know that. She's a child!"

She had to be sure.

"No, that's how they get you, see! These scars are because someone was "just another child!" They're lies! Evil, all of them!"

His jowls flew and spittle sprayed, and Cinder subconsciously took a step back, there was something feverish and maddened in that gaze, something that… didn't seem his own. As her eyes continued to study him, she reached out with her aura.

Before recoiling in disgust.

There was something horribly wrong with his aura. It twisted and turned around him, cloying at his mind and his body, twisting it left and right and it was all she could do to fight free of those cloying, singing, twisting vines.

"YOU SEE IT! YOU SEE HOW THEY'RE HERE TO KILL US ALL!"

His voice was desperate, and Cinder watched as he stared at her, it wasn't greed for the girl, no, this one wanted to be free of his pain, something had jammed up his memories and his soul… the agony must have been indescribable.

He stepped forwards, and in that moment, the faunus girl struck, purple aura flared around her, and as the soldier pulled the trigger, his spray of bullets struck her, and blood fountained… only for her entire body to fade into shadow.

The man's forehead met the pavement a moment later with a sickening "crack" as the girl slammed a knee into the back of his head, before she stood up, and asked Cinder.

"Friend or foe?"

The response was automatic.

"Friend."

"Known?"

The girl's voice held emotion, but it was restrained, this was a routine for her, she was assessing if Cinder was known to the Fang, and there was only one response for that.

"Unknown. But… hopefully not for much longer."

The girl smiled then, an expression that lit up her entire face and brought a similar one to Cinder's own face. She was pretty… her eyes and hair framing her face…

She almost missed the girl introducing herself.

"Blake Belladonna, you?"

There was something in her eyes, she was assessing what Cinder knew, but… in this case, the girl had a suspicion that Blake's name was important, but not much beyond that.

"Cinder… I… haven't really decided on a last name yet. Mom says that she'd be fine with me taking her name, but I don't feel that it's right…"

She was rambling… by the gods…

The other girl giggled, a hand over her mouth and it seemed as though Cinder's impasse was forgiven.

"You get to pick your last name? Are you an-"

The other girl, Blake, she reminded herself, seemed to pause as she almost finished the sentence, realizing perhaps her faux pas as she spoke. Cinder let her smile remain as she eased the other girl's regrets.

"It's fine… Grimm, I barely remember them anymore."

She should be more upset about that, but… Raven was there for her, and while Raven wasn't exactly warm in the normal way… she was… nice… to be around.

"We should… probably go before he gets back up."

Cinder nodded, and Blake took her by the hand and began to lead her away from the alleyway.

Cinder thought, that in the context of everything that had been happening today, it was brutally unfair that such a simple action could make her blush. This was hardly the stuff of the books that Raven thought she didn't read, the ones that the woman herself had proclaimed as trashy.

Then again, Raven had read them just like Cinder had, she'd seen the rather distinctive cover of "Knights of Love" hiding in Raven's bag more than once…

She came back when Blake led her to a building, and bit her lip once before she began to scale the walls. Cinder watched in awe as the girl clambered up the sheer brickwork with the agility of someone who was far, far more trained than she'd been pretending.

Cinder had to follow her up using the fire escape, and secretly, she was already resolving herself to get better at free climbing, maybe Raven would listen if she pestered her enough.

The rooftops of the building were shrouded by dozens of towers and eclectic pieces of machinery Cinder had no real knowledge of, and Blake, of course, was sitting gently towards the edge of the roof, her legs hanging in the open air as she turned to face Cinder and asked, gently.

"So… where's your trait? Or are you one of the faunus who have theirs under their skin?"

Cinder shook her head as she closed and dropped to the side of Blake, her own legs kicking out over the abyss of the 10-story building.

"I'm… not one, at least, as far as I know. Just a plain human… here."

Blake tensed up next to her, she tried to hide it, but Cinder wasn't an idiot and their auras were mingling with the proximity.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Blake's voice trembled just a bit, with… uncertainty and anger.
"Why help me?"

Cinder looked up from the streets below, she looked over and found those pretty, pretty eyes staring into her own with intensity burning into them. It would be a lie to say that she didn't blush at the emotions held within those lamplike eyes.

"Because… it's the right thing to do?"

Cinder's voice trembled with uncertainty, a part of her knew that Raven's brand of help was different than hers and that her mother lived with something akin to a code of strict noninterference. But… that code was shifting, and had been, it was with some consternation that Cinder admitted she didn't really know whether or not it was the correct decision to help Blake.

"Is it? They seem to hate everything about us!"

"I… I don't know… something's… wrong with them, something is really wrong with them… I don't know why whether or not someone has cute ears matters or not."

"You think my ears are cute?"

She was absolutely blushing now, and it felt very unfair to see that Blake's expression was one of bemusement, this was, Cinder decided, absolutely unfair, completely undeserved that she would have to suffer in this particular manner. Because her face shouldn't feel like an erupting volcano and her heart absolutely shouldn't be pounding in this way. Was she sick? Was that why she was so off guard?

Surely that had to be it. So there was no harm in admitting then, to Blake, that her ears were indeed, very cute, right?

"Yes, they are."

Now it was Blake's turn to look away and flush a brilliant color, and a silence, awkward and poignant set in soon after. One that Cinder broke before it could fully cover the atmosphere of the rooftop.

"Do… you know anything about something called Nightingale?"

"You mean like the bird?"

"I… don't think it's meant to be the bird."

Blake finally looked back at Cinder with something like curiosity on her face as she thought about what the other woman had asked.

"I… maybe?"

Cinder pressed forward.

"What do you mean?"

"There's… something that I've heard my mom and dad talking about… when we've moved from place to place."

Cinder wouldn't question Blake on what the moving meant, and Blake seemed fine to keep pretending that she wasn't white fang. But she did continue, giving over much-needed information to Cinder.

"They always seemed very worried about it when they spoke about it. I can ask them if you'd like me to?"

Cinder nodded in lieu of giving a verbal answer, her thoughts absent. What was Nightingale? Why was it doing this, and why… were the Atlesians ignoring it? It didn't make any sense!

Nothing was making sense, she reflected. First the strange behavior, the riots, General Sol's speech, what was happening? Why was it happening what was causing this utter breakdown entirely and utterly?

Why were they so strangely twisted? And why had that man… why had he broken like that? Why had his aura twisted and coiled around him like a serpent?

She didn't know, she couldn't understand people sometimes. Raven hadn't talked about when she'd come back covered in blood that night on the ship, and she'd never spoken much more about it. There was something that still made Cinder scared about the future, about what was threatening this city, a twisting, uncomfortable feeling burning in her stomach as she tried very hard to shift herself to viewing this place as anything other than a trap.

It was Blake, actually, who brought her out of it all with a slight touch.

"Hey… he'll be fine, you only knocked him out for a little bit… in fact, see, that looks like it might be him now."

She pointed, raising a finger down as a figure in white armor staggered out of the alleyway, raising a hand to his head, where they'd hit him earlier.

Neither of them was prepared for what happened next.

The man listened to something over his helmet, and then, as Cinder and Blake watched. He raised the rifle slung across his back, pointed it towards himself, and squeezed gently.

The gunshot was thunderously loud, echoing and cascading off the buildings as Cinder squeezed Blake's hand unconsciously, and as the cat faunus trembled as the man slumped over in the road. The puddle of liquid, blood, Cinder idly reflected, pooling beneath the dark shadows cast by the splintered bone of his helmet.

The suddenness was only broken by the stunned silence and trembling muscles as both Cinder and Blake shook.

What was wrong with this city? What the hells was wrong with this city? Why? What…

Blake shook, and Cinder was secretly glad that she didn't see what happened next, as the other one, the man who'd split from his friend arrived, looked around the body like a clinician, and then… simply, reached down, pulled the pin from the man's grenade belt, and stepped back.

A crackling whoosh sent flames into the sky, ugly, roiling black smoke that consumed the dead man soon after.

Blake and Cinder did eventually have to move, the two standing, hand in hand, and walking on feet that felt as though they would have fallen off of Cinder's legs if she'd let them. She was following Blake, more than anything, and the other girl was taking her into the outskirts. It had been Blake, more than Cinder, who had recovered from the shock first. She'd dragged and towed Cinder to the walls, and then, she'd said… something.

By the time Cinder was able to think, again, to put the image, and the smell of burning flesh out of her mind, she was being hoisted over the walls. Taken up and over by strong arms and a wide smile on the face of a woman with prominent wolf ears, her eyes hidden behind a half mask.

For a moment, fear shot through her as she was pulled up and over. Terror suffusing her body and she twitched her muscles as she was back, trapped in the hotel. But… it passed as the white fang woman pulled her up to the wall and ever so gently set her down, affectionately boxing Blake over the back of the head and calling out.

"Silly cat, you keep rescuing strays like this and we'll have to open an entire new tent for the way your mother will act."

Her voice was nice to listen to, an almost whistle in the gentleness that she expressed as Cinder was lowered into a basket on one end of the walls. A basket that descended into the darkness, she'd been so nice that it would have been easy to ignore the weapons that hung at her hip, but Cinder had her training to fall back on, and even in her shock, her eyes darted between the white fang agents. Noting the pair of them standing back and away from the woman who had helped her up.

Both were armed, one with a high-caliber weapon and the other with a pair of razor-sharp shears longer than one of Raven's combat knives… and the woman who had been so kind to help her up and over the wall? She carried a breaching shotgun in a shoulder holster, and a sidearm in a leg sheathe.

These were White Fang militants, and as Cinder began to really feel fear course through her, accompanied by frustration born of her own weakness. She could not run from these people, even if she wanted to, a casual gaze saw the patchwork, hardened ridges of tissue on the nice woman's exposed skin revealing a checkered past full of little more than combat.

Blake settled into the basket behind her and with a short, gentle birdcall from the man with the shears, the basket started its journey from the walls.

The slow trip gave Cinder a long, long time to inspect the way the Fang had set up their impromptu way in and out of the city itself. A network of tightly secured ropes bridged from the ground up to the walls, and the small wicker basket trundled shakily along thin rails and wooden guide wheels. The rope was new, coarse and very rough on Cinder's hands as she dragged them along the surface.

This assembly had been pulled together that night… then, a factor that Blake confirmed a second later.

"Yes… Every night it's assembled, then taken down until we're all ready to leave. We're not willing to risk the grimm getting into the city. We don't want to emulate Mountain Glenn."

Cinder must have looked puzzled because Blake's left eyebrow rose up on her face as she continued.

"You've… not heard? Perhaps Atlas failed you in its school?"

Cinder promptly flushed.

"I… learned what I could from my stepsister's textbooks when they weren't looking… I guess the books didn't talk about it…"

"That… that makes sense."

She had to pause for a moment before she chose to continue.

"Mountain Glenn was an expansion by Vale… there aren't alot of reports on what happened, and I don't know tons about it, mom and dad didn't want to scare me, but the place got overwhelmed by the grimm and fell…"

Her voice was scary, low and sad, and Cinder felt the chill of fear run down her spine.

The events that had happened, from the sudden running to the violence that saw several beaten and left, to the speech of Sol, nothing made any sense, why was this happening now? Cinder puzzled over it until the basket slowed to a stop and a pair of figures, covered in sweat and a bit of city dirt stepped from the shadows. Cinder only recognized the first one, the chameleon girl who'd called herself…

"Sunny."

"Lav!?"

The exclaimed shout greeted Cinder as the girl stepped forward and then, was quickly shoved back by the young man at her side, who hissed something in a tone that Cinder almost didn't catch.

Almost.

"Are you insane? No noise like that, Ilia, do you want us to be shot?"

"I… I'm sorry, Adam."

Then, the young man was stepping forward, and Cinder saw a bandanna over his eyes, one that was freshly cleaned, his boots were caked with dried mud, but the man himself didn't seem to notice, or mind. At his side, a long blade hung in a resplendent black sheathe, and as he extended a hand towards Blake, she noted him glance her over, and dismiss her.

Anger bubbled up instantly. Her semblance roared in her ears. No one would dismiss her if they knew what Raven had taught her, what she could, what she was capable of doing if she so wished.

Blake declined the offered hand and stepped from the basket, extending her own arm down to Cinder. The girl took it and almost resisted the urge to throw a look of satisfaction at Adam.

Almost.

She swore she could almost see steam burst out of his head as Blake stood and turned to the other two, and then, Belladonna surprised her again.

"Adam, Ilia, this is Cinder, she's saved my life from one of the soldiers."

Adam stiffened, and Ilia and Cinder met each other's eyes and lies for but a second until they could hold it no longer, letting their gazes meet and dodge and meet again.

They'd met under false names, introduced themselves under false names… and now were meeting under their very real names.

The embarrassment was poignant and immediate, and an awkward silence set in between Ilia and Cinder as they tried, refused and then tried again to meet each other's gaze.

That silence was only broken by the dry voice of Adam as he spoke up.

"Are you two going to kiss? Or just get over yourselves already?"

Ilia was not the only one who turned scarlet, and Cinder felt she might as well die of shame as a small, high-pitched chuckle broke into her mind from behind her.

Blake was laughing at her embarrassment, and now Cinder was darker than Ilia, who practically glowed red with her color-shifting scales in the darkness. It took her a moment to realize that the harsh, barking noises weren't Blake or Ilia or herself, but Adam's own laughter. A deep and throaty baritone that… sent something akin to a shiver down her spine.

It wasn't… an unfriendly feeling.

She shuffled her feet together, and it was Ilia who broke the silence first.

"Cinder fits you much better than Lavender…"

It was Cinder's turn to stop and return the favor, and, grateful to her impromptu rescuer, the girl evenly replied.

"Where does your name come from?"

"Oh… um… my parents chose it… reminded them of a purple butterfly… or something."

Cinder caught the sudden sadness and didn't ask the follow-up question as Adam's face suddenly twisted slightly. For all his bluster and projected confidence, a part of her could evenly see that he could not quite tamp down his sadness at whatever had happened to Ilia to land her here.

Instead… Cinder asked a different question.

"Why… do you think my name fits me better?"

Ilia, apparently caught off guard, began to ramble.

"Um… just, that your hair and eyes… like fire and cinders, so… it's just a better name than "Lavender", is all."

Blake chuckled again as Ilia turned red, and Adam, this time, was the one to step in.

"We'd better get moving, sunup will be coming soon, and the wallwatchers need to take the basket array down before coming back to camp. Are you taking the stray with us?"

Blake nodded.

"She has something useful to tell, and she saved me, I think my parents will want to talk to her."

"You know… Shine's going to be right about you and strays."

"Whatever."

She casually hit him on the shoulder, falling into an easy step with the man as they led the two away. Ilia, for her part, was nearly silent, and Cinder watched everything around her with interest. This was the first time she'd been so up close with a Mistrali forest outside of the television in The Glass Unicorn .

She wasn't quite sure whether to be astonished that such beauty could exist, or feel violently angry for missing out on it for so long.

She wanted to cry at the sheer beauty, the gorgeous flowers that danced in the air like so many fantasy creatures, the colors so bright they felt as though they'd been torn from the commercials she'd seen on tv, the very atmosphere of the forest filled with birdsong and the occasional movement of beasts clad in their flesh beneath the shrubs.

She used her aura to focus her ears in those cases, listening for the tell-tale swiping and cracking against the undergrowth of bone armor. The tell-tale signs of stalking grimm, but it seemed the forest itself had been swept, as the only grimm she'd even thought she'd seen was a small creep, that quickly burrowed at the group, only for Adam to do… something, and cut it cleanly in two with such a fast movement that Cinder herself almost felt like it hadn't happened at all.

As though Adam's pointer finger had traced the air and shadow, cutting the incoming Grimm cleanly in two.

Ever so occasionally, the croaking of a raven would light upon the air, descending towards her until it wheeled away, at several opportunities, Cinder made eye contact with the bird, flashing it a thumbs up.

Her mother could really be so very protective of her.

It only took them half an hour of walking to reach the White Fang's camp, and Cinder had caught Adam looking back at her, several times, as though uncertain of whether she could keep up. She could, it wasn't a problem, this didn't even approach the level of training that Raven had put her through in just their tenure in the Atlesian forests.

The camp itself had a rudimentary at best barrier, wooden and earthworks piled up to form a wall around 8 feet tall. It wouldn't stop any large or seriously inclined Grimm, but then again, from what Raven had told her, the White Fang made a point of not staying in one place long enough to attract that kind of negative attention or emotion from either the city hosting them or the natural grimm life.

But… now, with the way that Cinder had been seeing what happened in the city of Argus… she was worried, genuinely worried. There was an undercurrent of thick fear that ran hot through her as she passed by the stony-faced guards at the entrance to the camp and took in the scents of cooking fires, dozens of people stood around in rough circles, helping to cook the meat from animals they'd slain for food.

It was to Cinder's consternation that she noted the stares… she shifted uncomfortably, even as Blake, chattering amicably with Adam ahead of her, dropped back and gently rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Most of us have had really bad experiences with humans… so that's why they're staring, but you're not that bad, so you should be okay."

Cinder shivered as one of the women in the camp stared at her with naked hatred, the sheer emotion in those red-rimmed eyes cutting to the core of who she was until they had passed.

It was when they reached the center of the camp that she found herself astonished by the sights in front of her eyes.

Standing at the head of a war table was a gigantic man conversing evenly with a pair of women, the man himself wore a long coat, had a thin frame of glasses that almost seemed strapped together from other pairs, and wore no top under his coat, exposing a bare chest that rippled with the type of muscle she'd only ever seen on Raven before this. The kind of muscle earned after hard-fought years on the front line of combat.

Of the two at his side, one was… the spitting image of Blake, a sinewy, thin woman with black cat ears on her head, adorned with golden jewelry, and carrying what looked like a machine gun strapped across her back. She wore a long smile, exposing the corner of one razor-sharp fang as she listened to the other woman.

The other woman was gorgeous in a way that actually made her just… stop. Bronze skin graced every form of her, and armor covered the most vulnerable places on her torso, leaving her arms bare aside from leather gauntlets. She had worn a breastplate, given it's presence on the table next to her, but now had most of her stomach bare. She had stripes of black ink adorning her arms and stomach, her flawless form glistening in the morning light. This was someone to whom "beauty" was as easy as breathing. Cinder felt herself spellbound, and stood there staring at her for far, far too long, until Ilia kicked her.

"Hey!"

"You're staring. Again."

The women and man looked up at this point, staring at the four young children in their midst, Blake, forging on with no fear of what was to come, evenly moved through the crowd of people and whispered something to the gigantic man, who had to lean down and hear her out. Before he stood up and started advancing on Cinder.

Her first instinct was to cut and run, this man was huge in the way that Raven's glares were able to freeze people half to death. His physicality was so enormous that people were simply swept out of the way by his motion.

Cinder almost made up her mind about running when he reached her and with one massive paw of a hand, swept her up and into his arms, smashing her into a hug that felt like an industrial press.

Breath was crushed out of her body, and every motion felt like moving against a stone. She couldn't move and could barely breathe, even as a gentle touch on her arm announced the presence of the larger Blake, her mother, then?

"Ghira, dear, please set her down, lest you crush our daughter's rescuer."

The bronze-skinned woman heard her speak, Cinder made out through the grip on her, as her ears twitched, and an eyebrow raised. Ghira, the big man, set her down as the second woman finally approached.

The larger and older version of Blake nodded once, a pleased and gentle smile crossing over her face. Before she spoke gently once more.

"Thank you, for doing what you did."

Cinder did not succeed in controlling her blush as the other woman enveloped her in a hug for a few moments. Even as the third woman finally joined them.

"May I?"

Her tone was severe, harsher, and colder, and Cinder was immediately reminded of the way Raven often spoke as she was set down, and the other woman leaned down to survey her.

"Trained, by a huntress then, but you don't have a sliver of another's aura within your own."

The woman stared at her with the same gaze of intensity she'd seen on Summer, but… the way her eyes were hard was far different… Summer had been a gentle, kind, and warm soul, and her eyes, even in their hardness, had shown that.

There was something in those eyes, dedication and iron will that reminded her more of Raven, than of Summer.

"How strong are you, little flame?"

Cinder stared at her, and then, just for once, she let her aura and semblance flare.

Heat, wonderful, brilliant, beautiful heat suffused her form as flames licked at her skin and her body began to shimmer with the heat haze. The women and her companions stepped back, and the dusky skinned one smiled at her, a vicious, warm smile.

"One of Raven's, then."

The harsh, sharp croak of Raven above, as the woman landed in the center of the camp with her full form shrouded in the regalia of combat. Hand on her blade and a mocking tone in her voice as she spoke.

"Sienna Khan~ How have you been~?"

A/N: So, funny story, I actually got distracted with writing the next chapter, which is why this one is so late, with any luck, we'll be all caught up by this weekend, and then you'll be receiving one chapter every week. For the interludes with Ironwood and others, I can say that those will usually be experimental, and I especially value criticism on them, it's safe to say that canon divergences lay ahead as well, not for the characters, but the general plot of the story. Much as I love this show, I am interested in taking this story to places not explored in the main series. (At least for this book, we'll see what happens when Book 2 begins.)
As always, if you like what I am doing here, leave me a comment or a kudo/like, it's always appreciated.
I have begun classes once more, so writing, while still one of my goals, may have to take a backseat to important class matters. If I can foresee any delays or slowdowns, I shall let you all know ahead of time, but for now… this note is quite long enough.

Thank you all, your comments are wonderful things to read over.

 

[Ember]

Sienna Khan, Cinder decided, was cool.

Not cool in the way that Raven was, of course, but she was so… effortless. If Raven moved like a jungle cat, all violence and grace, Sienna moved like a wolf did, hungry for everything and anything she saw with her interest. Cinder evoked that interest, and she basked in the attention that the woman saw fit to point at her.

Sienna was currently responding to Raven, in a tone of gentle mockery, the same that Raven had adopted with her when she had first appeared.

"If you wanted merely to introduce your newest protege, you only needed to have asked one of our operatives. I still recall fondly the services of you and your brother in training our militia."

Raven's face twisted for a moment.

"I was a different woman now… and… Cinder is not my protege, she is…"

Raven paused again, her voice trailing off completely, it was Cinder's turn, in fact, to speak up.

"Raven is my guardian, she's teaching me to protect myself and take care of myself."

Sienna studied Raven, then turned to Cinder, facing those orange, pretty eyes to the girl below her. She dropped to one knee, and faced her eyes into Cinder's before she spoke.

"Why did she take an interest in you?"

Cinder, without even missing a beat, simply said.

"My semblance unlocked for me before my aura."

The woman raised an eyebrow, before she spoke.

"Curious, how did you come to encounter this woman? Did she find you or…?"

Cinder stopped her cold there, simply sealing her lips, earning her a terse, but still nice, nod from Raven herself, that simple action sent a pulse of utter warmth through Cinder herself. She pushed for it, she pushed that warmth deeper into herself and delighted in the feeling as it went on, as it continued ever forwards.

"That would be enough, Sienna, how are the plans for Atlas?"

The tigress stood up, and began to beckon the pair of them off to one side, Cinder shot a look to Blake and Ilia and Adam, and witness in order, Blake getting hugged by the older version of her, trying to squeeze free, utterly failing, Ilia and Adam being dragged into the hug immediately afterwards, with embarrassment coloring Ilia's face, and what looked like boiling rage on Adam's face, then they were dragged away towards the edge of camp, and Sienna was speaking again.

"Not well, Argus was to be a foothold, expanding our protests while other operations continued. But Nightingale's influence means the Witch is present… and I strongly dislike that. No one has heard from her in over a decade. I believed that she was killed by an Atlesian strike team. The ones who hit the village she had taken command of. In fact, they claimed her kill bounty… and now serve as adjutants to that utter bitch Calavera."

Raven's face turned thunderous.

"She's still alive? I thought Pele had gotten her for good in Vacuo."

"So did she, the woman got kicked off the bullhead over the sands, we have no idea how she survived."

"She's here now, isn't she."

Sienna confirmed it with a simple nod as Raven swore something so under her breath that even Cinder didn't catch it, and as the group reached the edge of camp, Sienna spoke up simply.

"I know your stance on our organization, so I will not ask you to stay and aid us, I will simply extend an open hand of hospitality to your ward, and I would hope she does the same."

Sienna, without a second thought, in motion so smooth it astounded Cinder, faced the younger girl, and drew a knife across her palm, splitting the skin and gently welling up a line of blood. Raven chose to speak at this moment.

"She is offering you a bond, little Kite, it means she will ensure your safety should something happen to myself, or should something happen that requires you to take sanctuary in this camp. This bond will seal you to her code of conduct while in her camp, but only Ghira or Kali could override it."

Sienna cut in.

"I offer you this boon, little one, because you are one of Raven's, and because you saved the life of Kali's daughter."

That confirmed Cinder's suspicion that the woman had been Blake's mother, but this bond… this boon. She… she could not imagine a force capable of killing or preventing Raven from reaching her. She could only barely remember the concept of such a thing. Her mind and soul felt that as long as Raven lived, a part of her would protect Cinder with everything she had, and with every single mustering force she could pull. But… Did that mean that such forces did not exist?

Twice now, she had heard mention of "the witch", and twice now, that single phrase had sent a shivering chill down her spine. It didn't make a great deal of sense to her why this occurred, perhaps it was the sheer reverence and acknowledgement of the power or sheer fear… but something in Cinder told her that wasn't correct.

If this witch was that powerful… she would need powerful allies, and more power herself. Perhaps Sienna knew things about the maidens that Raven did not, or, better yet, knew how to obtain such powers if possible.

Cinder stretched out a hand, took the blade from Sienna's palms, and drew it across her own hand, before she clasped her hand in Sienna's as the woman spoke quietly.

"Our blood mingles at the source of life, we are entangled, I welcome you into my home, little Cinder, and swear that by my shoulder, no harm will come to thee."

The girl felt something… spark, and a sudden feeling of warmth passed into her aura from the other woman. A flash of gentleness in Sienna's eyes as she whispered to Cinder.

"None will ever bring harm to you, little human, not while I draw breath and you are in my reach."

Cinder felt the conviction in her tone, in her words, and in the way she pulled their arms apart and let her go. She felt the way that Raven's approval washed over her, even if it was tinged with sadness as her mo-guardian took her by the hand and began to lead her from the camp.

The walk through the forest was quiet, and contemplative, Raven striding ahead of Cinder, but never truly letting the girl wander out of sight, and while the silence lasted for quite some time, it was as the two approached the walls that Raven finally deigned to break the silence.

"I am proud of you, little kite."

It was an understatement, then, that Cinder felt such a rush of heady emotions pour through her, slamming into every part of who she was with all the subtlety of a brick through a window. First it was a rush of pure and utter joy, giving way to satisfaction, then to a delightful, thick curiosity.

"Why?"

This time, her words came before Raven could prompt her questions, and Cinder caught the half smirk on Raven's face as she turned away from her.

"Because it takes true strength to acknowledge when one requires bonds of strength greater than they can have. You will be strong enough to stand on your own one day, little Kite, but for now, you are safer with Sienna's aid and mark hanging over your head. Especially due to the debt you now have over them. Sienna's own repayment for you is complete, but I am certain the Belladonna's will wish to do something similarly special for your benefit."

Cinder paused, why… she'd not even been sure she saved Blake's life, the man hadn't seemed to want her dead, only captured, and her frown must have shown on her face because Raven spoke up.

"I reached the scene after you had departed with young Belladonna, and uncovered the trail of the body, but not the body itself. I was more preoccupied with other matters."

Of course, in this case, both Raven and Cinder understood that "other matters" meant Raven's tracking down of Cinder herself, and the likely frenzied search for her. Something that hit Cinder with an uncomfortable twisting in her stomach as she said, with shuffling feet.

"I am sorry, for leaving the room."

Raven seemed to relax, it was a subtle thing, but Cinder noted how her shoulders hunched less, and how some of the accumulated stress of their journey seemed to ever so gently flow out of the woman's shoulders. Then, Raven spoke once more, her tone quiet and gentle.

"Do you know why I wished you to not leave the room we stayed in?"

Cinder shook her head.

"A mistake on my part, one I will rectify in the future. I wanted you to stay in the hotel rooms because you are, technically, a victim of a kidnapping."

Cinder paused, that didn't make sense… Raven and Summer had saved her, if anything, she'd gone with them willingly!

"It is confusing, and I know that it must be confusing when you went with us willingly. But the woman who died, the-"

"Madame."

"Yes, the Madame, she technically owned you, you were regarded by the law as her child, even if not by blood, and when Summer and I rescued you, we did not adopt you legally, we simply took you with us as we left."

She paused, the walls of Mistral ahead of them.

"That… in the eyes of Atlas, means you are little more than a victim of myself and Summer's actions beyond all belief. That you are here by choice is not something they will ever consider, because you do not have the authority to choose for yourself where or when you will go. At least, you do not, until you reach the age of 16, when you could decide to enter a huntress or huntsmen academy of your own volition."

Cinder paused, irritation crackling across her face as she thought about the consequences of what Raven had done at a new level. Another layer had been revealed. She valued what Summer said so vastly, that it had her taking charge of Cinder herself in spite of the laws of the land, in spite of the vast Army at the head of Atlas' call and beck, and in spite of everything. Raven still chose to take Cinder with her, to train her.

"Yes, it was a monumental decision, and one that neither Summer, nor I made lightly when we witnessed what we did in your "bedroom"."

The tone of the woman's voice was derisive and cold, harsh and hardened by years of her experience with such actions. Raven had lived for a long, long time with the caveat that she did not engage with anything that did not benefit her. Until Summer had changed that part of her, and taken her heart while she was at it.

Until Summer, and until Cinder.

Now the girl followed her mother into the city proper, and found it so different compared to what it had been like the night priorly. As they stepped into the paved roads, the quiet bustle of the city surrounded Cinder, and she felt the quiet set in. The roar of protests had died down in the city center, as dozens of people who fancied themselves protestors in the evening, returned to work with bedraggled, tired eyes.

Cinder watched them with her own tired, quiet gaze, she felt the strain of having been up for over 24 hours, but it was much lesser than it would have been prior to her aura unlock. The sheer efficiency of having the barrier continued to let her move and think clearly, because in some cases, as Raven had explained over a campfire one long night in their cabin.

"You may need to remain awake for immense amounts of time in grimm infested territory, aura can help you do that, but do not overuse such a boon. The limit is around 6 to 7 days at most of full consciousness before you will drop. Make no mistake when I say that, you will not just drop, you will fall unconscious for an undetermined amount of time."

She'd been deadly serious when she'd spoken, so deadly serious that Cinder had felt the chill run down her spine as she'd said it. The ability to use aura to enhance one's ability to stay awake was vastly useful, but only in the most dire of circumstances.

Now she could see the way that she moved in difference to those who had been in the protests. Those people moved like zombies, clutching coffee and stimulants in their hands as they flowed around her like a slow moving river. The sheer numbers of people that moved like they were barely there… it astounded Cinder, and her eyes widened as she cast herself around the people.

While aura enhancement would keep her awake and processing, it would still slow her down, affecting her judgment by factors that would be impossible to see for other hunters. But she would notice and know, granted, that was something that she could manage. Something that clearly set her apart from the others in the area who trudged through the streets as Cinder herself danced between the crowds. Here or there, she would see sharp eyed individuals, some of whom even glared at their passerby. Those who chose not to take part in the protests… for whatever reason?

Curious then, that Nightingale's influence didn't affect them… perhaps they'd simply done something else to isolate themselves.

Cinder's silence must have perturbed Raven, who gently poked her on the shoulder, speaking quietly.

"Little Kite?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you hungry?"

Cinder's stomach audibly growled, and her own bright blush was answered with Raven's chuffing laugh.

"Hunger is easily tamped down, little Kite, have you thought more of what weapon you would like to master?"

This was a test, of course, if Cinder chose correctly, or could answer the way that Raven wanted, she would get to choose whatever she liked for food, otherwise it would be Raven's choice on her own.

She hadn't quite thought about it that much, beyond that… something about the bow appealed to her, something about the way she'd been able to take to it, and something in the rhythm of draw, nock, stretch, and release.

The way that it all came together appealed to her, and the sustainability of the weapon… her ability to carve and fletch arrows even in the wildest of places… she had chosen it. So, in response to Raven she simply nodded.

"I have settled on a ranged form, mo-Raven. I wish to use a bow as my ranged complement."

If Raven heard her slipup, she did not comment on it, or perhaps she did, because when Cinder looked to her to gauge her reaction, the woman had turned away, facing far from Cinder as she spoke gently.

"An excellent choice. What would you like to eat?"

Cinder might have imagined a quaver in Raven's voice, but as the woman turned her head back to Cinder, the girl thought she caught an ever so faint glimmer in the older woman's eyes. A glimmer that made Cinder's heart feel warm and content. A gentle feeling even as she said simply.

"Sweetcakes!"

Raven let a small quirk of her lips cross at that, and as she took Cinder by the hand and began to lead her deeper into the city, away from the crowds and into the place where the old and new of Argus collided violently.

Here, the new polymer, glass, and concrete of Atlas, smelling of cleaning solutions and sterility, the buildings quiet and hustling, but barely used beyond the droning and quiet motions of the wage slaves, as Raven called them, who trolled its streets and moved through it. All of that collided with the old wood, ceramic, and stone of Mistral's ancient designs, here, the streets smelled of woodsmoke and streetfood, here there was a bustle of people moving through the streets, from the nicely dressed finery of upper crust Mistrali, to the street food vendors hawking their wares to any who would listen. This early in the morning, this single area in the city felt alive to Cinder, alive in a way that she struggled to put words to.

It was her new favorite place, to sit here and watch the way people moved, the way that the clash of cultures gave way to a sort of dissonance that just saw people living… It was beautiful.

Now, though, something was wrong about the atmosphere, it felt… hurried, rushed, while the calls for people still came, while the merchants hawked their wares, something to Cinder's gaze felt very wrong with it all. As if the people present merely were placing on airs, and while Raven placed Cinder to her side, sweeping through the narrow and clustered streets, a bizarre mishmash of Atlesian asphalt and Mistrali cobbles all clustered together. As she followed Raven from behind, watching the older woman, something began to clear for her.

Raven didn't see the thing she did.

Or rather, she wasn't on edge because of the way the people were acting.

Cinder watched her interact with the street vendor that sold sweetcakes, a Mistrali street food, thick, oil laden cakes covered in fruit and syrups, or meats. It was delicious and something that Cinder had only had a few times in her life, she felt tinges of memory playing at her mind when she tasted the cakes, as though faint memories burdened her, albeit barely.

"Excuse me, little girl, where's your mother?"

The voice cut an immediate way through the fugue and the careful following of Raven with her eyes that Cinder had been doing. But, she couldn't afford to not pay attention, and so, Cinder didn't turn her body, or her head much, but she caught a good look at the approaching woman.

Tall, red haired, and piercing emerald eyes, and a bearing and clarity behind those eyes that suggested… unstrained and unaffected motion.

Unconsciously, Cinder reached out with her aura and flared it into her eyes, the small, slight symbols of aura usage carving themselves into her pupils with a slight tickling sensation.

She didn't have the same snakelike coiling or twisted aura, but she had aura, in spades, actually.

"Not quite as subtle as you want to be, you know."

Cinder looked up, in time to catch the smile from the woman's face, it was a nice smile, the girl concluded, but it was not a friendly smile, she bared her teeth with it in the way a wolf might challenge another.

"Your eyes flash when you do that. A pulse of orange, sure, most people won't pick up on it, but I did."

Cinder stared her down, not saying anything.

"Ah, my apologies, Helena Nikos, Huntress. What's your name?"

"Sunny."
The lie flowed easily from her lips, Cinder had realized, with the embarrassing confrontation with Ilia earlier, that she'd need to not give away anything of the sort in her next lie. Sure, Sunny wasn't a fitting name, but it would be easy to come up with background details.

"For your disposition?"

"No, I had blonde hair as a baby."

Cinder noted from the corner of her eye that Raven was approaching, a pair of sweetcakes held in one hand, even as her eyes took note of the woman Cinder was talking to and her free hand dropped to her waist.

"Well, I'm sure they regretted that decision, once you got hair like this."

"No, they died in a grimm attack before it darkened enough."

Helena's face twisted up, and genuine sadness colored her expression, for a moment, Cinder felt bad about being so aggressive. But only for a moment.

"I am… sorry, little one, to lose your parents so young…"

Cinder noted Raven's approach, now within earshot for the experienced huntress.

"It's ok, I don't really remember them anymore."

If anything, that twisted the knife deeper, based on the sudden shift in the woman's demeanor.

"Do you have a guardian? If you need a place to stay, my family can offer you safety…"

A twist in those green eyes, Cinder didn't trust her. She was beholden to at least one other, and what she strove to do here… was not pleasant.

"My guardian is behind you."

Cinder adopted a tone of voice best described as flat, as Raven shoved past Helena and gently handed over the pair of sweetcakes to her. Then, Raven was turning, and those piercing eyes were staring into Helena's own ones.

"I'm afraid, Nikos, you will have to look elsewhere for a squire for the young one."

Those green eyes hardened into chips of jade, hard and sharp and jagged.

"She would be better off with us than a bandit."

Raven laughed in her face. The cold, high pitched, cackling laugh that shut down arguments and broke people in its wake.

The laugh she did before she killed people.

"No, dear Nikos, you will have to find another child for Pyrrha to vent her frustrations on when your inept family pushes her to shatter like all the prior champions. I wonder, will she make it to the royal guard this time? Or fill the seat of consort instead?"

Helena bristled visibly, and Cinder stepped to one side, gently setting the sweetcakes down on a table lining the street.

If they were about to fight, she was not going to let her breakfast be destroyed by some woman trying to recruit her to be… whatever the hell a squire was supposed to be.

"Better a squire to a noble family than the chosen one of a bandit queen."

"Your noble family has been desperately hard on poor Pyrrha, I wonder… if given the choice, where would *she* go?"

Helena, the woman, breathed in, and then let it out, and then she answered Raven's barbs with ones of her own. Aimed at Cinder.

"I wonder things myself, you know, like if I were to look up this girl's appearance I wouldn't find a kidnapping poster, or something akin to that. I wonder if I wouldn't find that you fled Atlas into the wilderness with a new ward, someone who has not been marked by the Branwen tribe, nor blooded. I see no scars on her arms beyond those related to burns, and wouldn't you know, a girl triggered a heat based semblance shortly before you fled Atlas."

The threat was clear, but Raven didn't rise to the challenge or the bait laid by Helena Nikos.

Instead, she replied with such venom, and such acid in her tone that Cinder was left standing slack jawed.

"They are welcome to try and take her from me. The Branwen tribe has always responded to such threats with elegance and grace, as you are no doubt intimately familiar with. How is dear Iason? And of course, Juno, did she finally wise up? Or is she still trying to flee your family normally?"

She stepped forwards, her hand curling about on the blade at her hip. Cinder wasn't entirely sure if Raven was technically allowed to carry the weapon, but she never went anywhere without it, and it seemed to be something of the nature she'd been encouraging Cinder to adopt. To walk with your head held high against the cowards and the prey of this world, the ones who would die first.

"Pyrrha routinely visits her mother, and the relationship between the two is strong."

Raven smiled like a cat who'd not only caught and eaten the canary, but had promptly blamed it on the family's dog.

"But I didn't ask after her wellbeing, or the relationship with her mother, merely whether she'd finally left the family. Of course, the way you spoke that statement… it was too fast~ When was the last time Pyrrha saw her mother, hmm~? Before or after her father had her buried in the forests."

Helena looked as though she'd been torn in twain.

"Juno is fine. As you would know had you read the latest-"

"The press releases, yes of course~! How could I forget that the firebrand and dedicated champion, then huntress Juno Ashai, would allow another to speak for her, to wrench the words from her mouth."

The venom in Raven's tone finally had Cinder noticing something. There was a tightness in her mo-guardians eyes, a tightness that pressed deeply in on her. She had an affection for this woman… this Juno… instead she bore, respect. Extreme and forward respect for her. Raven was angry because… she felt something had wronged Juno.

Cinder's eyes widened, she wanted to meet this woman, anyone who could command Raven's respect was a worthy ally indeed, a woman who's story she wanted to hear the full tale of. How could someone command *Raven's* energies and affections in such a way that the woman would leap to their defense when they were not present.

"Come back to me when you have something better to lie about. Helena. You will not take my ward from me, and little Pyrrha will need to learn to be strong on her own, with family like you."

The derisive, spitting tone in Raven's voice was only matched by the gentleness in which her guardian took Cinder's hand and began to tow her away. While Cinder followed obediently, reclaiming her breakfast from where she'd set it down. She noted that Raven's peripheral gaze never left Helena, standing alone in the square, or that her wrist never left the handle of Omen.

It took more than a few streets and sudden detours for Raven to relax, but as the woman explained, she wasn't relaxing because they were safe.

"Far from it, actually. We are only "safe" right now because if Helena Nikos wished to come after us, we would now have enough advance warning to split and run. Or fight, if the need was great."

Raven watched as Cinder nibbled on one of her sweetcakes, the girl's mind awhirl with questions about who and what Juno was to her, until the woman finally gave up her pretenses and just said.

"Ask… you should know by now I do not harm you for asking questions. This world is complex at best, and you have many years of learning to catch up with others of your age."

"Why… why is Juno so special to you?"

"Ah… little kite…"

Raven sat down on a bench, the small park she'd led Cinder to at this point a welcome relief to Cinder's tired legs, the walk through the city had stretched and strained her muscles to the point where she wanted to, well, bluntly rest.

"Juno was the combat instructor for Beacon Academy when I attended. She was a former huntress at the time, but still moonlit on missions occasionally when she wasn't teaching. She was one of the strongest women I'd ever met. She'd married into the Nikos family… and then she disappeared. The last time I saw her was when I was traveling through Mistral two to three years ago, and she seemed… so fragile, as though her time with the Nikos' had sapped her of everything."

The woman paused, wiping at her eyes gently.

"I never saw her again, to this day, the family maintains that she's alive, but I have a suspicion that she died, and for whatever reason, they're covering it up. It makes me hate them, perhaps unfairly, but Helena didn't do squat for her mom, or for Pyrrha."

A knowing smile coursed across Raven's lips as she followed up with a much more jovial, insofar as Raven could be jovial, tone.

"Then again, I'm sure you've already seen little Pyrrha, given where you went last night."

Cinder froze, running through the people she'd encountered until she landed on a single one. Flaming red hair, and eyes the color of deep emerald pools, full of emotion. She colored red, feeling the flush cover her neck down.

"Mhm… so you've seen her, then, let me guess, trying to head off protestors in the central square last night?"

Cinder nodded once.

"Yeah… she's got her mom's spirit for good in her, alright. I don't want anything bad to happen to that kid, but I have you already, and she's set for life in a way that would make it very hard to do just about anything. She's slated for tournament brackets, shows strong promise across the board. She'll be watched like a hawk. I hate that I can't do anything for her, because it's probably making Juno roll in her grave, but for now, I'll just have to tolerate it."

Cinder spoke before she realized it.

"What about the Fang, Sienna?"

Raven grimaced.

"It was a good thing to make allies with Sienna, little Kite, but asking her to take in another human, especially one so soon, won't go over well."

"Why not?"

Cinder's voice felt plaintive, she didn't see why they couldn't take in another, especially if Pyrrha was as talented as Raven thought she was.

"Sienna dislikes humans. She was hurt deeply by them in the past, and while Kali and Ghira have helped her heal from it, her body wears the scars of her past upon her back and lower legs."

Cinder didn't ask how Raven knew, somehow she doubted she wanted to hear the answer to that particular question. Somehow it seemed like that might be something she would regret.

"She tolerates her hatred on most days, and she respects who I am for my strength and our memories. She extended a bloodline link to you because you saved Blake, a girl she cares for as much as Ghira and Kali do. But it is not a boon she would casually hand to anyone, and she is a dangerous woman, little Kite."

Cinder believed that. Sienna had moved like a big Siberian cat on the tundra, all fangs and claws and perfect camouflage until sudden brutality saw her prey flayed open and bleeding in front of her.

"So no, there will be no saving Pyrrha, but, if she is strong and bears her mother's spirit as much as I suspect she does, she will be more than capable of extricating herself from them when the time comes. But, that does not mean I would dislike it if you forged a friendship with her should you meet again. Just as you have begun to curate such a relationship with the daughter of Kali."

Cinder flushed at that memory.

"You have a gift for forging alliances and uniting people, little kite. I, for one, cannot wait to see how far you take it."

The praise was unusual, especially from Raven, and Cinder felt a pleased flush cross her face and burn through her as her mother, her mother. Stood up and offered a hand down to her.

"Let's return to the hotel, we'll get you some rest and then train later, does that sound ok to you?"

The question was phrased in a way that opened the door to Cinder for saying no, but the girl shook her head, any excuse to get out of training was something she wouldn't take advantage of. She'd have to be better if Pyrrha could spot her, to say nothing of the figures that might chase her through her life. Be they specters of Atlas or the ghosts of Raven's past.

"No, I just need a nap, I'll be fine to train after that."

And so, with a belly of sweetcakes and a smooth, gentle walk, Cinder followed Raven back to the hotel and allowed the other woman to seal the door shut, then take her usual vigil near the window. The small beams of faint light played across her face, outlining her steely expression as she watched the streets around the hotel, tracking any movement.

Cinder fell asleep to that, she dreamed of that steely gaze saving her, of a vast raven carrying her far, far from home. Of a raven swearing by blood and death to protect her, and then, its beak and her hands outlined in red as another gave her life so the raven could save little Cinder.

All of it done to save her.

Her sleep was pleasant and nice, and when she awoke towards the ending of the afternoon, she found Raven still standing vigil, the older woman turning to face Cinder and tossing her practice weapon at her even as her ward scrambled backwards to catch the incoming blade.

"Ready? What happens if someone attacks you in your bed?"

Then Raven was moving, darting forwards, blade down and angled for her heart, and Cinder was throwing a pillow into her face to obscure her vision as she rolled to one side. Her hand lashed out, catching the flying practice knife, and she was pressing it forwards immediately after rolling.

Her angle of attack left much to be desired, but she'd achieved the most important part of the attack, avoiding the first lethal strike. Raven hadn't been using her aura for this, and like many training exercises with practice weapons, Cinder was expected to learn or bruise until she learned. Raven was ruthless, and a part of Cinder loved every second.

Sure, she reflected that it probably wasn't ideal, and the potent mix of adrenaline and fear that coursed through her every single time that Raven pushed this kind of training and force onto her left her bruised and worried. But the woman never attacked her without a prior agreement for training.

A part of Cinder thought the heroes in the books that she read were silly, none of them were ever attacked in their sleep or when it was inconvenient, none of them had to fight off grimm while protecting innocents who were directly in harm's way.

It was silly that they didn't suffer such a thing. When reality was so clearly and demonstrably different.

So as Cinder felt Raven push her off the bed and as she landed with a painful thump, she gambled everything and threw the practice blade, which twirled end over end into the soft area just above Raven's abdominal muscles. Then she followed it up with a kick and a punch, that while they wouldn't faze the older woman, would signify the end of their bout.

As expected, Raven stood to one side, and tapped her stomach where Cinder had hit her in the chest, first with the dagger, then the kick.

"Well done, not only did you survive the initial strike, the most critical part, but you also kept it up until the followup attacks could be suppressed enough for you to beat them. This performance is satisfactory, even if the choice of strike you went for was more than a little risky. Throwing your weapon away, especially if you do not have one to fall back upon, is a dangerous tactic."

Cinder began to speak, trying to cut off Raven.

"Bu-"

She nodded.

"Yes, your semblance is a unique equalizing factor here, your ability to sear and seriously injure people who think you are unarmed is a useful ability, but it should remain hidden. Already, you rely on having it too much. Remember, it exhausts you, little Kite. Too much and you will not be able to keep up when the fights truly begin to matter, or if your opponent has a card that you do not expect."

Raven extended a hand to Cinder, helping the girl up, and from there it was simple, training physically until Cinder was so exhausted that when night fell she tumbled into bed instantly and was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Cinder's dreams were quiet and peaceful that night.

It was a far cry from Raven's restless watch, and the way that the raven-formed woman moved throughout the night only woke Cinder for snatches of time. The first when she flew out the window, in the guise of a bird, the second when she returned, the third when she almost drew Omen from its sheathe in response to… something outside.

Beyond that, Cinder slept soundlessly until the early morning, when a slight tap at the window by her bed had her stirring as Raven moved towards the window. Orange eyes met amber ones, and Cinder recognized the form of Blake, crouched outside on the terrace, alone, by the looks of it. Raven looked down at Cinder, who simply nodded, and then the woman opened the window and allowed the small form of the cat faunus to clamber inside.

"So… mom and dad wanted to thank you… so they called in a few favors… it won't be done until we have the plans… but they wanted you to have something to symbolize saving my life…"

Blake handed over a small drawing, a sword, elegant and curved.

Cinder didn't think it was possible to be in love, but that simple drawing, a harsh sketch hashed out of a long, curving blade… it made her feel things. This was her, this was elegant bladework expressed in perfection and beauty, and it was so cleanly designed…

"This… Mom… this one!"

Raven startled, but masked it so excellently that Blake didn't pick it up, simply taking the sketch and staring it down with an appraising eye.

"I… this can be made. Two, then? Cinder?"

Cinder nodded, one from Raven, one from the Fang… one dark… one light. Every single motion, every single line of engraving and careful metal would need to be perfect.

The early morning was spent whiling away the hours, talking with Blake, sketching over the designs on a sheet of the thick, handmade paper Raven used in her travel journals, until by dawn's first rays, the trio had a workable schematic that Blake and Raven could take with them when they left. Sure, on the one hand it was a weapon, but… it was a powerful, good weapon.

It would be a weapon worthy of a huntress.

Cinder hadn't cared about the lack of a ranged form, but she had noticed her mother slowly, gently maneuvering portions of the design in ways she didn't quite understand.

All Raven had said when pressed about it was a simple,

"You'll see."

The second surprise had been the way that Blake had stood up for her people, when Raven had said,

"I do not know if I will be able to find a smith of sufficient caliber to match Summer, but… I will try, Little Kite. Do you have one in the fang capable of matching such quality?"

Blake had stood up, her little hands balled into fists and her cute ears pressed against her head as she'd said.

"My Da and Sienna are the best forgemasters in the camp! They'll be the ones to make this weapon! Sienna wouldn't dare let a subpar one leave her workshop, and Da's the best designer I've ever known!"

The glimmerings of emotion in Raven's eyes sent happy feelings into Cinder as soon as she saw the two. Raven was impressed with Blake, standing up to her, even when she was at her most terrifying, was super hard, but Blake had done it anyways. That showed, tremendously.

By the time Blake was leaving, this time with the civilian form of the woman who had picked up Cinder out of the basket yesterday in the early evenings, it had been easy to forget about the sheer damage the protests that wrought across Argus were still doing, and yet… bizarrely, the protests felt melancholic and strange that night, the few protestors outside, had been halfheartedly shouting things for only a few hours, when Cinder watched them simply turn around and head back inside the various side streets and dwellings they'd come from.

Raven's sheer relief at that had been understated, but as she and Cinder stayed up later than Cinder ever had, speaking with each other candidly and openly, the two had felt that relief set in quickly.

"Why are you so relieved, and who is Nightingale?"

That question had decidedly put a damper on the festivities of the evening.


A/N: Nothing much to say beyond I hope you all enjoy.

As always, if you like what I'm doing here or have a comment/critique, leave it for me, I always appreciate such things.

 

[Ember]

"I want to ask you something first. Are you sure you want to know? Nightingale's semblance is said to be able to track things that she would consider useful when they become aware of it."

Raven looks at her, then, as she sits down on the bed next to Cinder she asks a pointed and direct question of her own, answering Cinder not with the answers the girl wants. But instead with a dialogue of grave sincerity. Expressing itself in a voice as cold as Atlas.

Cinder freezes, the question taking her by surprise… her semblance alone is strong, but to have one with awareness like that… if it were true? What… how… could someone be born with such power?

"Tell me."

She had to be able to plan, able to make a contingency that would work against this "Nightingale" if possible. She had to be able to make something work, no one was invincible, no one was immortal. She could be beaten because she had to be beaten.

"Very well. Nightingale's real name isn't known to me, she was rumored to be a folk singer for some time, traveled with a pair of huntresses and performed for small out of the way towns, raising spirits and the like. She disappeared close to 10 years ago, after the town she was in was consumed by a sudden, unexpected grimm migration. Summer thought she was dead, because her huntress companions were found in pieces in the aftermath of the assault."

Raven paused and sipped from her canteen of water, before licking her lips and continuing.

"Priorly, most had assumed that Nightingale's semblance influenced emotions in those who heard her sing, usually towards more positive trends. Now we know better, Nightingale's semblance is emotional control in a wide range. Anyone who can hear her and does not have an aura to protect themselves can be influenced into her control. As for why she is here, or what her goals are… I do not know, and if I had to hazard a guess, she seeks to do… something with Argus. Most of our knowledge of her comes from interviews with Tyrian Callows, when he was last captured."

Cinder's mind immediately recalls the scorpion faunus, the flickering tail and insanity in his eyes.

"He simply said that she was an emissary of things to come, and the interview dropped off when Tyrian broke his bonds and slaughtered the guards before breaking out."

Another pause, more sips from the canteen.

"In all honesty, I only tell you this because we will be out of her reach soon, far away from her and safe. She can have Argus, for all I care."

The revelation is worse than Cinder could ever have thought. Certainly, she'd known that her mother hadn't been one that would be willing to save innocents. But… would she truly leave everyone in Argus to their fate? Enslaved to Nightingale's whims.

As if Raven could read her mind, she simply said.

"Yes. I would. Nothing matters to me more than you."

She didn't say "and my promise to Summer" but Cinder knew that it was implied.

"What about the White Fang?"

"If they are wise, Kali and Ghira will pull them out of the area, taking all faunus they can save and making for the coast, where they will evacuate to Menagerie. The moment Nightingale was detected, the Atlesians should have instituted a quarantine within the city."

Cinder didn't flinch. But she was thinking, she was considering, Raven would leave everyone here to their enslavement or death… because she could. Because doing that would benefit Cinder and Cinder alone.

It was shocking to have that realization rip home, more shocking to realize that Raven meant every single word of it.

"We cannot wait for her to sink her claws deeper. Especially now that I have spoken of her specifically. You are not something I am willing to give up. Not for anyone."

With that, Raven stood up, and began to give strict orders.

"Pack your bags, take only what you need, we will not dally and we cannot delay."

Cinder was surprised, the sheer trepidation in Raven's voice… and yet, she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"But- what about…"

Raven snapped at her.

"No. Not now."

Her face softened as Cinder backed down, suddenly reminded of Madame and her cruelty, and Raven bent down to Cinder's level, gently and carefully took her hands in the warriors own, and then, then she simply said.

"Later, I will answer your questions later, but now, we have a single stop to make at the fang, who have promised you a weapon, and then we have little more than the open road."

Cinder didn't know how to process it, nor did she know how to focus as Raven helped her gather her things. Something within her felt that this was wrong, that this was the antithesis of everything that someone would have wanted from her. That someone… was Summer. Everything that Cinder had ever learned about the woman, be it overheard from Raven in her sleep, or from her limited conversations with the woman herself before her death.

This was wrong, this wasn't right, and as Cinder was bundled up and pushed out of the hotel room in front of Raven, as the dark streets of Argus felt like they were pressing in on her, as the two made their way deeper into the city, moving past neon screens, until the smells of industrial oil and smoke filled the air. They passed by tired eyed, and angry citizens. Humans glaring daggers at both Raven, and Cinder.

It felt like she was walking and leaving them to their deaths. It twisted in her stomach like a snake, violently coiling about and snapping at the walls of who she was. She wanted to be a huntress, right? Wasn't what Huntresses did… save people?

What was going to happen to her? How… could she willingly stop?

Raven stopped them at a door in a nicer, upscale portion of the city, she knocked once, then five times in rapid succession, and after a moment, the door was flung open, and a portly man and woman peered around the edge. The woman held a hand to her mouth, and the man threw open his arms and began to speak.

"Raven!? Come in come in… Sanctuary?"

Raven nodded once, politely, but she waited until they were inside, and the woman was fixing herself a cocktail.

"Right. After all this time. Fucking now? By the gods Raven."

Her voice dropped instantly, a low, rustling chuckle pouring out as she laughed at Cinder and Raven, her gaze sharpening quickly.

"The basement is free. But. You'll be taking a price from us."

Raven flinched, instantly.

"Relax, girl. You won't die from such a small ask."

The woman turned and shouted cleanly.

"Rosco! Send word to the Ides family. Tell them to send their tribute."

An answering call from the upstairs.

"Understood ma!"

Then, the woman turned to Raven and simply said.

"You can stay here for at most three days. Then you'll have to move to the speakeasy."

Raven nodded, and Cinder looked around cautiously, scanning the opulent room of the building for the first time.

The upscale house was dominated by an elaborate set of tiles lain with ravens and hawks, twining together on the floor and three large pillars that dominated the central room. She let her eyes wander across the floors of the house, inspecting how it all flowed together, how things blended across the smooth detailing and paint.

Surrounding her was sheer greed, expressed in marble, in gold, it was identical to the lobby of The Glass Unicorn , but… there were differences. Where Madame's establishment had always been something that wanted to advertise its opulence, this… this was something different. While Madame's lobby advertised, this… foyer seemed to mock it, interspersed with the other symbols was something that… something that felt mocking.

It took her a moment to realize it, took her a moment, that was filled with the hubbub of small conversation with Raven… until the motif in the floor suddenly clicked into place. Until the motif finished itself, and then it all made sense.

This was a Branwen coven. This was a contact point for Raven's tribe of bandits.

"Has she been blooded?"

The cold tone of the other woman announced itself as she looked down at Cinder, her gaze imperious and direct. Cloying and clinging to every part of her.

Cinder felt disgust.

Raven answered her.

"No. She is not a member of the clan, and never will be."

The woman's face turned an ugly shade of puce, and Cinder swore she could hear the blood pumping in her ears, hear the way it rushed.

"You bring an unblooded whelp into my home? You have nerve, girl."

Raven cut in, her tone equally cold, equally distant.

"Don't make this difficult, Blanche. We need a place to lie low, new identities sufficient for work in Mistral."

The woman smiled, her face full of blackened teeth.

"My prices aren't cheap, girl. Especially for someone like you."

Raven didn't grimace, but… her hand twitched towards her blade, and the other woman shifted her own position back, one hand darting for her vest pocket.

The air turned cold and frigid, until the portly man from earlier returned, sliding down the staircase with a briefcase in one hand.

"Raven Branwen, of Sapphire's stock. You get three days. And visa passes for Mistral. No more can be given and do not test us, Raven."

Her mother nods, and then Cinder's hand is taken, and she is led towards the basement of the house. It is only when she and Raven are thoroughly ensconced within, that her mother turns to face Cinder and says.

"Never trust a word out of Blanche's mouth. She will want a favor for a favor, our passage out of the city will be provided by-"

Cut off, a small crackling voice, the man, from the radio in the corner.

"Raven, take your ward and get up here. Ironwood's addressing the city."

Raven took Cinder by the hand again, a small pulse of gentle warmth flowing through her at the contact and gentleness. Before the woman ever so carefully nudged open the door to the basement, the room was protected by a trapdoor leading down, hidden beneath camouflaged floor tiles.

As the other two reached the foyer once more, a small collection of people was there, the portly man and woman sat in the center, shadowed by a hulking woman and a thin man on each side, in a chair on the far end, a young woman with ice blue eyes and pale skin stared defiantly and hatefully at the portly woman.

Cinder met her gaze and as the girl stared back at her, she offered a tiny, hesitant smile.

The other girl returned it with her eyes, but all sound or attempts to make further conversation were cut off.

The screen flickered, and a siren went out, text broadcasting across the screen, Cinder's heart dropped into her chest as she began to read.

"ATTENTION. CITIZENS OF ATLAS, AT 2000 HOURS TONIGHT, ATLAS AND MISTRAL HAVE DECLARED THE CITY OF ARGUS TO BE UNDER AN EMERGENCY STATUTE. MARTIAL LAW IS HEREBY ENACTED, ALL CITIZENS ARE TO BE WITHIN THEIR HOMES BY AT THE VERY LATEST 7 PM, OR 1900 HOURS. ANY CAUGHT LOITERING OR WILLFULLY BREAKING CURFEW WILL BE DETAINED UNTIL THE STATUTE OF EMERGENCY IS LIFTED"

A moment later, and the screen flickered, before the face of a man that Cinder wanted to recognize as Ironwood showed on screen. With one single difference.

There was no light behind the man's eyes.

Cinder shivered, her unconscious reflex to remain calm failing her as James Ironwood began to speak.

"Citizens of Argus… I regret that I have to be here, and I regret that I must speak to you on this context, for it is not one I would willingly have chosen. Sadly, my hands have been tied by the council of Atlas and the Governor of Argus. The cause of the riots will be found out, and we will find the perpetrators and stamp them out. This is unacceptable for citizens of our great city to support them. Starting with anyone caught protesting or fighting in the street."
He paused, a hologram coming up to face the screen, standing next to him, a white and black faced android.

"You may be familiar with the Atlesian Enforcers, but I am proud to present, even in such unfortunate circumstances, the Atlesian Knight-130. The forefront of law enforcement, and the newest model of the enforcers. They will help us reintroduce order, and you, my fellow citizens have nothing to fear, they've been programmed with the latest and greatest in facial recognition and identification software."

He smiled, a predator's grin, cold, unfeeling, and cruel.

"You'll be seeing them as of now, and they'll be helping to restore order in the city. Anyone who's innocent has nothing to fear, but you protestors and white fang? You'd best be on your best behavior."

He chuckled, the horrible sound cutting off the broadcast as it went dark, before Cinder and she were being stared at by the portly man and woman once more. The girl Cinder had smiled at tentatively offered one back the moment the adults weren't looking, and Cinder returned the favor.

"Impressive, Raven."

Her mother folded her arms over her chest.

"Not me."

The woman laughed.

"No, of course not, you only showed up the day before it started."

Raven shook her head again.

"The fang have been here before, this is Nightingale's work, if anything. Though it doesn't match her earlier fanatical cults."

The man had gone pale, and Cinder noted as he suddenly scrambled to his feet, where his collared shirt had slightly bent, exposing a long tattoo of a feather, dripping with blood.

"She's here!? She was dead! You told us she was dead!"

Raven didn't smile, her expression deadly as she said.

"She was dead. Or appeared to be. Summer swore it on her life."

As Raven finished, Cinder watched the portly man open his mouth, and a sudden burst of intuition told her she was about to witness someone make a fatal mistake.

"Ah. The common whore you shacked up with, the one you abandoned the tribe for. Did you finally come to your senses and see the errors of your ways?"

Cinder wasn't even sure she saw Raven draw her blade. She was certain she smelled blood, though. The thick, cloying iron taste filled the air as Raven stepped over the body of the portly man, then the bodyguards who had stepped into her way. Her blade dripped blood and she looked… furious.

The woman backed away, and then, she was barking an order.

"Vernal. Kill her!"

The pale girl with the ice blue eyes, looked at Raven, looked at the portly woman, looked back to Raven as Cinder's mother finally turned her gaze to the younger girl, and then she stood and took up her weapons, before flashing a grin at Raven.

"Any chance I can join up with you?"

Raven cocked her head to one side, and after a moment, Cinder realized that was for her benefit, Raven wanted her opinion.

It filled her with a steady sense of warmth, that Raven would care, and that warmth affected her as she skipped over to Vernal, looking the other woman up and down.

She was older than Cinder, that was immediate, Cinder didn't know her exact age, but suspected it was around 11 or 12, but this girl was easily 15 or 16, and it showed, Cinder looked idly, jealously, at her physical form. Before concluding she'd get there one day. As the other girl looked down at her, she commented.

"You see something you like? I can cook, clean, survive, and fight."

Cinder looked at her carefully, this time, she appraised the swell of the other girl's shoulders, the way they bent and the way she carried herself. She was confident in her strength, confident in the way she moved.

"Swear it."

Cinder found the words oddly strange in her throat, and she held a hand out, drawing her knife, dragging the blade across her palm.

"Swear to me, on your life, that you will never betray Raven or me. That you'll be-"

"The best sister ever, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I get it. Here."

She shook on it, having drawn her hand onto the knife, then she looked at Cinder with something in her eyes, and the girl realized it with a start a moment later.

Freedom.

Vernal was free.

Cinder felt a heat form in her chest, even as the other woman began to screech behind her.

"You ungrateful little whore! After everything we've taught you! Everything we've done for you! You'd betray me like this!?"

Vernal shook her head.

"Tch, tch, tch… Blanche… you told me the strongest rule. This woman is the strongest."

She stepped to the side, letting the knife and her weapon fall to the ground, and Raven nodded once, raised her sword, and swung.

Blanche's head rolled across the floor. Thick blood soaking into the floorboards and then seeping deeper. Even then, Raven was moving, calling to Vernal and Cinder.

"Both of you, with me. We go deep below the house, into the Branwen tunnels, and we take refuge there for the time being. Cinder, you will roam at night, scout the sections of the city you find yourself most comfortable in, and search for a way out of the walls. Vernal, you are to watch our den during the day."

The other girl nodded evenly, her gaze turning with that same freedom blazing within it, she was so fiery. So lively and powerful, thought Cinder. Even now, she'd stood up and taken the opportunity the moment it had presented itself. Would she be like that in the future?

She hoped not. Women like that were gorgeous, but somehow Cinder felt that particular aesthetic and look didn't suit her in the slightest bit.

She imagined it worked for others, but… there was something about the way that Raven and Summer had dressed that tickled her brain in all the right places, something about the way they'd worn flowing clothing in civilian guise that helped her out immensely.

The tunnels, beneath the secret room Blanche would have placed her in, illuminated and lay barren, Raven walked for what felt like miles in the labyrinth, before she rapped lightly against a section of wall.

Cinder watched, thoroughly impressed, as the wall section slid completely open and revealed a small, but lavishly furnished, and really beautiful room.. She was even more impressed when Raven removed a small stove setup, and began to inspect an inventory of larger canned and prepared foods. As if feeling her gaze, the woman began.

"While Creep grimm are a noticeable threat underground, keeping emotions in check has allowed groups like my own to use these tunnel systems to store food, places to sleep, and liquor in a safe, content environment. There is enough here to last us for at the very least a couple of days while I consider our options."

Vernal shifted her feet slightly.

"Speak, pup."

Cinder turned, she knew better than to answer, Raven called her "little Kite" after some kind of bird, this… could only be Vernal.

"She had contingencies… people will be looking for her and her husband."

"I know. To enlighten the both of you, there is something I have been considering for some time. Especially in the wake of Summer's death."

Cinder looked up at her, listening eagerly.

"The Branwen tribe will be preparing to move soon, my people. They will be expecting us to fight them, or they will be expecting a hunt. The bodies will not be identification enough, but… the tribe is no place to grow up in, and it is not a place that Taiyang or Summer would want you to have to experience, Cinder."

Cinder looked up at Raven, shocked.

"I am intending on doing… something to the tribe if they threaten you, but for now I have plans to make and food to prepare. Vernal, if you would, scout our location and find every exit to the maze, if you want to take Cinder with you, you may."

Vernal shot Cinder a simple, easy look, and then turned to leave, Cinder following behind as she did so. The girl waited until she was out of earshot, and then she spoke.

"Is she always…"

Cinder answered before she could think.

"Bloodthirsty? Cruel? Merciless?"

Vernal shrugged.

"Sure. Is she always like that?"

Cinder shrugged herself, before she said.

"She's… not like normal people, doesn't show her feelings much… she takes care of me. I don't need anything else."

Vernal purred out.

"She seems strong. I want to learn from her."

Cinder's fanglike smile was long and sharp.

"Me too."

As the two turned a corner, they both saw with something akin to chagrin, an interesting sight. At the end of the corridor was a single twitching form, a robotic form.

Based on the crude handblade in one arm, and the plated rifle on the other, Cinder realized it was an enforcer.

"What's an enforcer doing down here?"

Vernal shrugged.

"Dunno, better kill it though."

Cinder moved forwards, her hands heating up.

"Let me."

Vernal nods, stepping backwards and drawing her weapon in case something, or someone else interrupts them. Cinder kneels next to the robot, and she lets her hands rest on its carapace, smiling, she pushes open the gates of her semblance, and heat roils over her, heating up her body and covering her in warmth as the robot begins to fizz, then smoke, and finally, metal and plastic begin to run like ice cream, melting into a puddle on the ground.

It feels like it takes hours, her concentration exerted to utterly destroy the robot. To ruin and unmake it, to twist it down and shatter what little is left of its housing.

When she finishes and stands up, slow clapping is all she can hear.

"Damn. That is some vicious shit right there."

The foul language catches Cinder so off guard that she begins to chuckle first, then laugh. Vernal is different from Raven, Raven is cold on the outside, only showing how warm she can be to the people who really know how to look, she's calm and composed, never letting anything through.

By contrast, Vernal is tight and open, her emotions worn proudly on her sleeve, even as the woman herself smiles at the world in her newfound freedom. She moves with exaggerated closeness, keeping her limbs within easy reach, keeping herself constantly stabilized and ready for anything.

Cinder delights in the comparisons between the two, watching how Vernal will almost dance between steps with her legs. As they explore, she never loses her enthusiasm for her freedom, she watches the other girl delight in it, and Cinder concludes then and there that she wants to do more of this. To free people, be it from the grimm or worse, she has wondered what would drive her to be a huntress, as Raven had said multiple times that many people have reasons for hunting the monsters that kill humanity. But she had never truly focused on it, never considered what would drive her. What continued to push her forwards in life.

She finds the quieter form of Vernal to be more interesting, a form only achieved as the two layout the rest of the corridors, using parchment taken from Raven's bag.

"Why did she take me?"

"Hmm?"

Vernal repeated herself.

"Why did she take me with her… why did she give me the chance?"

"I don't know. I know she took me because she made a promise. But I don't know why she took you with us."

She let the dialogue end there, or would have, but the other girl clearly wanted to continue.

"Surely you must know something, she asked for your opinion."

Cinder didn't flinch or show a reaction, but she did curse internally, before answering.

"Ah… I think she was curious about whether I approved of her choice to take you, not that she'd really listen to me if she disagreed heavily…"

"I don't know… she seems pretty set in her ways. For her to give you a choice like that… I think you mean alot to her."

Cinder scoffed.

"As if. She takes care of me because she promised to… don't make any mistakes, she isn't my mother."

Even if a part of Cinder desperately craved that she'd recognize that Cinder had called her mom, even if a part of her wanted that acknowledgement.

"Ok then little sis… whatever you say."

Cinder opened her mouth to comment that Vernal wasn't her sister, and then… she stopped. It had felt… nice to be acknowledged like that, Iris and Clove had never deigned to say something that nice to her..,

She'd let it pass for now, until she could come to a conclusion about it later.

For now she had tunnels to map and tasks to achieve. Chief amongst them a rather large exit tunnel that pathed towards the industrial depot of the city. She'd been separate from Vernal for a bit, with the older girl wandering back to Raven looking for something to eat. This tunnel was disused, and likely completely safe for Cinder to poke around in, so she'd decided to poke her head out of the exit.

Only to be slapped on the face by a thick sheet of paper. Flipping it end over end, Cinder studied the elaborate script, and raised an eyebrow.

Pictures, horrific in detail, showing the branding injuries incurred by faunus workers under the SDC, and authoritative slogans that demanded answers…

This had to be Sienna's work, no chance… which meant… she'd seen the speech from Ironwood.

This had to be reported to Raven, without a second look at the Bullhead steadily dispersing more pamphlets as it flew low and fast over the city, Cinder darted back into the tunnel.

The shaking thunder of anti-aircraft guns, a moment later, caused immediate discomfort in the girl as her feet slapped against the flooring of the tunnels. It took her time to reach Raven and Vernal, but as she slid into their alcove, her eyes wide, fingers splayed out, she threw the pamphlet to Raven, and started breathing heavily…

"Mom! Look!"


A/N: And another, in the words of one of my beta readers, "bloodthirsty gremlin" has joined the lineup. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!

As always, if you like what I'm doing, please leave a comment, kudo, like, etc~! They give me life and help me keep writing this story!

 

[Ember]

Twenty years ago.

You don't know when you're made cognizant. But you know it is at her feet, at that pale, radiant woman's feet. Your eyes trace across the pale skin, twisted with black veins, until they reach those horrific, dark eyes shot through with red. She is a monster out of your nightmares, and as bile rises in your throat, you struggle to twist and turn. Bucking against what restrains you, bucking and twisting. You aren't moving… WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING?

"Oh poor noble soul…"

Her voice touches that primordial part of who you are, ripping and tearing at the core of your being, you flinch, trying to shrink away. Trying anything to escape, you find your muscles refusing to respond, find something that shreds at your soul.

"You can't move, can you? They really hurt you, didn't they?"

Memory flashes through you, spasms of pain, twists in your leg… a desire to sing burning through you, your song could bring so much joy… what had happened to cause this? Shouts, screams, immense amounts of agony, a tearing sensation in your lower leg, lying in the dirt as blows rain upon you. A snapping crack as your arm is bent too far, your soundless, desperate, pleading cries begging for them to stop, begging and pleading for them to cease hurting you.

"Poor, poor girl… tormented when all you wanted was to bring joy…"

Her voice soothes you… her touch, ice cold against your battered, split cheeks as she drags your head to her lap, stroking your hair. It feels… motherly, gentle, and you finally summon up the will to croak.

"Water…"

The woman laughs then, and its gentle, careful, and then the lips of a bottle are pressed to your bleeding, broken mouth, and she's speaking again.

"Sip carefully… not too quick, you are only holding on because of my grace."

You aren't stupid, this has to come with strings attached, but right now? Right now all that matters is that she is water, she is relief, and she is going to keep you alive for another day. Another step forwards.

She helps you to walk at first, the process is slow, painful, your legs are held in thick braces, and you have to use crutches to walk. She doesn't give you assistance with the strange powers she calls her magic unless you were at risk of genuine injury.

She tests you daily, asking you to identify the roads to travel to avoid others, the paths that hide grimm vs the paths that hide game animals. It sticks out to you that in all the days that she was taking you to… gods knows where, she never really spoke, never seemed to breathe or to eat. Only when you had to stop from pure exhaustion did she seem to rest or sit down. Even then, it is a close thing, you reflect, the keys to her nature were always there.

You slowly piece together that she is no human and no faunus, although that gets a small chuckle when you imply it in casual conversation. She explains that she is older, more powerful than either, that she is going to give you vengeance and answers, but that she requires your allegiance first and foremost.

You ask her to demonstrate that she can give you what she promises.

She obliges, and shows you the power of magic. The sheer energy behind her semblance, the sheer powers that she exhibits that evening leave you spellbound, and she impresses upon you that another sent you into the lions den to be destroyed.

"What do you mean?"

"You know of the man… Ozpin, yes?"

That name stirs memories in your mind, of family moving to Vale, of a school for huntresses and huntsmen, of the distance from those family members that only grew as you began to tour. Of the strange fear that was in their eyes as they looked at you. Of the way they suddenly always have plans, the way that you suddenly struggle to see people you called family.

She sees your face fall, and before you even realize it, she has pulled you into a tight, close embrace and pulled you in. She holds you against herself, and in that cold you start to cry.

It is so hard to think that a stranger would give you all of this and would give you the power to genuinely, really change something. And as she speaks, as she continues, you find yourself gently listening.

"Ozpin, or rather, Ozma, as his true name would be, is a monster who sent you to die because he fears your semblance. He fears what you are able to do, and what form of help you could bring to the world. And all you'd have to do is to sing."

She is seductive with her promises, and you find yourself wanting more, wanting her to help you claim that vengeance.

"You struggled so hard with the rejection, the way they treated you… it was so disappointing to watch them run from you, all from fear."
You nod, you hear her, the rejection, the pain and anguish, your wounds sting and ache, her cold flesh laying healing paste into them as she works through your tired muscles.
"Don't you want to take it back from them? To burn their precious world to the ground as punishment? They never wanted to accept you, never wanted to support you. They g̴̨̪͌ã̶̯v̷̖͖̇e̷͘͜ ̴͉̍ŭ̴̠p̵͙̦̏̌ ̶̆͐͜ò̶̡̀n̷̢̚ ̴̬̽͛ͅỳ̸̝o̴̺͌ǔ̵̩̌͜"

Anger began to boil within, they had burned you, they had shot you, left you for dead. They sent you out to die. Your family, the people you had loved and cherished, and wanted to spend your life with. They'd sent you to your death because they feared you.

"Do you want them to fear you?"

You just nod. There is nothing left. You felt a part of yourself cry out, desperately telling you that this wasn't right. That this was wrong and bad, and would only lead to more pain!

"Am I wrong, little girl? Am I wrong that they left you to die? Is this not your right? To demand vengeance of the unwilling? To demand that you be shown some sympathy, that you gain your pound of rightfully deserved flesh?"

That voice dies a small, insignificant death, and the flames of anger are stoked ever higher, as that pale, dark woman simply purred from her lips.

"Good. You understand. Give me your hand."

You look up at her. You see her take your hand and you feel the agony as it spreads from your hand down. But this is a good pain, a pain that promises power. A pain that promises vengeance and rage and everything you could ever want from this.

You take it, grasping onto that power and flooding it with this new energy, and then, that pale, corpselike woman begins to speak.

"For it is in the darkest hours of our life that we discover true power. Through this, we exemplify power and strength, and stand defiant against those who scorned and spurned us. Infinite in desires and unbound by morality, I release your soul, and by my commands, avenge thee."

You feel dark, shivering, power rush through you, infinite energy, pouring through every fiber of your being, every single motion and possible move filling your mind. Every single thing you thought you could never actually do, now stands at the tips of your fingertips as you stand. You stand, unassisted! This woman doesn't have to exert anything over you, she knows you too well, she's won.

But… that doesn't matter, you realize. You don't need anything else, you have your vengeance and she's right in front of you, begging you to take whatever you want from her, to force it out and into your body.

You had known your semblance could make others happy. You had known this, but you feel it shift as the unforgettable semblance of aura floods through you. You feel that your semblance is changing and shifting, and as that cold woman, the spirit and force of pure and total vengeance looks down on you. You feel complete for the first time in years.

Have you ever trained until your skin split and every part of you couldn't even think? Have you ever felt as though your lungs were full of frost and your muscles were girded by nothing but sheer, unequivocal agony? Have you watched as who you were is unmade completely to allow who you are to take full front and center?

You feel every single piece of the agonizing training that the woman puts you through.You feel your muscles and tissues reshape themselves, transforming yourself completely and utterly until you are leaner and meaner than you've ever been.

It is only after a month that you and the woman arrive at an expanse of the ocean, hidden beneath a camouflage tarp is an aircraft, something the Atlesians used, but you don't remember its name. It occurs to you that this woman came for you. She flew an aircraft out here, left it, and then found you at your lowest point.

That should have filled you with dread, instead, a sense of pure and total pride courses through you. You are wanted, she needs you for something. You don't know what it is yet, but you have faith she'll tell you. Already you can run longer, fly across terrain, scale any tree, fight grimm with palm strikes and a knife.

You don't need a gun, only your voice and your weapons. And she even lets you speak around her, she's immune to your effects.

She tells you her name, finally.

"My name is Salem, child."

You have many questions, how old she is being one of them, strangely enough, it isn't this one that gets laughter out of her, merely a tired, and very unfortunate sigh.

"Older than I care to remember, at this point. I cannot rest, not yet. Not while I have a task to complete."

"That task being to kill Ozpin?"

She shook her head.

"No. He is convinced that he can… redeem me. That he can save me from this awful affliction that dulls my senses and makes living painful."

"He can't save you?"

"I am sure he believes he can. But I have long since accepted my fate and my position. All that remains is to eventually fade away. Perhaps… sleep for a time until I am ready to rejoin the world."

"What do you want from me?"

She turns to you, and with that rich, deep voice, she simply says.

"I wish for you to draw his attention, and to convince him that I cannot be saved. That if he pursues this path that I will tear apart the human race he so loves to use as his playthings. That I will stop playing with him, and advance the plans and plots I have put into place more than a thousand years prior."

A chill runs down your spine at her words. She smiles at you, that same mirthless smile, and you see just how little of her humanity is left. A passion burns in those red irises, and as she makes eye contact with you, you realize something.

Salem has never looked directly at you, never made eye contact before, but now? Now she does make eye contact with you.

You realize she's done that to be courteous.

Fear, ice cold and primal seizes you as you stare into those horrible eyes. Every single muscle in your body tightens and freezes up, rocketing sheer terror to your mind. You can't think, can't move, can't even breathe as she stares at you, that hand reaching out to touch your face.

It is frigidly cold. There is no warmth in her grip as she purrs in a voice that makes no concessions, makes no compromises. This is the voice of a queen.

"You are mine now, girl. You will do as I ask and you will succeed. Because if you fail…"

She holds up her hand and clenches her fingers.

Indescribable agony rips at you, and you fall from the log you are sitting on, collapsing to the ground, spasming and coughing as every single motion only brings more pain, all the while those awful eyes stare into your soul. The eyes of a monster in the body of a woman, the eyes of the only predator of humans in the world. The eyes of true pain and terror ripping into you with every motion and every single gaze.

You can't even think, can't even breathe, and Salem doesn't release you until she's satisfied with the suffering you've gone through.

"Are we clear?"

You nod, gasping for breath, hunched over on your knees at her feet as she bends down, and that same, cool hand caresses your chin to bring your eyes back up to look at her.

"Did you have a name before, little girl?"

You nod.

Agony tears you in half again. Salem clicking her tongue as a disapproving parent.

"No. You have no name. You are mine now, remember girl. You are only whatever I give you."

You nod. Choking words out.

"Yes… Salem…"

She smiles at you.

"Good."

Then, she commands again.

"Get up."

You obey, fighting your screaming body, still twitching with the agony she'd just inflicted upon you. Then, you find a cool, cold steel blade pressed evenly into your hands, and Salem tells you simply.

"Kill me. Girl."

You don't want to. This is the first person to give you sympathy, to help you, to show you kindness. Here she stands asking you to kill her. To stab her dead and leave her for nothing but the worms.

You can't do it, and she sighs.

"Disappointing."

Pain and agony tear you in half, over and over, until it blends together and you feel yourself straining and breaking from within. Salem teaches you that she is not to be disobeyed, no matter how much you think you know, she knows more, she is always… always more.

It takes her 3 hours to make you stab her, the first one from rage, but as she stares at you, that insufferable, cocky, arrogant smirk on her face. You raise the dagger over and over, and plunge it into that chalky skin overwritten with black veins. You slam the weapon home again, and again, and again, and again.

When she finally collapses, you stare at the blood, dark red, covered in black spots, and only then do you inspect the carnage you wrought as regret and grief and relief fill you.

Salem lies dead on the ground, on the roots of the tree, her black and red gore seeping out of her and pooling on the ground, her head is twisted to one side, that mocking smile never leaving her lips as you breathe heavily, staring at her corpse.

It makes it so much worse when her head snaps back correctly. Those eyes strike you instantly, forcing you to your knees in front of your predator, the woman who commands everything you do now.

"Hmm. Efficient, if mismanaged due to emotion. Do you understand now? Little one?"

You look at her, desperately trying to avoid her gaze, until she snaps her hands onto your cheek, the black field, your aura, flickering brightly as it tries to fight her off, she forces you to look at her. Looming over you and staring evenly into your voice as that same, spun sugar purr of a voice replies.

"You will obey. Child. I will force you to do so if I must, but I detest inflicting agony and pain on those who are in my employ. Do not give me a reason to start enjoying it."

You nod, shaking.

She releases her grip on you, and her hands shrink back into the formless gown that accents her movements, the dark red curving across her.

You follow her to the aircraft, and strap yourself in mechanically.

As she begins to power up the craft, you note that her movements aren't… correct. She is going through the motions, but doesn't seem to need them at all. This is only confirmed when you note the engines spinning up, and the craft lifts away, Salem's hands move to clasp behind her back, and she stares directly ahead of her, until you are far, far out to sea.

The form of the Grimm leviathan catches you off guard, and you scream, even as Salem smiles that same, horrible, smile that she always has.

"Do not worry, child."

It feels impossible to do anything else, but the Leviathan simply looks at the aircraft. Its massive wings floating alongside the craft, the Sea Feilong is the most impressive creature you have ever seen. It's massive, serpentine form graced by wings that are inhumanly beautiful. It's scaled form long and sinewed with muscles. Salem smiles at it, that small quirk of her lips immediate.

"They are beautiful in their destruction. But they follow my commands and my will. She is merely hungry, for your emotions, for your grief and pain. Do not let it take them from you."

You finally meet the eyes of the enormous dragon, and feel it taking your emotions. Sea Feilong's have always been persistence grimm, able to steal the emotions of others, inducing moments of hesitation in trained hunters, and total shock in anyone else.

You feel it trying to take your hatred, your rage, and your pain.

You don't let it. The sheer force behind your eyes cowers the Feilong into submission, and the great dragon lowers its head and dips back beneath the waves.

"Good."

Salem spends the rest of the flight in silence, urging you to get some sleep in the back of the cabin. It is only as your consciousness begins to drift off, you hear her mutter something to herself.

"I will call her Nightingale."

You dream of nothing and everything in the back of that aircraft, complete and utter nothingness, and the faces of all your enemies, your former friends and family, twisted in anguish and pain as they are forced to bow beneath you. You see yourself upon a throne, overseeing the construction of an enormous statue of Salem, and you feel pleasure, completeness, in the action.

She will give you everything you want, and all you need to do is obey.




Twelve years ago.

The mission had been going so well too, until Ozpin's pet hit squad had decided they wanted to ruin everything.

You stare at the incoming huntresses and huntsmen, and shift your fingers on a tactical display accordingly. A frown creases your lips as you feel the building shake under your feet. Raven Branwen, Qrow Branwen, Taiyang Xiao-Long, and finally Summer Rose, bearer of the silver eyes.

They would be powerful thralls. But you dare not attempt such a maneuver, you've tried before, but their particular training and massive aura reserves never were low enough for your song to break down their minds.

To say nothing of the monstrosity that was Summer Rose.

You had gone for Raven Branwen first, and had found her not only a capable combatant, as a shattered rib and pulverized wrist attested to, but fiendishly clever. She had figured out exactly what your plan was, and then had pulled Summer Rose mid scythe swing through the portal after striking your ribs on multiple occasions.

These four shouldn't have even been here, they should have been recovering, and according to Salem's intelligence, this town should only have been defended by a trio of powerful, but limited huntresses.

You had already caught those three, domesticating them into thralls so broken and so obedient that they couldn't really fight back even when they had been free of your song long enough for it to fade.

The relief team that had first come for them hadn't lasted more than a few seconds.

Huntresses and hunters worked together, even from different teams and schools, and the relief team hadn't expected the three in charge of this town to turn on them so suddenly that it was a surprise any had made it out.

Internally, you curse yourself for allowing the one survivor to flee, her name had been… some flower… hadn't it? O-something… Orchid?

You weren't sure. In any case, the sheer will she'd had, to crawl for miles on what had been broken, bleeding legs… you didn't know how she'd managed it.

But she had, and now Ozma's finest were staring you down.

The building shook again, another large caliber weapon, anti tank, you believed, based on the muffled crack.

This had been shot, you would need to withdraw with what forces, what thralls you could take with you. Some were police and ex-military from Vale itself, and they had provided the heavier weapons you now faced, and fought to delay team STRQ's inevitable advance with.

But who to take? The huntresses were sure bets, given that two could already no longer fathom killing you, and the third would break soon, if only you squeezed the right amount of pressure to her fragile mind.

And her mind was fragile. Held down with thoughts of her partner and the life they shared… the cat faunus was so vulnerable to just a little more poking and prodding, and she would fall apart.

The building shook again, and this time, you hear a window shatter. Sighing, you raise the radio to your lips and speak gently into it.

"Gothel, Nightingale actual. Extraction, please and thank you."

The gentle hum that came through the radio was the only confirmation you would receive. With a thought, you modulate the psychic song, and three huntresses break from their concealed positions and begin to move towards the basement, of the dozen or so police forces you had started with, 6 of them remained, defending the internal levels and making live the booby traps that thoroughly would demolish the building.

You almost don't see the blow aimed for your head, or the dark grin on the black haired woman stepping out of the shadows as you fall back and dodge the incoming blow.

Years of instincts, trained under Salem snap too, and you throw yourself to one side as a blast of silver light illuminates Raven and erases part of the handgun you are slightly too slow to move to one side. Lines of agony rip through your torso and leg, staining the fabric red as Raven's long blade cuts through your weakened aura and draws the first blood. Gasping as agony takes your breath away.

You drop the useless frame as Summer Rose steps free from the dark red and black portal swirling, just as the tempo of your song changes. Two of the huntresses remain, the third having been picked off by Taiyang Xiao-Long, and Qrow Branwen.

"Hannah Blau, you have been charged with gross manipulation and violations of at least 3 dozen innocent people, including the mass scale control of three huntresses, and the traumatizing and torturing of them into puppets for your control."

You don't respond, a hand flicking to your waist, to the dagger that rests there, and then, Raven simply says.

"I told you, Summer. She wasn't going to surrender. Too wrapped up in her own head."

They don't know? Ozpin didn't tell them? You can use that. You open your mouth, and begin to sing a slightly different song, and your semblance responds to it. Opening up and drifting into the air with your words.

"He didn't tell you why you were here, did he?"

You step forwards, and find Summer's blade at your back, and Raven's at your throat. All you need to do is buy a few more seconds, the two huntresses are almost in position.

"Not another move. We will kill you, we have the order signed."

That hurts… more than you'd want it to. To know that you've had the kill order placed on your head, to know that they truly just… hated you…

It hurts.

You don't want it to, but it does anyways.

"Ozma lied to you. I am guilty of the crimes, yes. But he doesn't want you here to bring me to justice. He wants you here to kill me."

That causes Raven to pause, and you see her shoot a look towards Summer, that look, is all it takes, for you to scream, for your semblance to force both of them back as it tears at their aura, as you amp up the fear and distaste they have, and send them staggering back just a few feet.

As the two huntresses enthralled by your touch detonate the charges under the building and leap towards Raven and Summer, you fall backwards, flashing a smile towards the two huntresses who thought they could stop you. Who thought they were capable of stopping you, even as rubble obscures their faces.

The grimm pool generating underneath you closes around you, and you feel a moment later, as strong, dark arms that tingle with the acid touch of grimmflesh wrap around you and haul you free from the pool.

You gasp, there is no air in the grimm pools, and the trip is worse the longer distance it is. This trip, from the middle of Mistral to Salem's palace within the grimmlands, has taken it out of you, it takes moments to cough up some of the fluid, to feel its acidic touch fade, until Gothel is pulling you up onto your feet and marching you to Salem's throne room.

"Report, child."

You straighten instantly, fear and hope tingling in your gut. You have succeeded in many ways, you think.

"Town has been destroyed by infighting, my semblance has strengthened through training and tutelage, I can enthrall dozens now, and fully break any I wish to my will."

You pause, and Salem, looking down at you from her throne, allows you to suck in a breath before she continues.

"I failed to keep any of my thralls. An unexpected force arrived, and they slew or knocked unconscious all in my wake."

Salem's eyes narrow, her ire announcing itself in a subtle shift of her body, moving closer to the edge of her throne, staring you down.

"Ozma's new team intervened. I do not know how they tracked me or why, but I know they found me and are as powerful as rumor would have it."

Salem raises an eyebrow,the motion is encouraging, and you seize it, instantly.

"They cut through entrenched ex-military and police forces without a second thought, immobilized one of my huntresses, the one who likely had the highest individual chance of killing one of them, knocked her free of my control, and then sent the two most dangerous after me. I… believed they may believe me to be dead."

Salem smiles at that, a slight, gentle smile, but it is there, and then, she simply says.

"Good."

She does not need to make a motion to dismiss you, you are aware your presence is no longer needed, and as you turn to leave, Salem simply calls.

"I expect you to focus on honing your control against disruptions. Use Malachite's clones for such a task."

The silent woman, Malachite, Salem's bodyguard? Friend? You aren't sure which she is, only that the diminutive, silent woman with the split pink and white hair and the ancient appearance is the scariest thing in the castle next to Salem herself.

You don't even try to resist as she slams you into the wall the moment you are free of the room, for easily being in her 80's, Malachite barely looks like she's out of her 40's, and her body isn't slowing down either.

She smiles at you, the jagged scar that cuts across her lips a haunting reminder of Salem's mercy.

She doesn't speak, never needs to, instead simply beckoning you towards the training rooms. You follow, knowing that aside from Salem, the prisoners from your last raid on a village, and Malachite, you are the only ones present. Tock had left months ago, and was not expected back before at least another month had passed.

These small rooms, carved from the same black stone as the rest of Evernight, accented with purple, and filled in sections with the same black liquid that the grimm spawn from, still feel as cold and impersonal as they always have. You have to acknowledge the simple fact that they serve every single purpose that Salem wants of them.

Malachite kicks you in the back, sending you into the pit and landing opposite to you. She flicks her hand out, drawing a long, thin stiletto blade from within her coat and advancing on you. Her semblance, flickering and dying as she removes the disguise she's worn for the entire time you've known her. Cheekbones lengthen and sharpen, and her mismatched eyes fill with deep, dark, onyx color.

The elfin, strange figure of Malachite's true form, a very small woman in her late 60's, if you had to guess, although the aura effects of everyone around you means she could be 40 or 60, the slowing of the aging process…

Hell, you're not even sure if the ethereally strange looking woman is her actual face or yet another disguise with the way her physical form is able to alter and shift on demand.

"Training again?"

The woman nods gently. Her stiletto flying at you the moment her nod reaches the apex of its motion.

You twist to one side, the burning line of the knife skating past you but only barely. It is so, so easy for Malachite to kill you, and she has threatened to do it on multiple occasions, but has never struck you once your aura has broken without Salem's explicit permission.

You wonder, absently as you twist to the side again, and slam a heel into Malachite's chest, sending the smaller woman skidding back. You wonder what she was promised by Salem to join her. What drove her, and what ensured her loyalty at the side of the other woman.

She's back up on her feet and charging you a second later, leaping up and then crashing down, boots lined with steel aimed for your head.

The slam cracks your aura and sends you into the floor, the impact dissipating its force across the black shield that gives you the protection you desperately need. The sounds of battle quickly taking your mind and consuming it as you fight and scream and cry against Malachite's training and relentless pace.



Now.

This place was a prison, as it had been for years. Keeping the violent and unstable of Argus just outside the city walls, it had heavy defenses and a rotating guard shift, using dust laden technology to satiate the rampaging grimm outside.

The grimm thrashed at the walls of the prison, or well, they had. Prisons like this one served as excellent decoys, pulling the Grimm into narrow killboxes where hunter teams and the military could kill as many as possible. Stragglers always got through, of course, but that didn't matter, the healthy population outside their walls kept escapes to a minimum. Even the most twisted and broken person craved life over death. Their emotions overpowered you initially when you had stepped foot into the city earlier.

Now, they sang your song, and you had been excellently placing them across the city, perfect to instigate riots, cause chaos, or directly attack those who got in their way. You would make Atlas look like the avenging angels and the heroes of the day. But that wasn't the point of your mission here. You were to destabilize the region, and for that, you needed to kill several of the huntsmen within Argus' walls, as well as directly blame the Fang for such an event.

You didn't know how this would aid Salem's plots or plans. But you didn't care. She had brought you closer over the years, as first Tock, and then Malachite had left Evernight and never returned. In Tock's case, you found her body, left behind in the canyon overlooked by the gigantic stone Nevermore. You remember the pain that had lanced through you at that discovery. The way you would never look upon her again, and the way her jokes would never fill the ears of you and Malachite with that sonorous laughter.

It hurts to lose a comrade. Yes, all of your ambitions are second to Salem's, as only when she has what her objective is does she allow you anything else. But… you were still friends beyond that, as much as you could. Malachite had disappeared only a scant few years ago, and you'd found a body matching that of one of her more normal disguises a year later. You didn't quite know why she would leave, or if she faked her own death or had actually died.

But you knew that Evernight felt even colder than it ever had. Salem's newest disciple, Tyrian, scares you, his fanatic psychopathy so disgraceful even Salem has a distaste for the faunus, but… he is effective. Slaying huntresses and huntsmen across Remnant at your mistresses beck and call.

Salem had continued on, ever graceful in the formation of the years, but… you liked to believe she grieved for your comrades in her own way.

She had sent you here for a task, though, and you would engage in that task.

You could not bring down Argus, and that was never the goal, but isolating its huntsmen in the streets and killing them by drowning them in waves of criminals under your sway? Easily accomplished.

Or so you'd thought it was.

Then Raven Branwen had arrived in Argus.

The old scars that she'd given you in that last confrontation ached and burned. She was here. Here not to ruin your plans, here shepherding a child, here shepherding a girl who was powerful . The commandant of the guards in the prison, routinely receiving briefings from Atlas and Mistral, had discovered mentions in two separate reports of an unknown, very important person traveling with Raven Branwen.

Sure, she used an alias, but several of your thralled civilians had seen her. She was still Raven, drawn, more tired than she had been, clearly experienced, and her eyes carried a sense of anger and death and deep sadness. She kept the child close to her at all times, and never let her go out alone.

Plans clicked into place. Raven was here and a huntress. Which meant simply, that she had to die. She would not leave the city? Then she would be dealt with.

Last time you had a dozen police and ex military. This time you had the military, and dozens of police. It would be a simple matter to capture the more belligerent and irritating Fang too. The daughter of the Belladonnas was not quite as sneaky as she liked to believe, and she would ensure her parents' total cooperation.

The plan began to come together, and you smile in the darkness, before stepping up to the makeshift stage, hooked into enormous microphone and audio equipment that stretches out of the prison and into the massive broadcast tower atop its central building.

Your thralls had commands to receive, after all.

A/N: Man. I hate the second person. Apologies for the delay on this chapter, but I struggled to write this one from simply a technical way, hopefully it's not too repetitive or boring. Expect at least two interludes during major arcs for the future, but not many if any will be in second person. Nightingale is… she's fun, but man she makes me feel icky to write.
As always~! If you like my work and what I'm doing, leave me a comment or a like!

 

[Ember]

Cinder had made many mistakes in her short life, but in the years that followed she didn't think calling Raven "mom" was one of them.

In the moment though, standing there staring at Vernal, who had a cocky smile on her face, and Raven, who was staring at Cinder with the most piercing and hardened gaze she'd ever seen on the woman, she struggled to feel that it had been the right decision at all. To shout such a word, such a loaded phrase with such meanings to Raven.

But the woman merely looked to one side, angled and cocked her head, and then beckoned her closer, and, face full of flaming blush, Cinder moved closer to her mother and extended the pamphlet.

Raven's face turned, darkening as she read, and then she swore something under her breath in Mistrali, and Vernal went scarlet just from hearing it.

When she looked up, her gaze was full of steel and she was marching towards one of the long, thin cases that she had been keeping with them over the past few days in their hovel. Cinder hadn't asked what was inside, content to let Raven tell her if there was something interesting or worthy of her notice within.

"I had not intended to give you these so soon, especially given they are incomplete, but they will have to do until a real weapon can be procured. Vernal, did you recover the pistols?"

She turned and began striding towards Cinder with a bundle of cloth, as Vernal nodded and replied.

"As ordered, ma'am. They're in my gear."

Raven didn't miss a beat.

"Take them, you'll need them where you're going."

Cinder had noticed that there was an air of ease to the way that Raven ordered Vernal to do things, and an air of easy acceptance in the way Vernal responded. She felt a strange, stirring sense of hostility at that ease between the two, and resolved that she would have to evaluate its effects upon herself later.

For the moment, though, her gaze was captured by the bundle Raven passed her, and with a sense of reverence and happiness, Cinder unwrapped the cloth.

They were made of heavy wood and leather, carefully made and shaped, and bearing small crystals of an intense, violet glow within the blade itself. Each one was a long, wide blade, curved and lethal looking, even in the wood, there was a perfection to the pair of swords, a perfection that Raven stood looking proudly on. Yet… there was a sense of unease in her tone as she asked Cinder.

"Are they… alright? Are they everything you hoped for?"

Cinder wants to say something, she wants to say that they're perfect and everything she could have ever wanted… but words fail her utterly. And, unable to stop herself, she throws her blades at Vernal, who, startled, barely manages to catch them, and before Raven can say anything, Cinder is rushing forwards and enveloping the woman in a tight, fierce hug.

She doesn't want to admit she's sobbing openly, but the wide smile on her face gives away her true emotions and true intentions. Something that for once… she's happy to just have, even if Raven didn't reciprocate, even if she didn't choose to respond in kind.

Of course, she isn't disappointed when Raven wraps Cinder tightly in a hug and pulls her in close. Cinder startles briefly, almost crying out, and then she begins to sob openly, even as another strong pair of arms encircle her from behind, and Vernal begins to speak.

"Look… your mom and I, we talked while you weren't around, and she made me promise something to her about you."

Cinder, wiping her eyes, takes just a moment to look at the other woman, who's hand is scratching the back of her neck hurriedly.

"She told me to take care of you as well, and… I'm happy to do that, if that's what boss lady wants."

Cinder just drops one arm from Raven and tugs in Vernal without another sound.

It doesn't matter that Nightingale threatens to bring the city to violence around them, it doesn't matter that Cinder is worried about the future, because right now, for the first time, for the very first time… she feels like she can trust Raven.

And if she can trust Raven… and Raven trusts Vernal… then she can trust the older girl as well.

"T-than-thank you…"
She wants to keep this moment forever, and to her credit, Raven allows it to continue for almost 5 more minutes, before she gently pries Cinder and Vernal apart from each other, and stepping back, kneels to Cinder's level.

"I need the both of you to do something very important for me. Can you do that?"

Cinder nods instantly. Vernal throwing a sloppy, but funny salute at Raven that makes Cinder giggle from the sheer audacity of the older girl.

"I need eyes and ears out there in the city. I need to be able to tell what's going on, while I scout and verify a hypothesis, as well as meet with Sienna and the Belladonnas about this course of action."

Vernal is the first to speak up.

"Mmkay, boss lady, I don't mind doing this, but I'm not exactly sneaky. I'm trained for smash n' grab, little else."

Raven absorbs this information, and then she asks.

"Have you discovered your semblance?"

The other girl shakes her head. As Raven turns her head back to Cinder and addresses the girl again.

"Can you teach that stealth trick you do to make you harder to notice to Vernal?"

Cinder pauses for a moment, considering the merits, on the one hand… it should be possible, but on the other hand… was it worth it? Did Vernal have aura reserves? Thinking, the cogs in her head turning, Raven turns to her once more and gently says.

"The swords have gravity dust embedded into the blades, if you ever need them, simply reach out with your aura and focus it into the blades. The crystals will do the rest."

Cinder nods, and then Raven is straightening up, and stretching her legs out, then she's turning that gaze back on the two girls, and she says simply.

"I want information, but I want you safe most of all. Keep yourselves safe, stop others if you must. Is that clear to both of you?"

Cinder nods, and Vernal follows suit a moment later. Then, Raven stands up, and a slight flicker of motion transforms her into the familiar shape of the large black corvid she was capable of using.

A flicker of wings, and Raven was gone, and Vernal was drawing a pair of heavy caliber handguns from her duffel bag. She strapped them into her holsters, stood and turned to Cinder.

"So… this aura thing?"

Cinder shakes her head and takes her blades.

"It's… a bit more complex than it seems. You need to wrap your aura around yourself like a shield, but… then you need to be able to… shrink the field?"

Vernal nodded and concentrated, a moment passed, and Cinder watched as the field formed and flickered, a dark burnished orange color coating Vernal's skin as the woman concentrated. Cinder smiled, and started to speak again.

"Ok, now… focus on twisting the field… inverted?"

"What does that mean?"

"The field?"

The reply sounded irritated.

"No, in-inverted."

"OH! Flip the field over."

Vernal concentrated, and her aura darkened and darkened and… suddenly, she wasn't there anymore. For all of around 3 seconds.

"Ugh. Ok… bit too much off there… urp"

Vernal staggered towards the edge of the room and began to vomit. The lucky part was the fact that she was only spitting up into a bag.

"Ok… never doing that again."

Cinder felt a hot flush of anger burst through her.

"Why didn't it work? Did you do something wrong?"

Vernal snorted.

"As if. I don't think this… thing, whatever you're doing, is working for me."

"I couldn't tell."

Vernal snorted with something resembling derision, and Cinder felt that anger boil up inside of her. How dare this girl imply she couldn't do something, that she couldn't teach or help or make it simple.

Then again, that just meant she was better than Vernal in this aspect.

"Ok. What do we do next?"

Vernal had spoken. Cinder froze, considering the options available to her.

"Mom said we need to scout, so let's scout."

Vernal nodded, and then she was gone. Vanishing down a corridor and watching at the entrance, waiting for… something.

As Cinder approached, Vernal held up a finger and cautioned her to move silently, Cinder wove her field around herself, and followed the woman's finger up and towards the grate. She was glad, once again, that Raven had cloaked her in simple, easily camouflaged clothing, all in drab browns and greys.

The grate hid them, but revealed, cast in the sunlight from outside, the forms of half a dozen Atlesian soldiers, clad in the normal white armor save for one, wearing black armor and fitted gear, and walking in their midst as naturally as he could be. But… as Cinder inspected the man, she looked for an insignia, and found none as the… woman, yes, that was a woman, turned to slowly survey the area, searching for… something. Cinder watched, studying the visor as it flickered with a pulse. The backlight that illuminated her skin just briefly shifted to dull blue, and Cinder realized with a start.

Infrared.

She stepped in front of Vernal and pushed the other girl down, Vernal was taller than her for the moment, but she put her trust in Cinder so quickly that the girl felt a rush of pure power flow through her as the woman's sharp eyed gaze turned towards the grate.

Time stopped as Cinder held her breath, terrified that her aura field wouldn't work on machinery as advanced as the Atlesian's visor.

For one thing, she was right, but not in the way she expected.

The woman took off her helmet, tapped lightly at the side of it, before striking it with the butt of her rifle, then she picked it up and slid the visor down over her eyes once more.

Her hand moved to the side of her head, and Cinder watched as she tilted her head to one side, receiving… or giving orders?

Vernal crouched behind her, trying to hide her substantially larger physicality behind Cinder.

For just a moment they thought they'd managed to hide, and then the woman unslung her rifle, raised it, and began moving towards the tunnel.

Plans flashed through Cinder's mind, she was strong enough to take this soldier… maybe? She wasn't sure she could take the whole squad, and it was Vernal whispering that saved her.

"I… I've got this, just… take my hand and trust me, ok?"

Cinder obeyed, grabbing tight to the warm hand of her sister as she stood up, and then, Cinder felt something twist in her gut as a field of shimmering aura covered her, she saw Vernal's face, pale and sweaty in the low light of the tunnel, and the woman's concentration on her task, shrouding the two of them in… something.

Was this a new aura technique? Or was it… no, this was…

Cinder reached into the aura with her own, bolstering Vernal with a donation from her own reserves as the other woman focused forwards on her task, as the soldier came so close to the grate that Cinder felt that she could smell the gunmetal and oil of the woman's movements.

A moment passed.

A second one.

Terror froze the two as the soldier looked right at them, her visor staring into the tunnel.

Then… she began to move, began to slowly, cautiously move away.

Cinder held her breath until she felt her lungs ready to burst from the sheer effort of restraining herself.

When the patrol had finally moved on, Vernal collapsed to one side of the tunnel, and Cinder the other. The drainage tunnels of Argus, used only when the city experienced springtime snowmelt and extreme rains, were usually left alone, and that had made them the perfect area for the Branwen tribe to set up a camp within. It made it perfect for them to set up small tunnels within the walls, digging them out.

Unfortunately, it also meant limited exits, and as Cinder had just discovered, that could cause problems.

"What was that!?"

She whisper-hissed at Vernal, the other girl smirking a bit before replying.

"I took what you said about forcing them to not notice you, and made it stationary… I had to project it around us, and we can't move, but I can hold it for a bit."

Cinder nodded, and then they were moving again, pushing out to the grate. It took both of them straining to move the heavy metal, but they managed well enough, before starting outside into the beautiful air of Argus.

The most immediate thing that Cinder and Vernal noticed was the smell of smoke in the air, the exit to the tunnels where they had been was a shorthand into Argus' docks, and, casually surveying the environment, it became clear just what had happened.

A tight, thick cordon of soldiers took up much of the space on the docks, at least, near to the walls, behind it, remained the remnants of the protestors. Sullen groups of faunus and human dockworkers shot hateful glances towards the wall of white armor and faceless masks that hemmed them in and provided a mask of utter inhumanity.

It was genuinely terrifying, Cinder reflected, to see the white carapace armor and inhuman power that the soldiers' presence placed forwards. The dockworkers, threatened by Atlas' sudden imposition of martial law, had likely broken out into open protest, based on the slight smell of iron in the air under the smoke, they had been violently beaten into subservience.

Cinder cringed, the sheer agony of what they had gone through made an impact on her, and a part of her wished to tear them limb from limb. Simply because they couldn't stop to free or break the cordon, the Atlesians likely only would hold that perimeter until one of the larger airships could return and begin to round up the dockworkers, probably to throw them into prison or worse.

Cinder flinched at the realization that many of Blake's kinsmen and women would suffer for her inaction here, and bile rose in her throat. Bile that had to be quashed by Vernal herself.

"We don't have the time. Believe me, I know you want to, but we can't."

She was right, and Cinder hated that. Casting another look at the sullen and forlorn crowd of dockworkers, then at the clouds around the city, knowing that Atlas would have them locked up, and disappear any of the ones likely to form any sort of leadership for the rest.

It disgusted her, rankling in her gut and twisting her stomach as she turned away and headed into the city, following the patrol. Vernal slunk along the shadows, even as Cinder stuck to the sidewalks and wove, by now her trademark field around herself shielding her from view.

The information they were able to glean was simple. Atlas' martial law cordons were brutally effective, while humans moved about in the day with no fear. Cinder only saw three faunus moving in the streets, slinking on the side of the roads, hands clearly presented and open, none of them carried large bags, and yet… it didn't matter.

A tall crocodile faunus was being slammed into a wall as they passed an alley, the man's eyes, which should have shone to Cinder's gaze, looked dead and dull as the police dumped the man's pockets out on the road. Before nodding, handing him back a number of small pieces of jewelry, a wallet, and what looked like a small utility tool.

Cinder felt disgust roil in her gut. None of the humans walked with such a fear in their eyes, none of them moved like they feared the Atlesian soldiers. So why did the faunus have to suffer so? Blake had left an impact on her, and she saw, and felt the way that the faunus had stared at her in that camp come back to bite.

It hurt to see their fears validated. To see that humanity was just as terrible as they'd thought they were. It hurt more to see the dead look in the eyes of the few faunus she spotted as they moved deeper into the city. Hurt more to see them move with the resigned acceptance of the fact that the world couldn't move or wouldn't change for them.

Cinder hated it. A part of her wanted the humans to burn simply for such an injustice. But she tolerated the rage, forced it down into a simmer as Vernal and she moved evenly through the streets.

Everywhere they went, downtrodden faunus slunk between shadows, while jubilant humans celebrated and idly chatted.

Everything only began to shift as night began to fall, and Cinder and Vernal smirked to each other. Faunus all had superior night vision, it was a strange quirk of the species, and never seemed to stem from the same genes, no matter how much experimentation and gene analysis was done.

It was largely accepted by now that Faunus were simply blessed with that unusual bonus. Of course, it never stopped people like Madame and her ilk from comparing the faunus to animals.

Cinder simply sucked a breath in through her teeth and kept moving. Night falling showed immediate changes, as dozens more Atlesian soldiers began to appear from their command posts and martialing locations. Even the city's streets seemed to be under lockdown, with airborne gunships floating over the streets, spotlights passing over the sidewalks. Ironically enough, after the second or third time they'd nearly caught Vernal in the shadows of the alley, she'd joined Cinder in waltzing along the main roads. The spotlights never seemed to track into the middle of the roads, something that Cinder hadn't immediately puzzled out, and it had been Vernal who had enlightened her, during one of their stops under an awning.

"You don't know, do you?"

Cinder had looked up from the small pouch of jerky she was devouring. She cocked her head to one side, and asked, mumbling over the food.

"What do you mean?"

Vernal pointed as one of the gunships swept overhead.

"Why they don't scan the middle of the roads."

Cinder nods cautiously, shifting her gaze to the road as Vernal takes a sip of water and begins.

"Yeah. They're… watching just for Faunus. Atlesian criminals, that is, human criminals like me and your mom."

"Our-"

Vernal rolled her eyes.

"Sure, whatever, our."

Cinder didn't drop the matter.
"Seriously. She looks at you like a long lost daughter."

"No, she… she knew my family. I think…"

Cinder knows the feeling of stepping on a conversational landmine, and she wants to stop it, but… instead she pushes forwards.

"What… happened?"

"Eh?"

Vernal's face seemed confused.

"You sound like they're gone…"

"Ah well, yeah. They're dead and gone now, lost a challenge to the Vacuo tribe, that… that one's a bad one to lose to. She's led for 30 years."

"Lost a challenge?"

Vernal snapped her fingers, as if remembering something.

"Right! You wouldn't know. Has Raven told you anything about us? About the Branwen tribe?"

Cinder shakes her head, staring as another patrol of Atlesian soldiers move through the opposing side of the street, flashlight beams playing across the road, flicking briefly over to where Vernal and herself are, but neither spot the taller girl, who squats behind a car, or Cinder herself, who remains cloaked in her field.

"The Branwen tribe are criminals, outlaws, we're about as bad as the worst of the fang on a good day."

Cinder's eyes widen, and Vernal seems to suddenly realize what she's telling the smaller girl.

"The tribe are… different. They take and steal and rob and kill. They have two branches, one in Vacuo and one in Mistral. Raven is… was? I'm not sure anymore, one of the top lieutenants with her brother Qrow for a really long time."

She pauses, sucking in a deep breath as another patrol rounds the street, this time, though, they're dragging a pair of faunus with them. One was a tall woman with a distinctive pair of wolf ears.

Cinder watched as the patrol stopped near the entrance to an alley in the middle of the street, they evenly split apart and a pair took up sentinel positions near the entrance, while the remaining 5 moved into the alleyway. A chill ran down her spine, twisting and shaping her, and her mind flashed to the guard she and Blake had stopped cold.

Would that happen to the faunus woman who'd helped her over the walls too?

Cinder stepped up and began to move out, and this time, Vernal grabbed her arm and hissed.

"No! We can't risk it!"

Cinder just shook her head. There… was a good chance mom would be furious with her, a really good chance… but she couldn't stand by again. Not when it was innocents in the line of fire.

A part of her helpfully reminded her that this woman carried a breaching shotgun and wicked looking knife normally. She probably wasn't… quite so innocent.

Cinder shook it off. Did she deserve to maybe be in jail? Yeah. Did she deserve to be shot like a war criminal or grimm in the streets? Absolutely not.

She set her teeth and began to move forwards.

Vernal's grip faded, and she heard the other girl murmur something under her breath that sounded of vast irritation.

Cinder didn't care. Her heart skipped and felt light in her chest, as her aura swirled around her muted form like shadows. She wanted to cast it off, to wear the power of her semblance on her skin like a blanket, to enjoy and embrace the beauty and the blaze within. But she knew she couldn't do that.

She needed to assess what was happening first.

The moan of pain, one of agony, stopped her first.

She peered into the alley on the haunches of one of the guards, who was turning away as quickly as he'd looked, letting Cinder slide evenly past his outstretched grip and forwards, into the alleyway.

The remaining 5 members were busy, one, the sergeant, based on the slight decoration on her shoulder guards, was preparing something… strange, in the low light, Cinder cursed she couldn't make it out, whatever it was was a mechanical device of some kind, with long, needlelike probes in the back end of it that looked vicious.

The woman leading the patrol stepped forwards, and snapped out the mechanical device, preparing to drive the spikes into the woman's ears.

Cinder didn't realize she was moving, that she'd dropped her cloaking field, or that her arms were striking at the woman with all the rage and unabashed strength her aura could give her.

The sergeant's armor buckled, and then her arm from the forearm down exploded. Showering Cinder in a spray of brilliantly red and iron smelling, arterial blood. It was such a shocking display of violence and brutality, that it took a buzzing snapping crack and Vernal shouting at her to snap her free of the trance.

The faunus woman had slumped to the ground, and the second one… judging from the bleeding from his ears, he'd been subjected to whatever the mechanical device did to people.

The two sentries at the entrance to the alley slumped bonelessly to the ground, and the world began to pick up speed once more as the sergeant fell back screaming, and her soldiers drew compact rifles on Cinder.

She had a second to dive for cover, the dumpster, before the roar of automatic carbines silenced any retorts, all Cinder could do was think about the way that woman's body had just… detonated.

She could taste her blood and flesh, and had felt it spatter her and soak her clothing.

Iron sickened her throat and slicked her body. She felt it drip from her clothing and her skin like rain, even as the snapping buzz of Vernal's pistols filled the alleyway with as much noise as the thunderous cracking of the carbines.

Almost as quickly as it had begun, the fight was over. All 4 of the remaining soldiers lay slumped on the ground, and Vernal, panting heavily, stood over them. She had holstered her pistols, and was now reaching a hand out to Cinder, a hand that only smelled of gunmetal and oil, and not of the thick, cloying, honeyiron of a woman's lifeblood.

"Cinder, your semblance is fire based, right?"

Cinder feels herself nod numbly.

"Then we don't have much time, come here, you're going to have to save her life. Ok?"

Vernal's tone is cruel, cold, and vicious as the hollow, shattered moon above her as she drags Cinder around the dumpster, to where the sergeant slumps, lying in a rapidly spreading pool of red.

Vernal spoke once more, her voice harsh.

"You need to sear her wound, she'll bleed out before help can get to her if you don't. Here, wrap your hand around her stump, and push your semblance out."

Cinder feels as though she is watching her body on autopilot, as if her form shrank away from itself, she feels even the flickering blaze of the fire within fail to calm her as her semblance pours out, as the scent of burning, seared flesh fills the air. She feels Vernal rip her hand away and check her work, and then she is tearing strips of bandage from her pockets… did she just carry those? Before binding the woman's wound with them.

"Get the woman and her friend, and then get out of here. Quickly!"

It's the suddenness of the shout that sends Cinder finally back into herself, and she breathes in deeply before moving.

Her hand seizes the wolf eared woman's collar and drags her, Cinder does not have the leverage, or the strength to hoist the much larger woman over her shoulders, and she doesn't try, knowing she cannot succeed, she drags the woman by her jerkin, pouring aura at a slower, drip fed pace into her arms.

Her mind is ensnared, replaying the moment over and over. Her strike had hit the woman's armor, and should have broken the bone beneath after buckling the armor.

Instead, her aura had violently discharged its force beyond the armor's protection, cracking the shell of the armor, but… utterly destroying the woman's arm. Even now, Cinder looks back at the alleyway, her gaze full of horror at the scattered pieces of Atlesian armor.

What was happening to her? She hadn't ever had control issues like this before. She'd never seen that kind of destructive energy in an aura enhanced strike before, not even when Raven used her martial arts on the Grimm! She'd… never seen that kind of devastation.

She doesn't even realize she's made it to another alleyway until Vernal punches her in the shoulder, shaking her out of the endless loop of the woman's arm popping like a blood filled balloon.

"Cinder!"

She looks at her sister? Companion? She's not sure what Vernal is to her yet. She'd sworn to be a good older sister, but… could Cinder trust that? She'd not been proven. She'd not been who she… said she was.

"Wake her up, I'm going to try and wake her friend up."

Cinder nods, and begins to gently shake the woman's shoulder, trying to wake her up, she is so shaken by what she's done, that when the woman rears back and levels a deadly, fist at her, she nearly fails to dodge it. The blow, more than capable of cracking stone, instead only scores a thin line across the top of Cinder's head as she shakes her head and looks up.

Her face turns the color of sour milk as she sees it is not the Atlesian's who have her, but Cinder.

"Fuck. Are you ok, little one? I didn't mean to hurt you."

She takes in the state of the other woman, the low light makes it hard to be certain of the bruises and bumps, but the trickling blood that runs down her cheek and into her bodice is clear enough. Cinder shakes her head, unable to get the image of the sergeant out of her mind.

"I should be asking you that. Are you alright, ma'am?"

The woman looks to her companion, seeing Vernal shaking the man, and then she speaks up.

"Don't bother. Nightingale's thralls got one of their stupid ear probes on him before he could raise his aura to protect them."

"Weak aura? Or improper training?"

The wolf faunus flinched and paused, before she spoke, quietly.

"He didn't have it."

Cinder tried to not snap at the woman, and she failed.

"WHY!?"

As the evening's events finally registered, as her anger at her own lack of control and the sickening current of joy that had run through her when she'd hurt that woman so badly… when she'd given her that injury broke over her like a rogue wave, she disabused herself of ladylike notions and came in swinging.

"Why would you ever let him help you? He would have been useless in a fight! You didn't even let him wear armor!"

Her voice cracked and broke, and she looked away, more iron taste filling her mouth as the woman drew herself up.

"Look, little human ."

The way she said the word filled Cinder with disgust and rage, it was a tone of voice that was so utterly disgusted with her, so patronizing, that the girl felt her semblance flare up, the bonfire blaze whispering to her that she could burn this woman to ash… if she so chose.

"You have a super special huntress momma who protects you. We don't get that. Unlike you, and really, unlike her, we can't unlock auras easily. Do you know what happens if someone tries to unlock their aura without help? Or if they don't have it?"

Cinder flinched, and the wolf faunus kept going.

"They die. Violently. My brother and my mother died that way, trying to unlock their aura's to have just a chance against Atlas. My brother burned to ash in front of my eyes. We don't have the luxury of professional training, we don't have the caches of weapons and lien that she does."

A final pause, her tone so full of venom that Cinder half expected it to melt her skin from where droplets of the woman's verbal fury landed.

"And we aren't anywhere near as the supreme bandit bitch herself. Ever wondered how much blood is on her hands?"

Cinder looks to Vernal, who can't meet her eyes, and the woman in front of her lets out a deep, painful sigh.

"Fuck. I'm sorry kid, I don't mean to take it out on you. But we just don't have the ability to train our people like that. There are people who want things to be different, but… Sienna can't just unlock everyone's aura all day long. I'm sure that Raven's taught you a lot about restraint, and how aura is just as dangerous to the user as it is to the victim of your blows."

The woman pointedly didn't look at the fact that Cinder was covered in gore from her torso up. Cinder flinched, the unintentional… or was it intentional, attack on her lack of control felt… painful.

"If you screw up… you can broadcast your emotions to everyone around you, if you're feeling even remotely sad… or anxious… or anything negative. I'm sure you know what happens next."

Cinder nodded numbly. The other woman didn't need to spell it out, Grimm. Not just the small ones, the alphas, the elder grimm, the monsters that ate cities and wiped villages off the map. The rage grimm that could make parents kill their children, the sadness grimm that could make someone do anything in order to end the pain. The greed grimm that would make your neighbor's guts seem as valuable and prized as any glittering piles of gold or dust.

Then there were the monsters, the Skinstealers and the Revenants, the ones that took the faces and flesh of the people they murdered. The ones who would lock you in your head forever, take you apart piece by piece, and rip you until you shredded anything to get them to stop. Even if it was your own soul.

Then they would move on, the trophies of their kills, of the victims, clustered around them, draped across bone spines, faces frozen in rictuses of horrible relief because their ordeals were finally over.

None dared speak of the last type, the ones that even Raven and the Branwen tribe feared. The all encompassing, horrible power of a Dreadwalker. The monsters that had brought down Mount Glenn's walls, the same ones who had shattered Vacuo with a single of their number. The ones that looked almost human or faunus.

There were reasons, that people who had aura were taught to weaponize it, to force it to focus on only the positives, on the sweat and chemicals of the brain after exercise. There were reasons that they were taught in schools, where the herd immunity of overwhelming positivity would keep the others who weren't ok sheltered and safe.

In the middle of nowhere? With the plight of the faunus… they must have been avoiding it on purpose.

"I… I see it now."

The wolf eared woman nodded, her face grimm and lined with her age.

"I wish it was different, little one, but there isn't a way around this, unfortunately. We make do with what we have, and that is precious little. It might be different if…"

She trailed off, swallowing as a single, clear sound echoed through the night.

It was a sound Cinder had heard before, a sound she dreaded with every fibre of her being, and a sound that would have had Raven scrambling to her side if it was possible.

It was a cackling laugh that raised hairs on the back of her neck, made Vernal turn white, and drained every bit of color from the world around it, as Cinder thought back to what that voice symbolized.

Pain, murder, sadism.

At the end of a scorpion tailed menace, someone who would kill her if he found her.

Cinder drew on everything she had, everything she'd ever considered. She had so much, so much to do, so much left yet to accomplish.

She would not let it end like this.

She pulled deeply, craving, desperately, that anyone, anything would save them.

She threw her aura out into a screen, desperately trying to obscure them, Cinder pushed hard, as hard as she could, and a flickering skein of aura flowed from her hands like shadow. She reached out, grabbed Vernal firmly and held her tightly. Her hand squeezed delicately, desperately, on both the woman and Vernal.

She felt her aura cloak them, and then, a shadow cast across the alleyway. A shadow with a segmented, arachnid tail mounted with a stinger.

Cinder held her breath.

Yellow eyes turned the corner, and Cinder froze as they locked onto her.

A/N: We spiral ever closer to a climactic confrontation, or did we just start one~? Who can say~!
And there we have it, the first (of many) cliffhangers, I'm only a little sorry~! I hope everyone is having a lovely week, and I look forward to seeing you all once more tomorrow, at which point you'll be fully caught up to everyone else, and will receive chapters every week!

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[Ember]

Cinder had never been more terrified in her life.

Tyrian stared directly at her, boring into her soul, and took a single, hesitating step into the alleyway, his wrist blades had never seemed larger to her, the jagged blades hung off his arms like they were nothing but feathers, but the fluids that dripped from them were clear, and in the darkness, the sickening stench of iron assailed her nostrils instantly.

Cinder desperately fought the urge to vomit. She could feel Vernal squeezing her hand tightly, her nails digging into Cinder's flesh. She'd thrown everything into this screen, and nothing would, or could protect her from the followup strikes if Tyrian could see through it in any meaningful way.

Time stood still. Cinder watched as those yellow eyes scanned every part of the alleyway, tracing over the dirty cobblestones, over the walls, and over herself, the wolf eared woman, and Vernal. She held still, and didn't even dare breathe. Her lungs screamed, agony building in every fibre of her body, and Tyrian still didn't move.

Terror kept her rooted to the spot, icy cold tendrils wrapping around her bones and stopping her, he was so close that she felt as though Tyrian could have reached out and touched her. His footsteps had been silent, and that gigantic tail loomed over his shoulder as his head lazily cocked to one side. A half smile worn on his face showed his lack of injury. She'd seen Summer rip open his chest with her scythe, seen the sprays of blood, and flesh gibbets as he'd fallen, cursing her name. Seen him suffer injuries of such grievous significance that anyone else would have died.

But here he was, unharmed, strolling, staring, grinning, laughing that chilling, awful laugh, his blades and tail dripping with the offal of his latest victim.

He could kill them all right here and now, Cinder realized with a detached sense of horror.

If he had seen through the screen, then she'd be first to die, and he would slaughter Vernal and the wolf woman right after her. If she was lucky…

A flash of memory, Tyrian's claws dragging her by her heels through the snow, toying with her, praising some dark figure that wanted her.

Her head pounded, agony shooting through her body as the scorpion faunus leered ever closer, and then… then he stopped, cocking his head to one side.

With a mad cackle, he turned away, and ran for something at the mouth of the alleyway.

Cinder released a breath, and heard a pair of exhales as the other two around her did the same. She sucked in greedy lungfuls of air and dared not get any closer as Tyrian landed on the roads and cackled. A part of her wanted to sneak closer, but common sense screamed at her to stay, and when she tried to move anyways, Vernal dug her nails in so deep to Cinder's skin that she felt them draw blood, and when Cinder looked back at the other two, they stared at her like she'd grown a second head. Like she was as insane as Tyrian on the roads.

On second thought, Cinder realized, they may have had a point with that…

Tyrian had slain a huntress said to be one of the best in the world, and critically injured another with just his skills.

What had she been thinking? They were absolutely right, this was one of the dumbest ideas she'd ever had. Listening in on them?

The soldiers in the road had paused, and were evenly speaking to Tyrian, as Cinder watched, the leader suddenly slumped, and another continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. She shuddered, while she couldn't hear anything, the context was clear. Nightingale had gotten to these soldiers, too. How? How was her influence spreading so quickly? How was it…

"The arms, Cinder."

Vernal had hissed in a low whisper, but as Cinder froze, she watched as Tyrian flipped his head to face them, she gritted her teeth and pushed her aura into the field, stabilizing it as much as she could even as she realized she was running on fumes.

His hearing had been far, far more sensitive than she'd given credit. And it was terrifying to think about as he stalked back towards them.

The fire of a blazing anger ignited in her core, and Cinder shot Vernal a look with her eyes that she hoped communicated that if they survived this, she'd strangle Vernal herself.

Tyrian's eyes swept over her, and once more, she froze as terror gripped her spine and ratcheted into her gut.

That kind of frightening anguish was something that she had only ever seen Raven emulate, and it stuck with her, even as Tyrian turned away from the alleyway.

As he finally began to walk away, and the soldier's marching bootsteps faded into the night, Cinder exhaled and began to pull her aura back together, just in time to hear metal scraping over the pavement, turning, really, whirling, on Vernal.

"Are you insane!? Or just stupid!?"

Vernal bristled, instantly twisting as she snarled at Cinder.

"As if you're better! You were going to eavesdrop on him! You idiot!"

The two stared at each other, until a pair of meaty hands grabbed both of them, and then Cinder was seeing stars as the wolf faunus stood up and harumphed at them.

"You're both beyond stupid if you think now is the time to start a fight. Go, into the sewer tunnels, you'll be able to find your way back to where you came from. Best of luck!"

She managed to sound chipper and terrified in equal measure, and Cinder wasn't sure whether that was an achievement of immense proportions, or sheer and utter refusal to accept reality.

She didn't know which one was worse, if she was being honest with herself. But as she faced the woman down and saw her beckoning to an open manhole cover. Cinder frowned at it, and the woman must have sensed her lack of desire to go down there, as she rolled her eyes, and her head, and somehow her ears as well.

It felt impressive to watch, even if it was insulting.

"It's fine. You can shower back wherever you're staying. And I have to return to camp, and report what happened to the rest of us, if any of us got away."

She looked Cinder up and down once more, a wistful, slight expression coloring her gaze.

"Be better than the majority of your species, little one, I know you have it in you."

Then, she vanished into the manhole, the cover sliding almost closed behind her, but not completely, in case Vernal and Cinder decided to follow her down. It was likely that she would not stay, or wait for them for that matter. With Tyrian running about, the choice seemed easy, but something felt… off. By now they had collected enough information to easily speak to Raven, but Cinder couldn't help but think she kept forgetting something.

It was only as Vernal and she made their way towards the manhole cover, having come to the silent agreement that a waltz through Argus' sewers was preferable to running into the psychopathic scorpion faunus and serial murderer that was Tyrian, that she remembered what she thought she'd forgotten.

Blake.

Blake was still in the city, still on patrol, and she couldn't know. She didn't know how dangerous it was, or how at risk she remained if she stayed in the city. But with Tyrian, it was safe to usually assume that any threat the scorpion faunus posed was simply lethal. The sick feeling of Cinder's thoughts tangled instantly. She liked Blake Belladonna, she liked her enough to flush brilliantly whenever the girl even thought to call her name, and that meant, really, one simple thing.

She had to find her, and she had to warn her.

Cinder briefly checked her scroll, turning it on and illuminating the steadily growing more and more angry face of Vernal. The older girl roughly grabbing her shoulder came a moment later and she stared at Cinder.

"No, we are not being stupid."

Cinder shook her head. Blake had been loyal, she wouldn't leave her behind, that wasn't what Summer would have done, damn the consequences.

So when the girl tried to stop her, Cinder turned back and simply said.

"I can't leave without warning her. I can't."

Vernal looked at Cinder, and she caved, sighing and dragging her fingers across her face so the skin stretched and dragged her expression.

"Fine. Fine. Fuck!"

She whisper-shouted the curse, before falling into step behind Cinder as the girl nudged the manhole shut, pushing with her shoe, then turning around.

The streets of Argus were whisper quiet in the darkness, and not even the patrols that moved through them were announcing their presence. This time, Cinder and Vernal stole between alleyways. Sticking to the shadows, using Vernal's aura to screen against observers when they could hold still in the darkened streets.

Cinder worked fast and hard to keep going, her aura lowered and lowered, and often she and Vernal could only stop to eat and cram snacks into their mouths. Ration bars and jerky, stashed in small bags worn on the waist and around the back, Vernal carried more than a few, several appearing to be holsters with packages sewn into them rather than pistols.

Aura recharged at a variable rate depending on what people required, for Huntresses in the field, it might recover quickly, but that depended on whether or not one was in high stress and tentatively safe. The less focused you were when you were using it, the more you'd burn, so it was a double edged sword at best.

Cinder didn't think she'd ever been more laser focused in her life. All that mattered was getting to Blake, getting her warned and if they couldn't get her out of the city, then she'd crash with them in the tunnels for the night.

Not even a chance at killing Tyrian would stop her right now, well, maybe. Cinder wanted to pause to consider the merits, but they were coming up on where she'd first encountered Blake, and Cinder would need quiet and calm for the next part.

Ducking beneath an awning and then into an alleyway, Cinder nodded to Vernal, who concentrated and then shrouded them in a barrier of opaque, shielding aura. It wouldn't hold up to close inspection, not like Cinder's could for short moments, but it would last long enough to obscure them from any patrolling gunships. Though even those seemed to be rarer and rarer this far out from the city center. Cinder looked up, wondering why the small task force of frigates that patrolled Argus, led by a destroyer, hadn't made their appearance into the rioting city yet. With martial law declared as such, they should have been hanging low over the city, at least, according to Raven.

Were they worried about Nightingale? Cinder wondered, even as she sat down in the alleyways and turned her focus inwards.

Aura as a science was frustratingly limited, and Raven had explained that with everyone's aura being frantically different from each other, it was often very difficult to teach what it could and couldn't do. Aura experts, while rare, were often cherry picked for teaching positions immediately, in the hopes their knowledge would lead to further breakthroughs with the next generation of huntresses and huntsmen.

Raven herself had focused her aura training on her semblance and her combative enhancements. This had led to her being almost unmatched in lethal, peer to peer combat, with her aura strengthening her senses and everything else around her motion and strength with her blade. But it left her frustratingly blind in many other respects, which would have normally been where her brother had come in, but he was no longer in the picture. Something that Cinder had almost asked, before Raven had held up a hand and stated that was a talk they would need to have another day.

For now, though, Cinder focused on breathing, sucking deep lungfuls of air in until she could reach out and touch the same door her semblance resided behind. The massive burst of warmth flickered from her core to her feet, warming her skin as aura flushed over her and her semblance lit up her body, wishing to be used.

She discounted strength immediately, finding Blake would be difficult, very difficult, the other girl was at least as good at sneaking about as Cinder had been, and was aided in that she had sharper ears by far than Cinder did. She'd likely hear them coming before they could ever reach her or signal her. Then they'd have to hope that she thought them friendly enough to observe, positively ID them, and make contact.

She didn't know about Tyrian, most likely, which was really the only reason that this had even a chance of working, Cinder reflected. She needed to send a flare or find the other faunus, and that meant… she'd need to touch up her senses.

This… was going to suck.

Nominally, Cinder only enhanced her eyesight, she'd done it moderately to give herself focus or better perception at simple tasks, but the problem with much of this was the simple fact that she had to enhance her hearing and smell to find Blake in this nightscape. There just wasn't another way, and that meant one thing.

Sensory overload.

Aura enhancements had a major drawback. While they were extremely powerful, they lasted for very short periods of time, consumed immense amounts of aura, and they almost always messed up your brain in some way. How long it took to recover depended on how long you'd gone into the enhancement.

Hopefully Cinder would only need a slight one to find the other girl.

She poured her aura, drip by drip, into her ears first, and winced as she felt them pop as though she'd taken a sudden flight into the air.

Sensation flooded in, and Cinder's world began to ache, where before she'd heard nothing save her own and Vernal's breathing, now she could hear the skittering insects in the alleyways, the slight cries of small mice and rats below her feet in the sewers, and the jackbooted, heavy footfalls of Atlas' finest a block over. She listened further, trying desperately to hear something, anything, any slight sign of her friend.

There!

Hurried footfalls coming down from above, soft ones, delicate, Blake Belladonna was running on the rooftops, running on the upper street levels, but what was she running with? What was she running for?

Cinder pumped her aura back from her ears, having now established a distance and heading, she could intercept Blake, but now the hard part.

Humans had a number of sensory benefits, but smell wasn't one of them, which is why, as her aura drip fed into her nostrils, Cinder felt that she had been woefully underprepared for the onslaught on her senses as she opened her nostrils to the world.

It hit her like a hammer blow to the skull. Hearing and touch vanished instantly, drowned in the deluge of smell and scent that poured unbidden into her brain and tore what felt like chunks of who Cinder was away with it.

She had to stop almost instantly, her nose running and sparks of pain shooting through her brain as she staggered to her feet. Vernal couldn't risk breaking their aura shield, so Cinder had to stay placed, hands against the wall, breathing heavily while she recovered. It took almost five agonizing minutes for her legs to steady and the girl to begin moving again.

"She's headed for the walls, no signs of Tyrian."

"That's his name?"

"Mmm."

She was noncommittal with her reply, partially because she wasn't sure if Tyrian was his actual name or an alias, and partially because her stomach was busy trying to convince her that Tyrian wouldn't be waiting in ambush for them to reach Blake.

That feeling didn't lessen as she and Vernal began to run through the streets, her own aura was low, an orange color she'd not seen since her days surviving in the tundra with Raven. A part of her cursed that she didn't have one of the weapons that Raven's status as a maiden could give her, with that she might stand a real chance.

Another part of her reminded her that they'd had to be kept in close proximity, faded after only a couple shots, and couldn't be relied on for consistent effects. Let alone the fact that they weren't shaped for her hands, instead the much larger and more callused fingers that were Raven's.

It rankled at her that so much power could come for her guardian, and yet her mother wanted her to never have any of that power. Even with the caveat that they seemed to do something horrifically negative to you.

Perhaps Amber would know more. She might have encountered maidens in the past, maybe she'd be able to tell Cinder more.

If she had that kind of power, that kind of energy… she'd be able to have found Blake instantly, hell, she'd be able to shut down Tyrian himself where he stood.

But no. She was stuck here, stuck here doing nothing but running along, desperately trying to make it in time to warn another person. If she was just fast enough, just a bit faster…

She pumped more aura into her legs and soared ahead, darting into the road proper. Stealth would have to wait, she couldn't risk Blake's life longer than she already had.

With a thought, Cinder skidded to a stop at the edge of the road, almost making it to the mouth of another alleyway, then leaping up towards the fire escape.

The shriek of metal tearing and the lance of white hot agony in her leg almost stopped her climb there, but as she looked below and winced at the pain in her leg, she saw Vernal reach the building, point to another one across the road, and give her the thumbs up. Cinder smiled gently, at least Vernal was coming around now to the urgency.

As she clambered up to the roof, her leg burned with agony, even with aura soothing it so she could move, Cinder suspected something had given in her mad dash through the streets, frankly, a part of her thought it was sheer luck that she'd not attracted a patrol, and another part of her was furious for losing her cool like that. A part that demanded she be better.

She lay on the roof, and heard with normal hearing this time, the slight, soft footfalls landing a few feet away from her position.

"Cinder?"

Panting and looking up, Cinder caught the slightly unnerving appearance of Blake's eyes in the darkness, they shone like golden pools, reflecting the faint moonlight far better than human eyes.

A part of Cinder knew that the faunus was fully capable of seeing in the dark, which meant she was probably fully able to see the way that Cinder was lying there, flushed and panting from sheer exertion.

"Hey… uh, Blake. Hunter. Enemy."

The other girls eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she sat down next to Cinder, a hand reaching down to help Cinder sit up. As she breathed and coughed, her body recovering as much as it could from the strain she'd put it under, Cinder explained.

"Enemy, name is Tyrian, scorpion faunus, murderer in Atlas. Killed Summer, chased Raven and me here."

The other girl got steadily more and more nervous as Cinder finished her sentence and resumed gasping for breath.

"He chased you here!?"

She was quiet, but the sharp rise in her voice made Cinder hurriedly place a finger over her lips and nod her head to their surroundings.

Blake looked vaguely amused and pointed to the ears on her head, and Cinder flushed brilliantly.

"I'd hear him."

She wasn't entirely sure if she trusted that, but Blake hadn't led her wrong before, so Cinder, for the moment, evenly placed her trust in the other girl.

"Why did he chase you?"

"We don't know, just… he was who Summer and Raven were tracking, I think…"

She paused.

"He's a monster. It's horrifying to watch him fight."

Blake cut in.

"Summer?"

Cinder paused and ice crept up her body, she didn't realize she was shivering until the faunus wrapped her arms around Cinder and pulled her in tight.

"She… she saved me. She was the reason I'm not in Atlas anymore… not wearing a collar around my neck… not… a slave."

The other girl just held her and they sat there, watching the slow transit of the moon across the sky. It was dangerous to be out here, when Tyrian was on the loose, when he could ostensibly appear at any moment.

Yet… that danger at some level appealed to who she was. That kind of danger meant something to her, it felt… more real here.

More like she was living on the razor's edge.

"She sounds like a wonderful woman. What… happened to her?"

Cinder froze up again, her voice trembling as she spoke.

"She… she… she died."

Blake pulled her in tighter.

"I'm… I'm sorry."

Summer's death weighed heavily on Cinder and Raven, hanging over the two of them like an ever present shadow.

The things they couldn't… didn't want to say. The things that Cinder wasn't entirely sure about in regards to Raven… the things that she worried about the future for. If Mom… if Raven wanted her she'd stay. But there were parts of Cinder that worried, the way that Raven had been looking at her, with that look of sadness and pain. Not the pain of Summer, the pain of something… else.

She thought Cinder didn't see, or perhaps she allowed that polite fiction to exist because she didn't want to cause the fight that even Vernal could sense coming.

The way that Raven had stared at Cinder, when she'd called her mom, hints… of something truly terrible burning away at her.

"Cinder…?"

Had Blake asked her something? Cinder couldn't place it, couldn't remember if she had. But her hand was soft on Cinder's shoulder and her embrace warm.

"What… did you want to do about Tyrian."

Cinder spoke quietly.

"Can't fight him in the open. Had to warn you, then go to ground."

"Do you have a place to stay, if not-"

Cinder was already shaking her head.

"Can't risk the Fang. You're too important. Using the tunnels, old Branwen hideout, can you come with us? For the night?"

Blake bit her lip, considering, and then she shook her head.

"I can't. I have to warn the camp, if he's as dangerous as you say-"

"He is. He took Raven and Summer in single combat, she dropped a building on him and it didn't take…"

"I have to warn Sienna and my parents. There's no other option."

"The woman on the walls, wolf ears?"

"Lily? Did you find her!?"

Blake's tone is frantic, and her touch is shaking Cinder through physical contact, who quickly has to stop her, has to place a finger over Blake's mouth and remind her that Tyrian could be anywhere, and that she doesn't trust him to not show up, to not attack them and kill them where they stood like he did to Summer.

"Yes. Found her, she's ok, headed back to your camp through the sewer."

Blake shrinks back in on herself, relief clouding her lamplit yellow eyes.

"Thank dust…"

The two sat there in silence, gentle and quiet, the night swimming around them.

"So… warning, thank you. I need to get back to camp, need to warn the others. Will you be ok?"

Cinder nodded, pulled herself up, and turned to face Blake.

"Be safe. Run fast."

The cat faunus smiled that gentle smile, and as Cinder watched, she pulled a cloak of purple aura over herself and vanished. Cinder could barely see her if she forced it, but her brain didn't really want to acknowledge that she was there, and the splitting headache that began soon after convinced her that perhaps it was for the best that she leave it alone.

Cinder took another moment to briefly look out over the city before she got to her feet and began moving down the building, this time, her leg injury had been soothed enough to at the very least let her walk normally. But not much beyond that.

Tension slowly fled her, with Blake on her way out and using her aura to shield her exit, and Vernal ok as well. All they had to do was get back to the hideout without anyone following them or noticing.

The fire escape creaked far less on the way down than it had on her hasty ascent, and before long, Cinder was watching as Vernal emerged from the shadows on the other end of the road. She flashed Cinder a thumbs up, then turned to push into the shadows on the other side of the street.

Cinder stayed low to the side as a low, throaty rumble sounded from above, the clouds beginning to shift as wind whipped through the streets around her.

It appeared that Atlas was making their move.

The sleek prow of an Atlesian frigate poked down, lowering to a hover just above the city. Radial wings and heat sinks extended out of the vessels flanks, and Cinder watched with something regarding awe as a pair of bays slid open on the flanks of the vessel.

Gunships poured free of the bay, this time, they were not the sleek lines of Mistral's police force, but the rugged and utilitarian forms of the stripped down bullheads that Atlas loved so dearly.

Weapon pods underslung on the wings, each sprouting the tips of a pair of lethal looking weapons. Rockets? Or worse.

Cinder wasn't about to take chances anymore, she ducked into the alleyway following Vernal, and leapt into the open manhole cover.

The fall was rough, but as she braced for an impact, soft, strong arms caught her fall, arresting her when she needed them, Vernal smirked at her.

"Well well well, bandit princess, huh?"

Cinder folds her arms over her chest.

"Put me down."

"As you wish, your majesty."

Cinder hits her.

"Hey! Ow!"

Cinder flushes, and Vernal just laughs at her.

"I'm not a princess."

Vernal smirked.

"Really? You're practically Raven's daughter. You sure you aren't royalty?"

Cinder's lips turn up into such an expression of disgust that Vernal notices.

"Blegh. Gross."

"Eh, it's pretty ritzy, can't lie about that."

"She wants to get rid of me, doesn't she?"

Cinder's mouth snaps open before she can stop herself. Vernal stops, turning back, her voice echoes through the sewers.

"What on Remnant makes you think that?"

Cinder flinches at the sudden anger in Vernal's voice.

"She keeps looking at me like I'm fragile, like it's the last time she's going to see me. She keeps looking at me like Summer looked at her before she pulled that warehouse down."

Vernal grabs her by the shoulders.

"Never fucking say that again."

Her breath is hot on Cinder's face, and rank with the smell of teriyaki, the beef jerky she'd had earlier still filling her mouth.

"She wants you here. She wants me! Here, for some fucking reason. But she really wants you here."

"As if. She only wants me here because she's reminded of Summer."

Vernal flinches.

"I… I wouldn't know what that's like. But I don't think she'd give you up, not without a real reason."

"What reason!?"

Cinder spits the words, as though to throw them out would deny the awful reality.

"She's a bandit queen! Do you think she wants you to grow up into another version of her? Or me!?"

Vernals tone is of stricken disbelief. Cinder's anger simmering as she thinks, why would Raven want her to be a bandit? Why wouldn't she get rid of her? Why wouldn't she do her best to send her away?

But… who could Cinder trust if not Raven? Who could she rely on if not Raven?

"You don't want the life that's been set out for me and her, Cinder."

Vernal is speaking again, her voice gentle, but still scratching at Cinder's ears like sandpaper as the older girl slowly bends down to Cinder's level.

"We're stuck in this path, but you have a chance to be better than us."

Cinder finds herself wondering about those two. About whether Vernal and Raven could change.

"Why… why can't you go with me, to be better?"

Vernal grimaces gently, reaching out, she tugs Cinder into a warm embrace.

"I've killed three people. Atlas will never forgive me that, and they'll never let me be a better person. No matter the reason."

"But… Raven has killed people too! I saw her!"

Vernal chuckles bitterly.

"Raven can get away with it. She's got the kind of power to basically demand whatever she wants and they have to give it to her because she can basically level cities if she wants."

The image of Raven obliterating a city is difficult for Cinder to parse, difficult more for her to genuinely see, the stern and strict form of her mother is one thing, but it is strange beyond belief to think about her ever willfully or willingly doing such a thing.

"How… is she so strong?"

Vernal laced her fingers together on the back of her head and shrugged.

"Dunno, I don't think she's telling anyways. No real reason for her to give up secrets like that."

"If… If I could be that strong, no one would attack us, right?"

Vernal flinched.

"That's not really how it works."

"But you just sa-"

"I know what I said. Raven walks a very thin line, she always has. How do you think the Branwen tribe get by?"

"You rob people."

"Exactly. We rob people and we kill if we have to. But Raven balances that out by taking care of larger grimm threats that attack Mistral. It makes it… really hard for them to justify giving her a kill order."

"A kill order?"

"Sometimes, a hunter is so powerful they can't be dealt with normally. If they've killed people before, or if they're just strong enough to make people worried… they get a kill order put on their heads. Sometimes other hunters take it, if it's actually justified, but most of the time the government pulls up a squad, and sends them out to kill the hunter."

Cinder's hands cover her mouth as Vernal continues, lips sealed in a grimm and flat expression.

"My mom had a kill order, because she had the power to tell people what anyone else was hiding. Atlas hunted her down and shot her like a dog."

She turns to Cinder, wiping at her eyes even as they turn the long tunnel that leads to the hideout.

"Never trust them with your semblance. If they can't use you as their weapon, they'll destroy you. Raven had to kill the last squad they sent after her, and that is why she's so dangerous. My minders told me about it, the squad ambushed her in the dead of night and nearly killed her. But she flipped the tables on them and slaughtered them to the last."

Cinder feels a chill run down her spine.

"Or… they'll get the huntress hunter to come after you."

Cinder swallows, its the way that Vernal says it, filled with vitriol and anguish.

"Huntress hunter?"

"His name is Marcus Black. He's an assassin that can take away your semblance if he just touches your aura with his."

"He can take your semblance?"

Vernal nods.
"Yes. No idea if he keeps them gone forever, no one's survived long enough. The only reason we know about it is because one of his targets scrawled it in every piece of paper she could reach before he killed her."

"Wouldn't he have destroyed anything she left behind?"

Vernal pauses, before she speaks again.

"Story goes that she mailed dozens of letters, and they all had that warning, dunno if its true though."

The opening to their hideout, well disguised in the depths of the tunnel, creaked open gently as the two girls made their way inside. Vernal immediately opened a mini fridge near the back, grabbed a dark glass bottle and flopped into the singular large and comfy armchair.

"But that's the story, in any case, Raven keeps a low profile and sticks to Mistral because the city is so corrupt that they won't do anything about her so long as she shows up and protects villages on the outskirts of their territory. Something she really does do quite a lot, my guess is that's what she's doing right now, making certain that she can stay in Argus and the government won't move against her while she's here."

Cinder studied Vernal's hands as she drank from the bottle, based on the smell, it was beer of some kind, she wrinkled her nose, and Vernal laughed.

"You'll be drinking it soon enough~! Being Raven's daughter and all!"

Cinder made a face and spoke again, unable to help herself.

"Why won't Mistral just use their own hunters?"

Vernal took a swallow of the beer, and leaned up in her chair, eyes flashing with barely contained malice.

"Oh, those fucks. Yeah. Forgot you weren't from Mistral, sorry, so, you know how Mistral has those really big tournaments right?"

She smacked her lips, waiting for Cinder to nod, Cinder tried to remember if Iris or Clove had ever mentioned something like that, and eventually came to the conclusion that they'd spoken of *something* akin to that… but it was too faded.

"Taking your silence and stillness as a no, anyways. Mistral's controlled by these really big families, they're basically organized crime syndicates, with lots of power, and they basically run the government. I came from the pits. Washed out after my semblance wasn't strong enough."

"Your semblance wasn't strong enough?"

Vernal grinned, all teeth.

"Sure, that's the story anyways, real talk, I don't have a semblance, no real powers, just a moderate amount of aura, oh, and I'm really, really good at fighting the people the families wanted."

Cinder stares at her, and Vernal, all teeth, swallows another swill of the alcohol, her cheeks slightly flushed as she continued.

"Did Raven tell you about why she doesn't want you out in public and stuff during the day?"

This time the answer is easy.

"She wanted me safe from Atlas, since they're chasing me."

Vernal nods sagely, pointing the bottle of beer at Cinder and flopping deeper into her chair as she continues, her face twisting with pain.

"Lots of the families have old nobility roots here, they love that faux-noblesse shit. Hence… the "Squire" program. They take a kid, usually from the streets, and use em as a punching bag for their spoiled rotten little brats to beat up on. The reason that Raven doesn't want you out there, is that she's scared that you'll attract attention from one of the nastier families, like Nikos or Belgori."

"Nikos?"

Vernal blows air out of her mouth, her chest compacting with a "whoosh" as she thinks for a minute.

"Nikos. Man… that's a fucked up story there."

Cinder sits down on the couch, eyes focused forwards.

"And… of course you want to hear it."

She nods, this has all the hallmarks of something interesting, and Raven met with a Nikos by mistake… a woman that she seemed to hate.

"Nikos are terrifying. Belgori are just abusive fucks, hell, here."

Vernal rolls up the corner of her t-shirt, and there, emblazoned on her stomach, flesh twisted and curled in a scar, is the remnants of a brand, an awful, horrific thing, it makes Cinder's skin crawl looking at it, the twisted "B" written in flowing script of elaborate vines.

"That's what they gave me when I was in their pits. Won't really ever come off, but, y'know, I can cover it up eventually with some ink and it won't be so obvious. Maybe I'll make it like your mom's symbol."

"But… you-"

"Failed out? Yeah. Belgori doesn't want me because I beat up their knight-royale, their candidate for the tournament. The more failures one of the candidates has, the worse their odds are at actually winning the damned tournament, because weaknesses will be known and all that fun stuff."

"So you were like a gladiator?"

"Sure, but I didn't really get paid or trained, I was just the bitch who was tough enough to survive the hell they put me through, then got handed off to a dozen other representatives until I ended up with the Falfi, the ones Raven cut down."

Vernal's eyes are chips of ice, and while her face is flushed from the alcohol, she's still aware, still deadly. Cinder envies that kind of dedication and that kind of ability to focus. In some ways she wants it for herself. That ability to drink, to be merry, to tell the stories of pain that lay in one's past and not suffer for them. For it at all.

A part of her desperately craves that, seeks it out, even.

"How do you-"

As if reading her mind, those dark chips of ice that are Vernal's eyes lock on, and she cuts in.

"Deal with it?"

Cinder nods.

"I don't. Why do you think I drink? Your mom isn't any better. Raven's just better at hiding it."

A small smirk colors Cinder's mind as she thinks back on it.

Vernal is good, but she's not good enough to stop Cinder from seeing through her lies. They're attempts, good ones, but little else. They might even have fooled Raven. But Cinder knew what Raven looked like when she lied, and Raven wasn't good at hiding the pain she suffered. She wasn't good at it in the slightest, at least… not to Cinder.

Did Raven want her to see her suffering? Madame tried very hard to never show that side of her, or the twins, too much danger, too much risk involved in showing that they were weak. The exception had been when she'd been forced to save the other girl. To deliver her medicine and to be, in many cases, the sacrificial lamb should the other girl have spread that sickness to her.

But… no. No, she hid it, but for different reasons than Madame.

"But… Nikos, you wanted to know about Nikos, right?"

Vernal, cutting her reverie and internal thoughts short.

Cinder nods.

"Ok. So, the Nikos family are old, that's the first thing, like, really, really old. They make most of the dominant figures in Mistral's politics look like children, rumors say they can trace their genealogical line back before the great war, before the kingdoms, and before the CCT's. They're supposed to be blessed by the gods of Mistral, and every hundred or so years, one of their family rises to prominence."

"Prominence?" Cinder asks, as Vernal cracks the tab off a second bottle of beer and once more flops back into her chair.

"Mhm. It's not always for good stuff either, there was one lady, Sunflower Nikos, about 50 years ago, she's prominent because basically shattered a chunk of Vacuo when she snapped."

"Snapped?"

Vernal grimaced, her face twisting.

"Yeah. Look, this stuff isn't pleasant, but even the Belgori treated me better than the Nikos' family treats their children. It's practically an open secret, at this point, anyone born in that household either escapes the moment they can, or they break. And it's not pretty when they break. Between money and political influence, Nikos' is capable of giving theirs the best training possible, but… they were in decline until about a decade ago."

She paused.
"I don't remember much, I was 6 at the time, but Alexander Nikos, the patriarch, was crowing about the daughter of prophecy returning to the Nikos family. I never saw much about her… at the time."

"So she's…"

"Strong? Fuck yeah. Here, Raven hooked up the television, right?"

Vernal pointed to the small, ancient screen that was held on small clamps against the wall. Cinder shrugged, and the girl rolled up onto the balls of her feet as she got up to check.

"I think it's working? There's a little green light flickering near the bottom…"

Vernal shrugged.

"Push it. See what happens?"

Cinder pushed it, there was a faint clicking noise, and the screen flickered on, showcasing a news broadcast, something that Vernal looked at briefly, before turning to look around the area.

"You seem really familiar with this place…"

"Branwen's have em in every city, I stayed in one on the other end when I was initially doing stuff for the Falfi heads, those Branwen adjacent people. They laundered Raven's money for her, fairly frequently, I think, or at least, alot of Branwen money."

"How do you know all of this?"

Cinder looks at Vernal, who quirks an eyebrow up at her and says.

"You mean, how do I know all this when I'm a dumb kid who was running with the wrong crowd for so long she forgot what the sun looked like?"

Cinder shrugs.

"I'm a survivor. Had to do anything and everything that I could to stay alive and off the streets. So… I picked up on stuff, learned what buttons to push, what specific nasty little secrets the families I was in proximity to didn't like. The Falfi hated me, but they didn't know where every stash of their dirty little secrets was."

A pause, and another deep swallow of the alcohol.

"Sure, the whole place is corrupt all the way up, but they have to do something if the secrets leak. Can't have the public panicking about all the truly awful shit that runs around beneath the streets."

"And they just let you get away with that?"

"I am very good at hiding things, and there's nothing more terrifying to the gangers than a public uprising that might call in out of country hunters to help."

"Hunters who aren't corrupt or willing to be bought off?"

"Yup. Hunters that come out of anywhere other than Haven are usually in the pocket of the family that sponsored their education. They're more like thugs than anything else, and they stay real close to the family that built them because of that."

"That's why Raven has immunity!?"

"Mhm. She can't really be attacked or else the families would have to send people out, and that'd weaken their positions by a lot. It's one of the reasons why she can kind of operate with utter impunity and hit whoever she likes."

"Whoever she likes?"

"Yeah, don't let Atlas or Mistral hear me saying this, but Raven really likes targeting towns that ally to one of the families, she hit a Nikos one awhile back."

"You sound like you know alot about her, didn't you just meet?"

Vernal smirked.

"You… do know who Raven is, right? Like, to the tribe, right?"

Cinder shakes her head.

"Raven is basically royalty, she's the only one allowed to come and go as she pleases, even the current bossman doesn't fuck with her because she's so strong."

It really just came back down to power. Enough power and even the governments wouldn't mess with you so long as you made an effort to succeed where they failed. Cinder wrinkled her nose, why? Why wouldn't they make the effort? Surely, Atlas could sweep fields of Grimm with their artillery and batteries… So why didn't they!? Why was it so important to uphold the status quo of the world!?

It made her angry, angry at the world, angrier at Atlas and Mistral who would dare to allow such things to happen. What would Summer have said?

"Summer? From everything I've been told she would fight against it, every single step of the way."

She'd spoken aloud, fury distorting her tone. It tore at her, but she didn't understand why it tore and ate at her.

Any further discussion had to wait, as the door opened and Raven strode in, a cloud of dustsmoke pouring off her clothing, and a hand clamped firmly on one side of her torso as she looked to Vernal, then to Cinder, before muttering simply.

"Good. Both of you are alright."
She strode past Vernal, calmly removed a medical bag from the shelves at the back of the room, and undid one clasp on her armor. A red stain slowly dripped between her fingers, and Cinder was already moving towards her when she raised a hand.

"I am fine, Little Kite. But there are more pressing matters at hand. For now… leave me be, this wound could carry a poison, I encountered our mutual friend once more."

Confusion colored Cinder's face as she spoke without thinking.

"But… we saw him too!"

Raven nods. Then she pauses and fixes her red eyes on Cinder once more.

"You are sure of this?"

"Yes! He almost saw us!"

Raven paused for a moment.

"I need to contact Sienna, things may be escalating far more than expected."

She reached for the scroll at her side, typed for a moment, then sent a message. When she was turning back to face Cinder, she simply said.

"What of the city itself?"

Vernal stepped forwards.

"The military is keeping most of the disturbances off the streets, they've quarantined and sealed off the docks from anyone entering or leaving. Looks like a lot of riots were coming from that area, and they're all sitting there, waiting for Atlas to round them up."

Raven nodded.

"The streets are almost dead quiet, and I'm nigh certain now, that that lady you and the Fang are so worried about, she's got most of the beat cops under her control, given that Tyrian was speaking with them. They'd caught a fang woman, dragged her into the alley, trying to do something to her brain."

Raven frowned.

"I understand. Thank you for the task, get some rest, both of you. We will speak more tomorrow."

Cinder nodded, as Raven took up a vigilant position near the door, by the time the girl is laying down, exhaustion is catching up with her, and she is asleep before she can realize she's falling asleep.

A/N: It's that time again!~ Mistral lore dump, coming right up. It should say something, by now, I hope, that I'm basically writing alot of this as I go, there's a plan, but worldbuilding elements that I feel flesh out my AU of RWBY are going to be pasted in here at every opportunity. Usually to make the setting feel grittier.
In any case, I hope all of you have a lovely morning.
We are beginning to reach the midpoint of this arc~! So prepare for a climax!~

 

[Ember]

In the dawning hours, Argus was beautiful. The city hung silent, the massive form of an Atlesian destroyer hovering silently above the darkened roofs of the central cities skyscrapers. A part of this felt, in some manner, bizarre and strange. The vast warship was truly enormous, even from her current position, she could note the individual weaponized flanges on the wings. Each and every one of them, covered in missile batteries and turrets. Just one of those vessels would be capable of protecting any outlying village for months.

It made her angry, to see that the humans got the cushy, powerful vessels that protected them, while the Fang had made do with civilians who barely understood how dust cartridges worked.
Blake Belladonna's ears twitched, shifting back and forth and twisting as she hung from an exposed metal beam. While dust generally was quite safe once processed, most of the industry was kept on the outskirts of cities now, especially because, if necessary, it could be detonated to cause natural defenses against a tide of grimm.

The communications towers that rose on the outskirts of Argus, that linked most of the city to the CCT network while the massive CCT tower that would link the northern end of mistral remained under construction in the center.

These towers were primitive, but efficient and hardy enough to last for as long as it was needed. Any CCT tower, as Blake understood it, was an enormous, expensive undertaking that required resources of dust so rich and pure that the SDC was the only ones who were able to provide it on demand.

More reasons Menagerie wouldn't get one. More reasons that they'd never be equal, never be accepted, never be allowed to have a place in the world.

And here she was, dangling off a tower a good 60 meters off the ground, suspended from spidersilk ropes and holding tight as a comrade worked to save the idiots from themselves.

Letting Nightingale into their city, when her mother had worked so hard to tell them that she'd survived. That the bitch was still out there, that she'd been twisted and corrupted, with that long grimm tongue. The sheer pain her mother showed, the acidic scars on her torso from where she'd been touched, the way she shivered in the night during the colder seasons. The way that Kali had never stopped training, had worked herself to the bone to be better, and was the equal of any huntress that Blake had ever seen.

"Blake! Pass me those clippers and that cable, will you?"

The voice was loud and soft, alerting Blake to the progress of her compatriot, one of her wrists came off the line of silk, and Blake reached behind her, pulled a long cable, and began to unspool it down the line. The electrical junctions flashed yellow as each became active, and soon enough, Blake began to feel the slight buzz through the cable as Trifa worked. The spider faunus hung upside down a good 20 meters down the communications tower, her silken rope securing her to the structure.

Midway down, a black box had been cut free of the central tower, and Trifa was busily attaching devices to the center of the machine. The cobbled together jammers were haphazard at best, but given what Nightingale could do if her voice could be broadcast through the entire city, or if she got into a television studio, it was the best they could do.

Which had led to the current plan, Sienna Khan had taken a detachment of fighters on a long patrol around the borders of Argus, attempting to find and attack Nightingale wherever she'd ended up, while Ghira held down the fort, and Kali led a small team of saboteurs into every television station.

All the while, these were diversionary, and the hope was that with all of that done, Blake and Trifa could break into the communications center, rappel up the towers, and plant blockers that would scramble outgoing signals.

If they were lucky, they'd be able to shut down the whole station before Nightingale got her song out, before she was able to attack or directly harm the populace of Argus.

A loud crack sounded from somewhere distant, and Blake spared a glance towards it, Cinder's warning had come at an excellent time, and the fact the survivor, Madeleine Red, corroborated her story was a big deal. Sienna had been immensely pleased that a human would ever put one of the faunus above herself to risk her life saving her.

Now, Blake was looking over towards Argus, wondering if the Fang had been found out, or if Atlas had attacked them.

A minor amount of fear ran through her, and a waver in her voice briefly announced.

"Trifa… progress?"

The spider faunus' reply echoed strangely, her head stuffed into the tower.

"Almost! Need a bit more modification here!"

Somehow, Blake felt that wouldn't be the end of this little trip.




Cinder's rest had not been restful, her dreams full of pain and the cackling, horrible laughter of the mad scorpion faunus. She'd startled awake enough times that by the fourth time, Raven was resting a hand smoothly on her forehead, gently stroking her hair as she woke up and went back to sleep.

That time, she managed to stay asleep into the morning.

When she stirred, she found Raven napping in the bed, and Vernal on watch, pistols drawn and rounds chambered, she stretched and ate, and after she'd begun the morning exercise and routine and finished, Raven had awoken and relieved Vernal. She'd been content, but sat Cinder down after she'd woken herself up enough.

"We have a dilemma, little kite."

Cinder studies her mother's face, seeing the line of her mouth drawn straight across.

"I continue to drag you into situations of high danger, situations you shouldn't be in."

Cinder opens her mouth, and Raven raises a hand.

"Please, let me finish."

She takes a deep breath, fingers dancing over the mug, Cinder sees the tension, sees the way her mother can barely look her in the eye, and she realizes.

Raven is terrified.

Raven is scared of her, scared of who she is. Of the threats that she keeps putting Cinder into.

A sensation of sickening joy flashes through her, fear of who she is… and Cinder feels terrible. This is her mother, this is someone who has sworn to protect her, and she is terrified of her.

At that moment, Cinder feels more shame than ever before. How dare she take such a pleasure in such a thing. Raven is speaking openly with her, telling her that she doesn't want her to interrupt.

"I cannot be a good mother by continuing to take you into danger. By continuing to force you into such places. Summer would never forgive me for what I've involved you in."

Another pause, Raven sucking in a deep breath.

"The city has been closed off, Atlas has deployed a number of squads to each exit, and only the Fang and myself are getting in and out. Kali and Sienna are leading operations in an attempt to flush out Nightingale. During that time, I am going to ensure you two remain here, and remain safe."

Cinder wants to protest, wants to start a conflict, but Raven raises her hand again, and once more, a bitter smile is on her lips.

"The fact you encountered Tyrian again last night has made it clear to me that I cannot keep you safe and continue to sally forth on missions."

A third pause, and Raven sets something onto the table.

"But I know who you are, and I know that you take after the worst qualities of Summer and myself, and even if I forbid that you help… you still want to help. So, you're going to come with me and help me. Vernal will be allowed to rest during that time."

Cinder's eyes alight with fire as she listens, and Raven continues.
"We have explosives donated by the fang, and there is an idea that I have formulated with Sienna, but I want to see if you can figure it out. The goal is to not cause civilian casualties in the slightest. Am I clear?"

Cinder nods, and turns to thinking, Raven stares at her, a slight smile on her lips as she thinks, and as she considers.

"What do we know about Nightingale's mind control?"

Cinder's tone is gentle and firm, and Raven's smile grows just a bit larger, she pushes a pile of notes towards Cinder.

"Sharp sensations… sensory overload, or sudden actions can break it enough to make someone run or start it?"

Raven nods, and Cinder turns to Raven after a moment of frantic scribbling.

"Do you have a map of city utilities?"

Raven shakes her head and waggles a hand from side to side.

"We have a map of sewer mains that the White Fang charted, but no power distribution or other essentials. Too difficult to breach Atlas security, well, it's not, but then they'd know I did that."

"And they'd have all the proof they'd need to sweep through every building looking for Raven Branwen?"

Her mother nods.

"Among other things."

A pang of ice cold fear shot through Cinder, Vernal's earlier topics had come back… a kill order.

"You can't mean-"

Raven shook her head.

"I do not believe I have warranted a kill order, but James is mercurial, and unpredictable. I did not anticipate the presence of his special forces here, and it concerns me that they would be so far from Atlas."

"His special forces?"

Her mother sighed and set the heavy mask she wore down on the table, its stark whiteness, the color of the bleached bone of the grimm, and the four eye ports to disguise her eyes. It was a mask that represented terror, and it reflected Raven's desire and ability to take that terror for her own, to make it hers and hers alone to generate.

"I spotted one of them tailing me earlier, her name is Elm Ederne, she was a promising recruit, one of a half dozen or so that Atlas touts as their "Ace-Ops". The best of the best, as it were. But I have my doubts about their skills. Elm was tracking me with little regard to whether or not she was detected."

Cinder frowned, before replying.

"So either she didn't care…"

Raven finished.

"Or she had another reason, or wanted to be seen."

Now, the conversation flowed easily to Cinder.

"Thoughts on a second tail?"

"Maybe, but they would have evaded my notice successfully."

Raven and Cinder looked at each other, and the older woman sighed briefly before she said.

"Right, which means we have to assume there was a tail, lest we be surprised. Why would I be tailed by two?"

"One is to kill you, or disable you, the other to extract her?"

"Elm's a big woman, probably a good 6 and a half to 7 feet tall, don't think she's particularly fast."

"Were you moving particularly quick?"

"No… just a standard rooftop run."

Cinder thought for a moment, that same small smile placed firmly on Raven's lips as the older woman smirked evenly at her.

"You already know the answer to this, don't you?"

Raven's smirk grew just a tiny bit.

"Of course you do. If she wasn't there for extraction… support the assassin?"

Raven nods.

"Good."

She turns her gaze back to the map… nothing stuck out to her, couldn't knock out communications, they didn't have enough explosives for it… couldn't bring down buildings, or detonate something loud enough that wouldn't kill people close enough to it.

Sewer mains made for a lacking form of concealment too, they smelled when they exited, and it took liberal application of Scorching Caress to burn away the worst of the-

"Raven, how much explosives did the Fang give us?"

Raven turns and sets a small backpack on the table, and then unzips it. Three minutes later, Cinder is staring at a very large, cloth wrapped square with blinking lights on top of it, alongside three small folded things that seem to contain water? She's not sure.

"This large one is a unique dust putty explosive, the others are breaching charges."

Breaching charges weren't good, the fang used them for just about everything, they could cut through steel and metal very easily, and that use made it easy for the Fang to breach trains full of dust or expensive weapon components.

It made it harder to actually detonate something.

But… it just might work, if she could make it all come together.

"I… think I've got it. But… would strong scents knock people out of it?"

Raven looks up a moment, as if remembering.
"One of her previous victims was knocked free of the control by a strong scent of rotting fish, so yes… yes it should work. Why?"

"The sewers, they stink awfully, but… if we burst the mains, shouldn't it…"

"Fill the streets with a noxious cloud, that should shock anyone out of it, and make others run for cover, and it shouldn't be poisonous to anyone except the old and infirm in hospitals… that would work. How are you going to get the cloud big enough?"

Cinder looked to the breaching charges and back at the large dust explosive, concentrating for a moment.

"Can I detonate the charges remotely?"

Raven nods.

"In that case… we need to weaken the main lines in and out of the sewage treatment plant, and then gunk up the flow, building pressure… can your "semblance" mess with water lines?"

Raven looked up, and nodded once.

"Yes, and I can measure my usage so it's delicate enough."

Cinder nodded, and turned back to the bags and the explosives.

"This is terrorism, isn't it?"

Raven nods.

"No going back?"

An air of finality set in for Cinder, a careful, cautious air of finality that had the girl slumped slightly in her chair, concerned.

"I… Is this right?"

The chair across from Cinder creaks as Raven sits down.

"Is this what Summer would want me to do?"

Raven's hands find hers, and clasp them together firmly, her voice harsh and severe as she says with a razor edge pouring into her voice.

"You are not like her. You should strive to be yourself, first and foremost."

Cinder looks up at her, sees that Raven's red eyes are locked to hers, and there's something in them, something that speaks to Cinder of resolution, something that speaks to her of a decision made within Raven.

"Summer Rose is, was, very dear to me. I loved her more than I thought I could love anyone, except for one other. There's… nothing in my heart that I wouldn't give to have her back, but… she's gone now. She would want you to live well, to live on regardless of who she is or what she wanted."

Raven muttered something under her breath, and Cinder leaned in to catch it, but couldn't make it out.

"You must chart your own course. You must survive and fight and live for yourself. You want power, power enough to give yourself safety, yes?"

Cinder wants to deny it, but she can't. She points her hand out, and Raven releases her, gently raising a palm, a heat mirage forming.

"I am strong for my age. But only for my age. I need to be strong, I need to be more powerful than Summer was, I need to be strong, so that when I grow up, I can take and do what I want to do. I need that… need that freedom."

Raven sighed and sat back in her chair. The creaking of springs as it settled with the woman's weight settled the quiet, only broken by the faintest of snores from Vernal.

"You need to be cautious, little Kite. The world is unfair and cruel, seeking power purely for the sake of freedom can be corrupted. So many times… the worst hunters seek power to protect people, purely for that reason, and it corrupts them, until all they want is more of it, more power, more strength."

Cinder nodded, watching as Raven's eyes lit aflame with magenta, and a snowflake made of lightning manifested in her hands.

"These powers, these energies, they seemed like such a blessing at the time, so important, so powerful. But… they are a burden in the worst ways, and I have a target on my back forever because of them. I want you to be aware, that I had a target on my back before I ever had these powers, before I ever had the abilities, because I was strong. Because I lived freely and only for those close to me, because I thought only those people mattered."

She paused.

"I'm right, of course, only those close to you matter. Be strong enough to protect them, and…"

It looked like Raven was about to swallow a lemon as she forced the words out.

"Be strong enough to rely on them too, when you need them. It took me years with Summer, and that weakened us, because we were too slow to trust… too slow to rely on each other."

Cinder tries to understand it, but… it doesn't make sense. Trusting people isn't easy. Trusting even Vernal like she trusts Raven is a stretch, trusting those people, anyone above her… she's glad she's not had to speak with General James Ironwood, because she's not sure she'd be able to keep herself from punching him, or attacking him.

Authority existed to hurt her, and it had hurt Blake too, she'd seen the looks the Faunus in the camp had shot her way, intruder, monster. Human. She'd seen and sensed the disgust and worry, those people… harmed by the government, the system… it felt… wrong to her.

But she didn't know how to fix it.

Now the government told people everything was fine, while Nightingale threatened to wrest control of it away from everyone, if they just obeyed her, she'd control everyone.

The sick and awful part of it, the part that scared Cinder, was that she could easily see how easy it would be to tell herself that she knew best, that she was better able to make those decisions. Was that how Nightingale had started? Was that how she'd fallen in with whatever had twisted her?

Was that a fate that Cinder would, herself, serve if she fell?

Those questions mulled over themselves in Cinder's head as she looked over the room, looking from Vernal's sleeping, scarred face, to Raven's eyes tracking across the plans they'd drawn up, to the ceiling and everything around her.

These people were here, they trusted her to follow through, to do… something, to help them.

These people were going to help her, because they cared for her.

"Cared…"

Raven looked up for a moment, but seemed to decide it wasn't worth opening another conversation as Cinder stared at the ceiling, working and rolling the word over in her mouth.

Before she'd met Raven and Summer, she'd thought "care" was nothing but faded memories of people who loved her because she was blood, because she was theirs and theirs alone, their daughter.

Now… What was "care" to her now? Madame had cared for her daughters, but she'd done it differently than Cinder had imagined . She'd praised them when it was due, punished them in situations where they had committed ill will against Madame or the hotel…

Why hadn't Madame been able to care for her? And why did the word feel like a leaden weight on her tongue?

Would others understand what it meant? Would other's help her make sense of the way this word made her feel?

Who could she ask? Raven was damaged, hurting over Summer, Vernal didn't seem to care for anything beyond where her next meal was coming from… who… wait.

Amber. The other huntress.

"Raven… can I write to Amber?"

Raven looks up at her, and nods, looking to her backpack, she indicates the second small pocket on the front, and returns to the long plan that they've hashed out on the paper over the past hours of speaking.

Thick parchment and envelopes in hand, Cinder works on it, scrawling in her rough hand the letter, writing her words with the emotions that bottle up inside her.




Dear Amber,



I don't know how to ask you this, I don't know if you'll understand it anymore than I do. But I could use some help. I'm trying to understand what "Care" means now, when Madame took care of me, she "cared" for me in that I had a bedroll and table scraps. Summer "Cared" for me by promising she'd free me, by promising that she'd break me out by force. Raven "cares" for me by training me, by educating me, and by making me strong, she makes me weapons and she got me an older sister… Her name is Vernal, but I don't know how to trust her. I don't know how to open myself up.

I feel stupid even asking for help like this, you're an adult, and part of me keeps screaming that you're the enemy, that you aren't to be trusted, and that you'll hurt me if I ask for help. But… I don't know where or who else to ask. So… please, don't hurt me? Don't laugh at me? I… want to know.

What does it mean to "care" for someone? Why are people so different with it?

Thank you,

Cinder,



P.S. I really liked the Winterfruits, Raven still has some of them, do you know how to find more?




The sheet of paper felt like it would cut her, like it was threatening to hurt her just by her touching it, just by her mere presence of fingers on it. The hours had flown by, and sheets of discarded and balled up paper littered the floor by the waste bin. The finished parchment felt rough under her fingers as she messily licked the glue strip on the envelope and sealed it shut, placing it on the desk, and turning her gaze on Raven.

"Can you take that with you next time you go out?"

The other woman nods, picking up the envelope and tucking it away into her bodice, the gesture shocks Cinder, was she not going to read it? To make sure that there was nothing that would get her into trouble there?

"Umm…"

"Speak up, little kite."

"Aren't you going to read it?"

Raven dragged her gaze up and stared at Cinder with an expression that resembled confusion, if Cinder had to guess.

"Why…?"

"So… that I'm not saying anything you don't like?"

Raven looked, if possible, even more confused.

"Why on Remnant would I? You and Amber are speaking, yes?"

Cinder nods, thinking to the single time she'd tried to send a letter to the orphanage complaining about Madame's treatment, trying to appeal for help, and the scar she'd earned herself as a result.

"Then it's none of my business. She's trustworthy, and a powerful huntress, you'd do well to reach out to her, to listen to what she would say. In fact, I would encourage you to write to Sienna Khan, as well as Kali and Ghira Belladonna. They might be insightful as well, might be able to tell you stories I could not."

Cinder flinches, she's not sure why Raven wouldn't look, even now. "None of her business" had only ever masked for a hurt incoming, and when Raven catches her shrinking away, catches her withering in her place… she stops her cold.

"This- this isn't about the letter, this is about you having privacy… isn't it?"

"Privacy?"

The word sounds and tastes foreign on her tongue, sounds wrong and unpleasant, "privacy" was what Iris and Clove got when they wanted to experiment with some wicked new toy or horrible action on her, "privacy" was what Madame demanded whenever she brought home a girl or boy from the streets with the eye of desperation about them. "Privacy" was what Iris had demanded when she'd started reading Ninja's of Love . It had never, never applied to Cinder before.

Her toes squished in her boots, and she only barely realized she was quaking when Raven put a hand in front of her face, and left it there, showing first the open palm, then the other hand, assuring Cinder that neither hand was raised in violence. This time, Cinder caught the muttered words as Raven crushed her into a hug.

" She's so lucky Tyrian got to her first. "

Surprisingly, that makes Cinder hiccup, and then giggle, and even as she tries to contain it, she can't, until she's bowled over laughing and chuckling and crying her heart out. Raven is tucking her in, and awkwardly patting her back, and Cinder is crying and letting snot run down her face and sobbing and she's loud enough that Vernal stirs in her bunk, sits up, and then Vernal is there and she's also hugging Cinder and the dam truly breaks, even as both the older girl and woman wrap her tight in an embrace that's so warm, that's so pleasant and happy and it's enough that Cinder could just let herself go and imagine that this moment never had to end. But it is disrupted as Raven speaks quietly.

"No. Unless I feel it is absolutely, one hundred percent a matter of your life or death, I will not pry into your matters unless you ask me to do so."

Cinder looked up slightly in shock as Raven speaks, her head gently nudging into Raven's own head as she tries in vain to see if the other woman is being serious or not. She can't see her, and for once, she's forced to choose to either trust or refuse to trust, and Cinder does not know anymore if that is a bad or good thing.

Instead, Cinder simply concludes that it is enough to accept it, enough to allow such a thing, and that Raven's been trustworthy, so far, right?

She allows herself to be hugged, allows the embrace to break apart and allows sleep to come on wool feathered wings.

A/N: I'm… not super happy with this one, but I can't stare at it any longer. With this, however, everyone is now caught up, and I'd like to show a bit of my hand as the writer.
With the climax of the arc coming up, people are possibly going to die, and certain named characters are on the list of possible deaths, while some are safe (Cinder among them) most are not.
As always, if you like what I do, please leave a comment or criticism of anything involving the story. And for my readers on Sufficient Velocity and Spacebattles, you're now caught up with the main story, so chapters will come on a weekly basis, rather than a daily one.
If you'd like to, feel free to join my server, and you can chat with other fans and writers that are present!
Happy reading, and goodnight to all of you!
As for the list of people on the metaphorical chopping block.

Adam Taurus
Blake Belladonna
Ilia Amitola
Pyrrha Nikos
Raven Branwen
Kali Belladonna
Sienna Khan
Saphron Cotta-Arc
Terra Cotta-Arc
Vernal
The Ace-Ops:
Harriet Bree
Elm Ederne
Clover Ebi
Marrow Amin
Vine Zeki
James Ironwood
General Meridian Sol
Caroline Cordovin
Alexander Nikos
Helena Nikos

Next Chapter: Oct 23
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[Ember]

Pyrrha remembers the smell of the arenas most of all. Argus, built by both Mistrali and Atlesian influences, is a city of stark and distinct nature, below, the industrial, well lit expanse of Atlas is dominant, and clustered near the river. Above, the cliff born spires of Mistral's older settlements, with buildings built to break and shape the wind, sending distinct currents floating through the air. Even now, as she looks out of the back of the Manor's yard, she can see dozens of colorful gliders and airships of wood, singing through the skies as they carry cargoes that ranged from songs and gentle weavewood, to the hearty and spicy smells of curries and soups.

Pyrrha remembers the smell of the arenas most of all, the thick air, filled with sweat, the tang of iron in blood, and that scent so thick that even here, hundreds of feet below the second arena she'll be fighting in, she can feel and practically taste it.

Pyrrha's older sister, Helena, had shut herself in her study earlier; She had not been the same for quite some time, ever since she had left for training as a huntress in Atlas' prized academy. Something had driven her back here shortly after her graduation but even now, at 23 to Pyrrha's 12, she still was every bit the firebrand she'd been. Except when one asked her what had happened in Atlas.

Then she would clam up and refuse to speak about it. Pyrrha's mother, Athena, had pried briefly, but with her burgeoning divorce case against Alexander clawing at her attention, she'd quickly abandoned that path when it was clear that she would get nowhere with her wayward daughter.

She'd instead turned her attention to Pyrrha, and her upcoming debut.

Even now, as Pyrrha ran through drills, ran through flashier moves intended for tournaments, she could see her mother watching from the sidelines, clad in battle armor and regalia of the Nikos house. A full suit of bronze armor, from the outlining of her musculature to the curves and swells of her body fit her like a glove. Her eyes were steel, and even now, the domineering, powerful will she'd had for decades borne down upon her household flowed out of her.

Pyrrha's mother never let her gaze flicker from Pyrrha, watching every motion her daughter made with great interest.

Many of the people who had trained her had praised Pyrrha for being the best at anything she'd chosen to do, and she'd long since run through the squires that Helena and Athena tried to provide, they weren't much of anything, compared to her skill. A part of her felt vaguely guilty for being so disparaging, but it was the truth, in all honesty.

Well… save for one.

That girl that had been sneaking about when she'd been out with her family's associates. The girl who had worn an aura cloak like a second skin, weaving it so densely that Pyrrha had had to genuinely push hard to breach it.

She still remembered that look in the other girl's eyes. Appraising her, judging her, and simultaneously… curious.

Pyrrha had not seen "curious" before. The squires her family continued to throw at her knew who she was, "The Red Haired Demoness", "Untouchable", "Goddess of War", "Minerva".

The last a cruel joke applied to her family, aimed at an ancestor who had defected during the Faunus war, supporting them against her own countrymen and betraying her family.

Privately, Pyrrha didn't think that was too much of an issue, the Faunus were just as much people as anyone else she'd ever met, but some of the things that Alexander had said about the Faunus struck Pyrrha as… strange. Some of the things that he said even now, that they were animals, that no human should live in the slums, that the Faunus were nothing more than animals.

How that made sense, she had no idea, some of the staff were Faunus, they looked just like her, after all!

Her exercises continued. Most of the motions here, the fight moves, were flashy– "soft" was what one instructor, named Roland, had called them. He'd been a rough man, a man from her parent's pasts who had taught her that fighting wasn't supposed to be flashy, it was supposed to be effective.

She'd tried to learn that way even after he'd left their family behind, or he'd been fired. Pyrrha wasn't really sure, at this point.

But her later instructors had taught her to show off her powers, to bend an enemy around just slightly, to twist their momentum, to make hits turn into near misses. It wasn't what Pyrrha wanted to do, but she was not superior to her trainers, yet.

But there would be a day she was. When she debuted, when she reaped the rewards of the sponsorships and the flow of gold began in earnest for her and her family?

Then she would dictate her own style, then she would dictate everything about who she was and everything about who she could be.

Then, maybe she'd be able to seek out that girl on her own.

Abject curiosity was not something Pyrrha had felt for some time, but the look in that girl's eyes. The burning, blazing flames of determination had stirred something within her.

"I want to fight her."

That desire loomed large, loomed vast in her heart, and it inspired something of a fierce joy in who Pyrrha was.

She trained, she trained and she fought. But nothing had been able to equal her in so much time. She'd lost track of the last time she'd felt truly challenged by a fight, lost track of the last time she'd felt that sense of almost defeat that she craved.

Helena had called it being a battle junkie, had called it a dangerous thing to have. But Pyrrha hadn't forgotten the way Athena and Alexander's eyes had glowed when she'd told their parents about it.

Alexander felt that it would only be a boon, to want and crave an ever better challenger, it had led his decision to place Pyrrha inside of the graduate arena, at great expense, rather than the initiate. Sponsors and recruiters would be there, perhaps from further up the Nikos line, perhaps from the great families who controlled Mistral itself.

A snort forced its way out of her nose, and Pyrrha giggled; Her parents gambled their livelihood on her performance, so how funny would it have been if she'd tripped, or hurt herself, or gotten attacked in the streets?

How much would her parents have been forced to care if she'd been injured to the point her career was in danger?

Would they have cared more about how she was?

Would they have spent less time screaming at each other?

Questions like that didn't matter, what mattered was the fight. Pyrrha turned back to the fight, to the final set of moves, and landed evenly on her feet. She turned to see her mother's reaction, but Athena had already left, vanishing into the manor as quickly as she'd come back out. Pyrrha tried to contain her disappointment, but… a part of her wished that just once Athena or Alexander would say something she wanted.

That they might just once tell her they were proud of her.

She sat there in the fields for who knew how long, for who would drive her away from them when she seemed to be exercising?

"Pyrrha?"

Helena, older sister, standing over her and extending a hand down, her heterochromatic eyes split evenly between blue and green.

"Are you alright?"

She takes the hand, and Helena pulls her up, the older woman's smile gentle on her face.

"I am fine. Are mother and father-"

"Still fighting? Yes, they have at the very least stopped flinging glassware at each other."

She spoke with a deep weariness that seemed to suck at the life that Helena nominally had within her. The resignation she had and carried with her, something that Pyrrha saw but couldn't comment on. How was she to approach it in the first place? Helena always seemed… ok.

"That girl, the one you told me about, the one who had an aura cloak you had to strain to see through?"

Pyrrha sat up at that. She'd told Helena about it in passing, never expecting her sister to do anything beyond commiserating. To hear mention of her unprompted? It immediately invoked that curiosity.

"What about her?"

She tried to disguise the hope in her voice, the suddenness, but Helena's smile told her she'd failed.

"I found her, I think."

Pyrrha's entire form shifted now, her older sister had her full attention, and she looked up at the other woman immediately, eyes focused on her.

"I found this little girl in one of the upper terraces, with orange eyes, dark hair, carrying herself with an air of experience she shouldn't have, given her age."

Pyrrha nodded. So far, so good.

"She… had someone with her, though, a tall woman, red eyes and wild hair, and absolutely a huntress. She carried a long odachi, Mistrali designed, based on the handle, in a long sheathe with dust blades."

Pyrrha's eyes never shifted and she sat stock still. She had to learn more, had to hear more about it.

"She knew who I was, too, at least, her guardian did. I was attempting to ascertain if she would be a fitting squire."

"What was the girl's name? Or her guardian's?"

Helena sat down and shook her head.

"The girl claims her name is "Sunny" and her guardian didn't introduce herself. But I suspect that her guardian was Raven Branwen."

Pyrrha's eyes flashed open, this was the child of Raven Branwen? No wonder she was strong.

"Daughter of a bandit!?"

"I don't think so, before her guardian had shown up, she'd told me she was an orphan, rather, she could have lied but I believe it to be the truth."

"And what about her? The girl?"

"She is skilled, at the very least, I do not know if she is your equal, but she handled herself in a way that speaks of harsh, potent training from a young age to reach latent potential. Her aura was viciously honed, and were I not who I am, I suspect I would not have been able to actually detect her usage of her aura."

"What makes you say that?"

Helena pauses, considering and carefully thinking for a moment as she considers. Before she speaks once more.

"You know how mother's semblance requires her to flare her aura to activate it?"

"Mhm, she has to pulse it into whatever she wants to have it activate on."

"Exactly, this girl flared hers into her eyes."

Pyrrha looked up, aura control like that… was difficult at best. Usually only those naturally talented bothered with it, due to the risks of sheer overstimulation.

"That's… beyond what I can do. I've only done touch and hearing."

Helena nodded.

"Indeed, but I'm not entirely sure she was focusing just her eyesight. She was assessing my posture, and it put her on guard instantly."

"Why is that? Doesn't she know that it's a better place here, that a squire could rise to extreme prominence?"

Helena frowned at Pyrrha.

"It… Pyrrha… you know better. You know that they don't last long in combat against you."

"Then she wouldn't have been worthy of my attention! But she clearly is! Aura control like that would be worth appointing her as a second! If not a full heir of the family!"

Pyrrha was rambling, speaking so fast that Helena couldn't even get a word in edgewise. The implication alone, that such a strong girl could be out there, that someone could challenge her within her own age bracket. It was an intoxicating feeling, one that rushed through who she was, a strong opponent, a really strong opponent!

"Pyrrha, calm down. She's just as human as anyone else."

"But father and mother sa-"

Helena pressed a long, slim finger to Pyrrha's lips, quieting the girl.

"Ah ah ah, no more of that. They aren't the same thing. Mom and Alexander aren't good role models."

Pyrrha looks up at Helena, confused, and a grizzled, old expression curves her sister's lips with something regarding pain.

"Look… they want you to believe that you're special because you're a Nikos."

Pyrrha nodded. This was exactly what she'd been told, it was her job to stand above others at the height of martial prowess.

"You're special because you're my baby sister, and you're sweeter than any of us are."

"But dad says that kindness is only for those who can stand on your level…"

Helena visibly flinched. Twitching away from Pyrrha for a moment, before she reached down and tugged Pyrrha into a hug.

"No… no Pyrrha, kindness is for anyone who deserves it, and I have yet to meet someone who doesn't deserve it."

"Even Raven?"

"Yes, Pyrrha, even Raven has someone she cares for, and someone who cares for her. To hurt others is never the right decision."

"Is that why you left Atlas?"

Helena looks at Pyrrha, her green eyes dark and gentle as she begins to gently rub a hand along Pyrrha's sore shoulders. The gesture and relaxation were something that worked their way through Pyrrha quickly, gently, and then Helena began to speak.

"I left Atlas because my idol also left Atlas. Are you familiar with the Schnee family?"

"Mhm! Mom says they're some of the best examples of nobility in the world!"

"She would say that… You may know, but Jacques Schnee has 3 children, the oldest is Winter Schnee, and she's a bit older than me, but she was going to Atlas."

"Was?"

"Mhm. Still don't know why, but for some reason she left halfway through her fourth year there, disappeared and went off into the wilds, apparently she still shows up every so often in a frontier town, saving people and being the best huntress she can be, just… without having any of the structure of Atlas. It really caught all of us off guard and made me reexamine my place there. I left because I felt that Atlas couldn't give me what I wanted in life."

"What… do you want?"

Helena looked down at her and continued to rub her shoulders, slowly working out the kinks and stretching each one. It takes her time to reply, time that has Pyrrha nearly asleep from the massage.

"For a really long time I didn't know what I wanted from life. Alexander and Athena told me it was the arenas or the huntress track, because I wasn't as good as you were at your age. I chose huntress because I didn't want to go to the arena. Now… I want to be like Winter, I want to chart the old places we've abandoned, find dust reserves that'll let us out of the cities, and… well, help people."

"Why are you here then, instead of out there?"

Helena looked down at Pyrrha and squeezed her in tight.

"Because I'm still a very selfish person and there's someone here who's important. So important that they matter more than that."

A single pause.

"It's you, little sister~."

Helena's voice took on a teasing overture even as Pyrrha bucked and giggled, trying to get away.

"Ick, no, stop it! Ahhhh!"

Pyrrha laughed and struggled as the hug turned to tickles and Helena mercilessly attacked. But it was futile, even with Aura, Helena was bigger and stronger than her sister, and she held her in place for a bit, only releasing her when Pyrrha wiggled enough to start her own attack upon her older sister.

"Pyrrha no! That's cheating!"

"But when you do it, it's fair!?"

"Older sister rules and obligations!"

"Bullshit!"

The outburst is sudden and immediately, Pyrrha is gasping and clutching her hands to her mouth as she sits up, wide eyed and astonished. Helena stifled laughter through two hands clenched at her stomach, inevitably failing and breaking out into sonorous cries that filled the air.

"Never say that around Alexander… he'll-"

"Wash my mouth out with soap I knowwwwww."

"At least he's never done it to you…"

"Helena no-"

That same grin on her face, bold and tinged with just a bit of remembered pain.

"I'll never look at cherry scented soap the same way again."

Pyrrha winces in sympathy, Athena loved it more than anything, and whenever she chose to indulge the scent of cherry would fill the lowest level of the house completely.

"Are you worried about the protests?"

It was stilted and awkward, but Pyrrha felt that the awkwardness of the prior conversation would only have been worse. Helena lay back on the grass next to her, head staring up at the open sky, far above, a flight of three Atlesian gunships flew lazy loops around the uppermost level of Argus, roughly in a formation.

"I don't know. On the one hand, I want to trust Lieutenant Ironwood, and I especially want to hope that he will restore order. But on the other hand… the dockworkers are right to protest, everyone's scared, and really, martial law and the White Fang here too?"

She exhaled, the breath whooshing out of her and into the air as Pyrrha listened.

"All of that, and your debut is in only a few hours. I can barely keep myself together."

Right. The arena. It had slipped her mind. Pyrrha would have liked to have gone into it not completely prepared for every eventuality, her opponent was an Atlesian transplant, a girl named Clove. She'd apparently earned a reputation in Atlas as a vicious fighter and a skilled opponent beyond her years. All of the details that were known about her had been fed into Pyrrha's training and her ears by her coaches weeks ago, the moment they'd known she could even be a possible opponent.

It grated at Pyrrha. They were always staged. The tournaments. Always a show, for the crowds, to keep emotions from running hot, to make the crowd bay for sanctified, "clean" violence.

Nothing like the real stuff, nothing like what she'd seen broadcast from the riots, nothing like that at all.

She grated and gritted her teeth.

That was a real fight, watching a White Fang member face off against an Atlesian soldier, that was the stuff of a street fight, both with knives and guns, the threads of life dangling before them. Knowing that she would have lived to have been there with them.

But no. Not precious, pretty Pyrrha Nikos. The tournament circuit was always going to be the closest she got. The closest a fight ever got for her.

"Pyrrha, quit it."

She sighs and looks to her side, meeting Helena's gaze as the older woman sternly looks at her face.

"You're doing the death glare again, really, how do you expect the audience is going to react to that?"

"Poorly. But… Helena please, it's so boringgggg, I want to fight for real! I want to fight someone that isn't going to stop the moment my aura goes orange. I want to fight like Mom and Dad used to!"

She sounds petulant, she knows, but this isn't the time where she needs to be wearing the public facing mask that had been trained into her as "Pyrrha Nikos". Everything hinges on this tournament, and a part of Pyrrha feels vaguely sorry for the stilted nature of the fight.

She wants to lay in the grass and not go to the arena. She knows it will be boring, but it feels too soon as Helena pulls her up to her feet and inspects her visibly, a few motions, and Helena's semblance calls a few brief gusts of wind, perfectly styling Pyrrha's hair and removing the grass blades that have remained behind on her outfit.

"It's time, you ready?"

Pyrrha shakes her head, she knows she's ready, it's been trained into her bones. But she also knows very much that this won't be a fight. It'll be a show.

She strides towards the front yard, already a wind sailor, a type of Mistrali airship that only ran on wind dust and the strong currents of air that whipped between Mistrali cities through the mountains. The seats were old, leather cracked and worn, but the ship smelled of the maintenance it had undergone, and Pyrrha knew upon stepping aboard that it would safely carry her to the arena far above.

The ship moved whisper quiet into the skies, and as she heard the mutterings of the pilot from behind the thin screen, Pyrrha looked at the looming form of the arena in her vision. The protests had broken the streets into chaos below her, but to the citizens of Mistrali-Argus, the show must continue on, and she had a duty to fulfill.

The grimm were, and remained the only real threat. She had to focus on that first, and that meant a proper showing at the tournament. This girl, her opponent, Clove… reflecting, what would she open with?

Pyrrha closed her eyes and unfolded the arena in her mind, the likely choice would not be anything as elaborate as the Vytal arena's changing biomes, but she could expect some earthwork hills and the like to be scattered about, along with discarded weapons built to be jokes and the like. Her weapons, a simple shield and spear, were at her side, the old steel of the metal proof of their age. A chip in the blade of the spear, the right side, from where a heavy weapon had damaged it.

She would have to prove herself, to win this battle before the family would commission a weapon for her. While Pyrrha would have liked to have taken a ranged component into this fight, she knew enough to know that she would have to win by her own merits and little else.

The old weapon was a relic, and she'd need to hope it stood up to enough punishment, especially against her opponent.

Her trainers had fed her every detail they could about the weapon, style, and semblance of Clove. The girl had a massive chip on her shoulder, something about the sudden death of a family member only a few months prior. And she'd tempered that into a blazing desire to train and excel at everything she could. Apparently, her semblance let her siphon training and skills or something to that level. The longer she spent around someone, the more pronounced the drain, the worst part?

She apparently kept the skills and muscle memory of the target.

Her trainers had urged Pyrrha to expect a combatant of multiple different styles and skills ranking her easily as huntress level, if not even nastier than before. A fight that should have been easy, would likely provide more of a challenge.

Pyrrha grit her teeth, all except for one caveat.

Sure, the girl had the skill, but that may make it easier or harder, it depended on if the girl got the skills and muscle memory exclusively, or if she inherited some form of battle precognition.

That would be the key.

She fought with a glaive predominantly, a weapon that outranged Pyrrha's own spear and shield, but lacked the defensive abilities of a shield, as well as the versatility of the spear. She would need to exploit that, harry the woman constantly, attempt to wear her down before she could bring her weapons to bear.

The gentle jolt of the wind sailor setting down, and the hiss as the doors opened, revealed to Pyrrha that they had landed, the gladiatrix retrieved her shield, and stepped down, catching a faint wish of "good luck" from behind her as the pilot began the takeoff procedure once more.

She made eye contact with the darkened tunnel ahead of her, measuring the slight slope that would carry her to the doors into the arena. Already, she could hear applause and cheering as the crowd applauded the last bout. Passing into the tunnel, the sound shook the upper ceiling, reverberating around her until Pyrrha felt as though every single person was there, cheering just for her.

She hoped that Athena and Alexander would be there.

She hoped that Helena was watching, if she'd not been called in to do her own obligations as a huntress.

The slope leveled out, and light began to pour into the tunnel as Pyrrha climbed to the apex, each step she had taken, every day of strained muscles and burning agony had led here. She wanted to win, wanted to fight and make her family proud, wanted to put on such a show that would leave every single one of the audience utterly speechless.

The portcullis slid open, and Pyrrha stepped out into a cool breeze and a warm sun, her armor cladding her form in its protection, even as she hummed under her breath. Aura worked best when infused before combat, and the slow melody would shape it into powerful protection. Which she'd need every single piece of for the upcoming bout.

Her opponent stood across from her. She had light brown hair, tied up into a high bun on her head, which pushed her already sharp features into something that resembled a blade. Emerald eyes shone darkly, but with something else within them.

It took Pyrrha a moment to really see it, but it hit her all at once.

This must have been Clove, and she burned with anger and rage, from the tight, jerky movements she was making, to the white in her clenched fists. A beautiful, elaborate glaive hung over her shoulder, it's polished blade curving sharply, though Pyrrha noted a trio of barrels near the top of the weapon, its ranged component, perhaps?

It was, startling, to have her opponent address her so suddenly.

"You're not who I was expecting."

Her voice was flat, uninspired, and lacking all of the fury that her motions and physical nature communicated so expertly to Pyrrha's sharp gaze.

"Who were you expecting?"

The girl kicked a rock across the arena, and replied to Pyrrha's politeness with one of aristocratic accent.

"Shorter girl than you, black hair, orange eyes. The bitch who killed mom."

"A look of defiance on her face?"

Clove's eyes lit up.

"You know her!?"

Her face became guarded soon after.

"Are you friendly with her?"

Pyrrha, about to speak, was interrupted, as a gong sounded, and the announcers began to speak. Drowning all further noise out.

"WE'RE BACK FOLKS~!"

"Indeed~! To cap off this graduate level fight, we have a pair of very special guests today~! Barney, would you like to introduce our Atlesian candidate?"

"Of course! Standing there, armed with a beautiful glaive and given personal instruction and the eye of Captain, now Lieutenant General James Ironwood, she's the menace of the Atlas Academy prep school, CLOOOOOOVEEEEE~!"

The considerable presence of Atlesian graduates began to applaud and clap, the sound roaring over Pyrrha like a wave as she tracked the stands where it originated from.

"As for our Mistrali candidate, you all know her, you all know who she's representing~! You know her skills and today you'll get to see them for the first time! Introducing the youngest graduate level fighter, she's been cleared to compete with students at Argus academy as soon as she completes this bout, it's PYRHAAAA NIKOS!"

Pyrrha had thought she'd been ready, she wasn't. The wall of sound nearly blew her off her feet as it drowned her out, and her opponent scowled something fierce as the girl let a shocked, happy smile spread across her face.

Her first tournament… and this was what she could expect from people?

The grin on her face was goofy and silly, and Pyrrha fought hard to turn it down, into a simple, if pleasant smile. Something the announcer picked up on instantly.

"Why, Diamond, look at her humility! Tempering her exuberance for the crowd, good showing of proper familial bonds and an excellent understanding of politeness!"

Something about the way that he'd said it left a part of Pyrrha's gut feeling… squirming. She didn't know why, but it just felt… wrong to her.

"Indeed, Barney! In any case, let us not delay any further. Contestants, you may begin when the starting gun fires!"

A young woman, clad in a beautiful, ceremonial set of Mistrali armor, all flowing lines and an elegant cape and sash, strode into the arena, she hefted a matchlock dust rifle older than the Nikos name in one hand, and bore a blindfold of deepest black across her eyes. She raised the rifle to her shoulders, and squeezed the trigger.

Before the retort of the shot even finished sounding across the arena, Pyrrha was moving, shooting across the sands of the arena, and rushing down her opponent.

Clove darted to the left, but as she did so, Pyrrha caught a glimpse of her opponent's eyes widening unexpectedly.

The urge to slightly smile came over her. She may have the muscle memory and skill, but she didn't have the battlefield experience, and that was something that Pyrrha could easily, evenly exploit.

The other girl flicked her glaive up, and the weapon barked, one of the barrels recoiling into its housing as a spray of icicles emerged from the blade of the glaive. Pyrrha twisted to one side and threw herself to the side, skating just under the spray as it impacted the sand behind her. Her spear and shield flew to her grip, and she brought herself down into a low crouch, when no further spray of icicles came, that told her that the ammunition or charging of the mechanism was slow, but powerful. It was then equally likely that the other barrels contained other types of dust.

She pushed her aura to her legs and leapt to one side as the other girl's glaive soared through the space and carved a deep furrow into the sand.

Pyrrha began to exhale, and felt her lips twitch, curling ever so slightly upwards. Certainly, the other girl's skills were on par, if not exceeding her own… but she didn't have the experience to leverage all that skill.

Pyrrha leaps into the air, shield presented forwards.

The buckshot blast of earth and fire dust ignites the air between herself and Clove and sends Pyrrha slamming into the ground, coughing as her breath is knocked from her lungs. The impact was seconded by her instinctual roll, and the massive glaive slamming into the sand beside her. Pyrrha saw the other girl's eyes widened, and a smile curved her face up, that rage bubbling in her eyes.

It was as if Clove didn't even… see her, for Pyrrha. Her thoughts were elsewhere. A thought that was confirmed moments later when that girl purred out something in a voice that lacked any warmth or life.

"I'll kill you, Cinder."

Pyrrha had a moment to react as that glaive came down towards her neck, and she did so with her semblance. Feeling her arm muscles shriek in agony as her body was pulled by her armguard out of the way, the glaive smashing into the ground next to her as she narrowly evaded the blade, a few strands of red hair floating downwards.

"Who's Cinder!?"

Pyrrha finds herself barking, desperately fighting to keep her smile polite and professional, even as a pang of desperate fear runs through her shoulders. This girl is insane, beyond it, and Pyrrha wants to shoot an accusing look towards her sponsors, towards the people who set up this fight, towards her parents, but as the girl charges her again, her glaive sweeps a lethal strike at Pyrrha's femoral artery.

The impact on her shield shakes her arm and has Pyrrha gritting her teeth so hard she feels as though they're about to crack from the force. Her forearm hurts, and she knows she'll have a furious bruise there later.

But first, surviving.

Clove's kick catches her in the chest as she tries to thrust her spear at her, while Pyrrha scores a hit, a long, gloaming cut on the other girl's knee, her kick smashes Pyrrha into the dirt and knocks the spear from her hand.

It says something that the other girl's already moving even as Pyrrha's raising her shield up, attacking with abandon and ferocious joy.

The impact sets her teeth rattling in her skull as Clove's glaive slams a blast of buckshot into the metal and wood. Pyrrha feels the shield crack, along with a surge of agony as her arm bruises from the impact, Clove's frantic motions sawing the blade back and forth at the tear in the metal of her shield.

She needs to think, needs a moment to reconsider, Clove doesn't fight like a tournament fighter, she fights like an animal, her skills taken from real huntresses. Against a human opponent, she manifests that into an endless series of rushdown attacks, which means Pyrrha has to keep her at a distance.

She struggles and shifts the shield, pulsing her aura along the jagged rend in the steel coating, forcing it to deflect the glaive rather than let it bite deep, waiting for the right moment.

It comes with a roar, as Clove raises the weapon and jams it towards Pyrrha, and she lets the aura on the rend fail as the blade bites deep, punching through the wood, through the back and into her arm, skating off of her aura in a flurry of red sparks and leaving a thin, long line.

But it is what Pyrrha has been waiting for, and she twists her body, yanking Clove off balance and forwards just enough.

The crunch the other girls nose makes as Pyrrha slams her foot into it is enough to make her wince, and it sends Clove off of Pyrrha, letting her wrench the woman's glaive free of her arm. She rises slowly, panting, holding the glaive in her relatively undamaged arm.

A clicking noise, the weapons reloading mechanism?

Pyrrha checked the barrels, as Clove slowly stood up, some amount of blood fountaining from her nose. So her aura didn't protect her? She was more inexperienced than Pyrrha thought.

The two settled down, circling each other and watching carefully. Pyrrha's blood roars in her ears, the announcer muffled utterly, a single glance shows Clove's aura lower than hers, but only barely. Pyrrha holds the glaive one handed, infusing it slowly with her own aura, taking over and feeling it extend her reach. The weapon is unwieldy with a shield in her hand, and she would need to shift its position to use the glaive more accurately.

"Your fault…"

The mutter translates barely, and then Clove is moving again, and this time, she moves in a blur.

Pyrrha can't help herself, she starts to smile, here is someone who can challenge her, who has challenged her!

Time to win, then.

Flashy tournament moves made for spectacle, and Pyrrha knew that's what her family were expecting. As Clove struck low with Pyrrha's spear, Pyrrha flung the glaive with the aid of her semblance. Superhuman strength, augmented by telekinetic control, shot the glaive into Clove's cloak and hood, driving the girl into the air, something Pyrrha missed zero time indulging.

She flipped upwards, launching off the ground, her own spear rocketing past her until she snagged it with the leading edge of her semblance, sending it back to her hand, nudging it just a bit, a part of her saw Clove's eyes widen as she finally figured out Pyrrha's semblance, as she came about finally to realizing why this wasn't a fight anymore.

The kick smashed into Clove's neck and sent her spinning towards the ground. The followup as Pyrrha let gravity take her, her spear angled towards the other girl. She fell, and let the rushing wind and her roaring blood speak for her.

Clove had a split second to look surprised and try to roll out of the way, but all that meant was Pyrrha shifted her spear to the left, and plunged it into the girl's aura butt first, before slamming her shield into her forehead, plastering her into the ground.

Clove let out a single whine of agony, and went still.

There was silence for a moment, only the pounding of Pyrrha's heart and the gasping of her breath as the world began to reassert itself. Colors fading back in as she blinked from surprise…

Had that been it? After all that showing, after all that bluster and that fantastic early bout… had Clove not been able to counter an aerial attack?

Pyrrha frowned, even as cheers began from the audience. It didn't feel right, didn't feel earned, she was still deep in thought, that when Clove stirred from beneath her, she got up, and extended a hand, which was swatted aside.

The woman glared at Pyrrha, glared with a gaze full of emotion that made Pyrrha shiver from proximity. She didn't know how to respond as Clove spat a mix of blood and saliva into the arena, and on autopilot bowed to her opponent.

Why had it felt good to beat her down? Why did Pyrrha like that she'd won when her opponent's blood had coated her shield?

She cast a gaze towards the dull disc of steel, her shield, now with a rend torn right through it. She could see the sand in the arena through that tear. The dull drying blood of Clove, seeping off the shield and into the sand below, Pyrrha stood there in the applause, and felt… unfulfilled.

As if she'd been cheated.

She barely felt the arms of the attendant take her and nudge her towards the locker rooms, towards the exits.

She continued to feel that sense of unfulfillment long after the award had been given, long after she had waited alone, at the edge of the arena, still in her greaves and armor, for her sister, released from duty, to arrive and collect her.

"You won!"

Helena's exuberance is the first thing that Pyrrha can clearly remember from the aftermath of the fight, her sister's warmth and embrace, the joy in her eyes.

That joy mixed with hidden agony, of course, the mere fact that Athena and Alexander were not there, had not picked up their own daughter.

"Are you ok, Pyrrha?"

She nodded numbly, before replying.

"She was weak… all that skill, and no experience or thought to put it into place… she hated me."

"Your opponent, you mean?"

Pyrrha nodded.

"Why do you think she hated you?"

"She didn't even seem to know who I was, and kept calling me"Cinder "."

The wind sailor dove suddenly, Helena's grip on the controls seizing.

"You don't think…"

"I don't know, how would they have interacted?"

Pyrrha and Helena looked at each other.

"She hated me… really hated Cinder too, I don't know why."

They sat in silence, the sailor recovering as it swept lower.

"How was work?"

Helena startled at the sudden question.

"Oh… you know, repressing the protestors… had to actually suppress a group that broke the line near the harbor…"

She trailed off. Pyrrha gently touched her shoulder and looked at her as she continued.

"I'm not sure why… it just… everything feels strange these days. People are attacking each other for no reason, half the police forces from Atlas won't respond, and the captain keeps giving Ironwood the run around."

The sailor flew lower, heading for the terrace, and Pyrrha froze slightly, staring evenly at her mother and father standing below her in the courtyard.

Athena wore a long, flowing gown and carried nothing in her hands, and Alexander stood near an Atlesian airship, the two stood there, watching Helena's wind sailor drop ever lower towards the ground until the small ship skidded to a stop, and gently lowered its wings. Each sailor was customized by its owner, and Helena's had been no different, adorned with rich textures of clothlike paint, and wind dust traced into the wood itself.

As it slowed to a stop, Pyrrha rose, and Helena stopped her with a hand, gently reaching out.

"Pyrrha… I have to go back on duty, but… if you need something, call me, ok?"

Pyrrha nodded, her feelings numb.

Alexander was the first to greet her, his booming baritone soaring across the field as he spoke.

"Pyrrha my girl! You fulfilled expectations!"

His voice was boisterous, and yet… Pyrrha felt alone.

"You have done adequately."

Her mother's tone was flat and cold, and it chilled Pyrrha just to hear it.

She shivered, and Alexander and Athena turned away from her, and walked into that gunship.

She was left alone, then, as the airship took off, and her hair whipped in the wind as the vessel took to the skies.

Helena was gone, and she'd fulfilled expectations. Athena and Alexander, mother and father, had left her, and as Pyrrha wandered into the empty halls of her family home.

The cold sitting room, once a place full of roaring fires and laughter, as Alexander told her the stories of the heroes of the past. It surrounded Pyrrha now, pressing in and covering her skin completely with its siphoning chill.

When had things taken such a turn? When had the world plummeted its warmth into someone else, when had it all collapsed around her?

Pyrrha wasn't sure how long she sat in that house, wasn't really sure how long that she'd been staring there, but she was startled abruptly when she felt a hand touch against her shoulder. She turned to face the person who had touched up against her, and saw flashing green eyes and a vicious smile on her face.

No one heard her scream.

A/N: Yeah… uh, been a bit, sorry everyone, IRL happened and I lost track of time, then writers block. But I hope you all enjoy anyways! As always, if you like and enjoy, please leave a comment or critique, I love receiving them.