SAPR: Interlude 2 - Atlas (RWBY/MLP)

[ScipioSmith]

Every One Thinks Meanly of Themselves​

Every one thinks meanly of themselves for not having been a soldier.

That was a quote by a man who had, amongst other things, compiled the first dictionary. He had never been a soldier himself, so presumably, he spoke from his own personal experience, but it was no longer true. To be truthful, General Ironwood doubted that it had ever been true, even when it was said, but nevertheless, the words had been on his mind somewhat for the last few days.

Since he had seen the look in Twilight's eyes as she begged him to let her fly Dash's airship in support of the kids down in the Breach.

Something that he should have noticed, and done something about, some time ago.

There was a lot of that going around at the moment.

Ironwood drummed his fingers on the table. He had let down Twilight, and Penny too. One by allowing her to think meanly of herself, and the other by asking too much of her.

Come to think of it, the latter might equally apply to Dash and to Soleil as well. Had he asked too much of all three of them? Asked too much of them, and not enough of Twilight? And did he need to add Belladonna to that as well? He had asked as much of her as he had of Dash, Soleil, or Penny, and she had less reason to give it.

Well, the only thing to do in the circumstances was to start making it right, as best he could.

He meant to start with Penny and with Twilight, the ones most obviously affected by his poor judgement, then he could speak to the others later, before Team RSPT left for Atlas.

For now, though, he was in his office, waiting upon a visitor.

The door into said office slid open with a gentle hiss, and Ozpin walked into the room. His cane tapped lightly upon the floor.

"Ozpin," Ironwood said. It was not a surprise to see him – you couldn't just sneak up onto the Valiant; Ironwood had known he was coming since his Bullhead had requested permission to land in the docking bay – but he was nevertheless surprised that Ozpin was here, and he allowed that surprise into his voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Well, I had nothing else to do, so I thought that I'd come and see you, James," Ozpin replied lightly. He paused for a moment. "Well, rather, I thought that, since you so often come down to your ship to see me in my office that I might return the favour for once. I must say, it's a long walk down all of these corridors."

"It gives me time to have a chair brought in for important visitors," Ironwood murmured dryly.

Ozpin chuckled as he sat down on the other side of Ironwood's desk. He gripped the head of his cane in both hands. He swivelled slightly in his chair, so that he was a little side-on rather than facing Ironwood directly.

"I suppose I should congratulate you, James," Ozpin said softly. "You are the hero of the hour."

"I command heroes," Ironwood replied. "I don't claim that title for myself. The men and women where the metal meets deserve your praise, not me."

A slightly wan smile appeared on Ozpin's aged features. "Come, James, we both know that isn't how this works. When the histories of these last few days are written, yours is the only name that will feature. Future generations will read that it was General Ironwood – and however many of his nameless, faceless soldiers – who stepped into the Breach – or the Breach – and delivered Vale from darkness. The name of the formation, the ships involved may be noted also, but the men and women? The children? All… gone. All forgotten."

"Considering the names of some of those… children," Ironwood said, "leaving aside whether we really ought to call them that in view of what they've done and been through, I don't think that names like that will necessarily fade into the abyss of memory."

"Perhaps in Mistral, they will remember Miss Nikos," Ozpin allowed, "but is it not the Atlesian way to forget the individual and remember the group?"

"Then why do you assume my name will be remembered?" Ironwood asked.

Ozpin did not reply to that. He didn't say anything, and a silence lapsed between the two men, stretching out for a little while in the confines of the office. Outside the window, a pair of Skybolts looped past as they made their patrol circuit.

Ozpin glanced down at his cane. "I owe you an apology, James."

"There's no need-"

"There is no need," Ozpin said, cutting him off, "for you to be the bigger man, James. Despite what you may think, I am quite capable of admitting when I'm wrong. And I was wrong. I thought that your forces would be… a dangerous distraction, a hindrance, but… they were necessary. When the grimm came through-"

"When the grimm came through, your students stood alongside mine to hold them back," Ironwood reminded him.

"Indeed, but it was your airships that sealed the Breach, your androids that covered the retreat of the children and bought time, your soldiers that sealed the perimeter. It is not for nothing that you are acclaimed for the actions of your forces, and so, for that, I owe you an apology. If you had done as I wished and not come, then… I dread to imagine what would have happened."

"If I hadn't come," Ironwood said, "then my children would have been caught up in the middle of this as the grimm ran through the streets of Vale. Which is why I came: so that my ships, my forces, my weapons would be here to support and to protect them when… it was clear that something was going to happen, even if I didn't anticipate this. I wanted to make sure that when whatever was about to happen happened, that my students weren't hung out to dry in the middle of it."

Ozpin smiled thinly. "And here I thought you came to protect Vale, James."

Ironwood was quiet for a moment. "If it had just been a question of Vale… I would have stayed away when you asked me to before the semester started. I don't… I don't disobey you lightly, Oz, I hope you understand that. But with my… my children at stake, I couldn't… I couldn't leave them hanging in Vale with all of this going on."

Ozpin nodded, if only a little. "Your loyalty does you credit," he murmured, "and as I said-"

"You don't need to say it again," Ironwood assured him. "Especially since I'm not the one who deserves to have it said to me." He paused for a moment. "Oz, can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"How did Vale get like this?" Ironwood asked. "A military that has no ships on stand-by, whose soldiers aren't trained to fight outside of a narrow range of conditions, how did it get like this?"

"I believe the phrase is 'guns or butter,'" Ozpin replied. "In the years since the Great War, Atlas has consistently chosen guns, while Vale has consistently chosen butter. I hope you won't attempt to suggest that the lot of the average working individual in Mantle isn't worse than their equivalent in Vale. What Vale lacks in Atlesian technological advancement, I believe it makes up for in its collectivised welfare system."

A lot of good that will do against the grimm, Ironwood thought to himself but kept it to himself. What he said, in as even a tone as possible, was, "You've been on the Council for a long time."

"As you know," Ozpin said, "I've always trusted in the huntsmen that we train at Beacon as the chief bulwark of Vale's defences."

Ironwood had no desire to rub salt in that particular wound, so he asked, "What's the news from the outer settlements?"

"The grimm continue to wait nearby, without attacking," Ozpin said.

Ironwood frowned. "Strange."

Ozpin looked at him. "You think so?"

Ironwood tapped his fingers lightly upon the table. "Let's assume that the grimm massed – only massed, not attacking – in order to draw huntsmen away from Vale."

"Indeed," Ozpin said, "let us assume that; it seems probable."

"Salem's plan – or Cinder's plan, whoever came up with the idea – is pretty clear now," Ironwood said. "They wanted to draw the huntsmen away from Vale to render it vulnerable to a grimm attack, an attack that they intended to orchestrate using the White Fang as their pawns; they used them to mine the Mountain Glenn tunnel, always planning to unleash a horde of grimm directly into the city – a city that would be denuded of huntsman thanks to the threats to the outlying settlements. Then, when my forces arrived, they decided to try and implant a virus in the CCT that would… well, I didn't ask Twilight to analyse the virus, only to get rid of it, so I don't know exactly what it would have done, but I'm guessing that it would have caused havoc with our systems and hindered our ability to respond to the assault. Except…"

Ozpin waited a moment. "'Except,' James?"

"Except, once Cinder was made, why go ahead?" Ironwood asked. "She had to know that we'd inspect the tower's systems and find the virus, and without the virus, she had to know that the grimm would be attacking directly into the teeth of our defence – hell, she invited us to Mountain Glenn to find out what she was up to, throwing away the advantage of surprise. It was daylight madness to waste all of that build-up and all of her resources like that, so why did she do it? And why are the grimm still threatening the settlements? I understand why they didn't attack before, but now? Why not withdraw and conserve her forces? Or if force conservation doesn't matter, then why not attack and see if they can't score some tactical victories?"

"Valid questions," Ozpin said. "However, they assume that the campaign has been decided and that all our enemy may hope to accomplish is to win some tactical victories amidst the overall strategic failure."

Ironwood's frown deepened. "You don't agree?"

"I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself, James," Ozpin answered. "You – your forces – are the victors… but don't let it go to your head."

"This isn't a question of letting anything go to my head; it's a question of winning and losing," Ironwood declared. "Cinder massacred her own allies in the White Fang; she threw away everything that she spent the past year building up to. All that she had done was leading up to this moment, and she blew it. We won. Her White Fang is gone, her grimm are dead, her route into Vale is shut off."

"And yet, always, after a while, the shadow forms and grows again," Ozpin whispered.

"After a while," Ironwood replied. "It takes time."

"Cinder Fall was neither killed nor captured," Ozpin reminded him. "If she had been, then I might agree with you, but she was not. And, as you yourself pointed out, she invited us to Mountain Glenn. She, as you say, threw away the advantage of surprise. I fear the endgame is not yet behind us. I fear this was just another move, part of a strategy we do not yet discern."

Ironwood bit back a curse. "So what do we do?"

Ozpin was silent for a moment. "We must find a guardian," he murmured.

"Have you chosen yet?"

"Not yet," Ozpin murmured. "And besides… they've all been through quite enough for the moment."

"Indeed," Ironwood agreed, his own voice soft and calm.

"And, since this is not over yet, I would be grateful if you forces could remain here, at least for the time being."

"Of course," Ironwood said. "I'm not going anywhere until the Festival is over." He hesitated. "Oz… don't be too hard on yourself. You're not the only one who has fallen short of the standards you set for yourself lately."

Ozpin looked at him. "How so?"

"Twilight," Ironwood said. "Penny. Penny has been injured on a mission that she probably shouldn't have been on, and Twilight…" He sighed. "'EveryoneEvery one thinks meanly of themselves for not having been a soldier.'"

"Ah," Ozpin said. "To be surrounded by huntsmen and huntresses-"

"Bringing her here was a mistake," Ironwood interrupted. "One which I'll correct next year; if Apple wants to come back, then she can take up the fourth spot in… Raspberry, again? Perhaps I should try and find a new team name. In any case, making Twilight part of a team was my mistake. There were other ways. Next year, I can find someone else to take that spot, but for now… I just need to make Twilight feel… not so lesser. I've always prided myself on my connection to these kids, but I… I didn't see it happening until it was too late."

"You and I have had our differences and our disagreements James, but I've never doubted your leadership abilities," Ozpin said. "I didn't appoint you to be headmaster of Atlas because of your generalship but because… because I thought the students would be lucky to have you. Whatever is needed for Miss Sparkle, I have no doubt that you will find it."

"Thanks, Oz," Ironwood said. "I appreciate your confidence. Really."

A light on the corner of his desk flashed, indicating incoming communication. "Excuse me," Ironwood said, pressing the discrete button to open a channel to the CIC. "This is Ironwood."

"Pardon me, sir," said Lieutenant des Voeux, "but the Valish Council is on the line, requesting to speak with you."

"Hang on," Ironwood said, temporarily muting himself. To Ozpin, he said, "Do you know what this is about?"

"No, but that doesn't surprise me," Ozpin said. "I'm not in particularly good odour with the rest of the Council at present."

"I didn't think I was, either," Ironwood muttered. He unmuted himself. "Patch them through to my office, des Voeux."

"Aye aye, sir."

A holographic image appeared above Ironwood's desk, a long image displaying the faces of four out of the five members of the Valish Council as they sat in chambers. The room in which they sat was dim, and it was hard to make out their faces; in fact, they were little more than silhouettes, outlined against what little light there was behind them.

However, their voices – or at least the voice of First Councillor Aris – came through loud and clear. "General Ironwood," she said, "I hope that we're not disturbing you."

"Not at all, Madam Councillor," Ironwood replied, "although I currently have Professor Ozpin with me."

"Madam Councillor," Ozpin said courteously.

"That is no trouble," Councillor Aris replied, although her voice seemed to sharpen at the recognition of the headmaster's presence. "In fact, it is quite convenient. My apologies for not inviting you to this Council session, Professor, but as you know, four members is a quorum."

Ozpin said nothing. There wasn't much to say, at least as far as Ironwood could tell. It was a snub, at best, to have had a meeting behind his back, but at the same time, what good would calling it out do?

Ironwood was more worried about what they had been meeting to discuss. Was it possible that they were so petty that they intended to order him and his ships out of Vale? They had the authority to do so; if they did demand that he leave, it would be very hard for him to stay – as he had cause to lament before, these weren't his own councillors; he couldn't just ignore them and dare them to try and fire him if he didn't like their instructions. If the Valish ordered him out, he would have to do as they said – or risk an international incident possibly leading to war.

Yes, let's file that under 'last resort.'

"As you are both no doubt aware," Councillor Aris continued, "the recent attack on Vale – following the persistent activities of the White Fang – have led to questions, both in and out of Vale, over whether it is wise or proper that the Vytal Festival should go ahead here in our kingdom."

Ozpin cleared his throat. "Madam Councillor, the Vytal Festival-"

"You have said quite enough already, Professor" Councillor Aris snarled. "A period of silence from you would now be welcome." She took a deep breath. "Vale has already committed a great deal of money into preparations for the Vytal Festival, and we have every intention of hosting a successful tournament and all the other events surrounding it. To do otherwise, to allow Mistral to host the festival as some in that kingdom have had the gall to propose, would be to concede… to concede too much. No, the Vytal Festival will go ahead in Vale, the Council is committed to that. I am going to ask this once, and I expect a more honest answer from the both of you than you have been wont to give me in the past: do you know of any reason why the festival should not go ahead here in Vale?"

"No, Madam Councillor," Ozpin said.

Ironwood looked at him over the hologram. Really, Oz? After what we just finished discussing?

"General Ironwood?" Councillor Aris asked.

Ironwood hesitated. Ozpin believed that the situation was not over yet, and his reasons were convincing… but then, they had never planned to postpone the festival in the face of the threat, even when the threat was much greater than it was now. "No, Madam Councillor."

"I'm glad to hear it," Councillor Aris said flatly. "The Council concurs, but we recognise the importance of confidence, both here and in other kingdoms: confidence in our ability to host a safe and successful festival, confidence in the safety of their visiting students and tourists. Confidence that everything will proceed as it should, with no surprises. And so, for that reason, the Council has consulted with our counterparts in Atlas and decided, General Ironwood, to request that you take over as head of security for the Vytal Festival."

Again, Ironwood glanced at Ozpin. The old man showed no visible reaction to the slight. "That's quite an honour, Madam Councillor," Ironwood said, choosing his words with great care, "but it is custom that the headmaster of the host school is also the head of security."

"Professor Ozpin sat in his tower while Vale was in danger," Councillor Aris said acidly. "Do not mistake this as a sign of the Council's confidence in you, General; I hold you as much responsible for this catastrophe, and for the deaths of six Valish citizens, as Professor Ozpin. But you are, as far as the public narrative goes, the hero of the Breach and the saviour of Vale. News that you are taking personal charge of security will reassure doubters at home and abroad."

"I see," Ironwood murmured. "Thank you for your candour, Madam Councillor." He paused, considering. "I have certain conditions."

"'Conditions'?" Councillor Aris repeated.

"I want a free hand to act as I see fit without the need for your authorisation and approval," Ironwood said. "I don't want you tying my hands anymore."

"Bloody cheek!" Councillor Aspen barked.

"Aspen, that's enough," Councillor Aris murmured. "You ask a great deal, General."

"You approached me, Madam Councillor," Ironwood replied. "If you want me to make your festival secure, then I will secure it, but I won't lend you my name just to give you some credibility."

Councillor Aris took a moment to reply. "Very well," she said. "In matters of Vytal Festival security, you may act as you wish, without reference to this Council or anyone else. Congratulations, General Ironwood; we're all counting on you."

"I won't let you down, Madam Councillor," Ironwood said as he hung upon them.

"That was bold of you, James," Ozpin observed.

"I'm sick of those people holding me back," Ironwood grunted. He had still not forgiven the way that Councillor Aris had prohibited him from doing anything to support the students when they had gotten into trouble in the Emerald Forest. "If they want me to run security, then I'm going to do it my way."

"I have a suspicion that I'm not going to like this," Ozpin murmured.

"I want to put androids in the grounds of Beacon, and the surrounding area," Ironwood said. "It's not the only measure – I'd like to put them on the streets of Vale, but I recognise I still need the Council's approval for that – but I think it will reduce people's nerves when they see that the fairgrounds and the school and the coliseum are well-protected. Plus, I'll be bringing in a third squadron from Atlas, with troops and all other equipment. If there is another move coming, we'll be ready for them."

"I hope so, James," Ozpin murmured, "but now, I will leave you, to address Miss Sparkle's concerns and to plan security for the Festival."

He rose to his feet. Ironwood did likewise, saying, "Thanks for coming, Oz. It was good to talk to you."

"Likewise," Ozpin said, turning away. His cane tapped on the floor as the door slid open.

"Oz," Ironwood said to him, making Ozpin turn and look back. "You still have my respect."

Ozpin did not reply, nor by any means offer any acknowledgement of the general's words. He simply turned away and walked out of the office to where a young officer was waiting to escort him back to his airship.

The door slid closed again. Ironwood stood, casting a shadow across his desk, looking at the door without really seeing the door.

Now, he had to find something to say to Twilight.

XxXxX​

Last year, over break, Twilight had spent some time volunteering at the hospital in Canterlot. Specifically, she'd volunteered at the hydrotherapy pool there: taking names, collecting the dues, making the tea, making sure that nobody drowned. Most of the people who came in to use the pool were sweet old folks, like Applejack's Granny Smith, whose legs or knees or hips might be starting to go and who needed the supported exercise in a way that water could provide. But there was this one boy, or a young man… he'd been in a car accident that had left him completely paralysed. His mother, his sister, and two paid carers had brought him in each week in a large, cumbersome wheelchair, and each week, they had gotten him into his swimming trunks and manhandled him onto a stretcher, which was then picked up and lowered by a hydraulic arm into the water, where he floated in their chair, moving him gently over the surface of the shallow pool, moving his arms and legs to stave off muscle atrophy, moving him so that he could feel movement, could feel for a moment that he was not confined to that chair.

He never talked, he couldn't, but Twilight remembered him; she remembered him enough that she had some sketches of a bodysuit that would connect directly into the cerebral cortex and allow people like that to move around under their own will, the suit obeying them in ways their arms and legs no longer would.

Mostly, she found that she remembered his face; no, she remembered his eyes, the way they looked at her, the way they looked out at the world.

The eyes of a prisoner, trapped in his own body, unable to escape. Helpless.

Penny's eyes were just the same now, as she lay on the table in the workshop that had been set aside for her aboard the Valiant. Her face was frozen, her whole body was frozen; she had been disabled pending total repair. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak; only her eyes could move. And those green eyes stared up at Twilight with that same helplessness that she remembered so well from the paralysed boy.

Like him, she was trapped by her own body and its faults.

Unlike him, Twilight had more to offer than sketches and ideas that might not amount to anything. She plugged a cable, running into a computer on a desk in the corner of the workshop, into the socket on Penny's hair-bow. She smiled. "I'm sorry about this, Penny. Just give me a second, okay?"

Penny did not look reassured by this. She looked no less helpless, no less a prisoner; the look in her eyes was no less imploring.

And no less uncomfortable to look at.

Twilight turned away, crossing the workshop in two brisk strides to walk to the computer. "Trust me, Penny, just a second. Okay," – she began to type – "your speech centre was scrambled by the attack, but if I can connect directly to your core processor and then re-route…" Her fingers flew over the keyboard. "Yes, that's right; bypass speech centre and connect directly to external… and done! At least I hope it is."

"Does this mean I can talk again?" the voice that emerged from the computer's speakers was not Penny's voice. It was mechanical, and very obviously so, and rather masculine in its depth besides. But it was a voice, and Twilight could hear it. "This is wonderful! Wait, why do I sound like this? Why don't I sound like me?"

"Because your voice is not innate to your being, Penny," Twilight explained. "You have, in your throat, what are essentially artificial reproductions of vocal chords designed to serve the same purpose: to generate sound. Your father, and Uncle Pietro, selected those vocal chords; they chose the pitch and range of your voice to suit their own preferences. You sound… you sound like your father wanted his daughter to sound like."

Put like that, it sounded a little controlling, but what alternative was there? Nobody got to choose their own voice, after all – if she had, Twilight would have chosen to sound a lot more like Rarity – and Penny was no worse off in that regard than anyone else just because her voice had been deliberately selected rather than being random.

In fact, in as much as her voice had been selected, one could argue she was better off than some people who ended up making some rather unfortunate sounds.

"This computer," Twilight continued, rallying after that brief moment of hesitation, "doesn't have vocal chords, and although the speakers can produce a range of sounds, to produce a replica of your voice would require a lot more programming than I've had time for or will have time for before we get to Atlas."

The holographic emitter next to the computer stirred to life, and a hologram of Twilight appeared. Well, no, it was not quite Twilight Sparkle; it was… it was Twilight Sparkle as she sometimes wished she was, and not just because she wasn't wearing glasses: more confident-looking, with a stronger pose and better posture; more beautiful, too, with long straight hair falling down past her waist like the heroine of a romance comic.

Midnight, for it was she, said, "You did experiment with several different voice programs during my creation, and I still have them in storage. I could transfer them to the terminal, and Penny could pick one she likes."

"Well, when I did that-" Twilight began.

"What kind of programs?" Penny asked.

"You could sound like Applejack, whoo-ee!" Midnight declared, slipping smoothly out of her own voice and into Applejack's distinctive drawl. "Let's round-up them long-horn steers and then get the rest of the chores done. Or you could sound like Rarity, darling, oh, isn't that fabric just delightful?"

"Yes, thank you, Midnight!" Twilight squawked sharply. "I think Penny gets the idea." She laughed nervously. "I… I thought, when I was programming Midnight, that it might be nice if my wisdom and advice came from a friend. After all, my friends are all the best parts of me, so it made sense in my head if Midnight should sound like one of them. Still beside me, still giving me helpful hints on what to do. But, the more I thought about it, the more I worried that it would seem like, I don't know, seem disrespectful, or maybe like I was making fun of them. So I decided to go with something… like my voice, but with a mechanical filter on it so that it didn't sound like me."

"I see," Penny replied. She was quiet for a moment. "I'd kind of like to sound like Pyrrha, or maybe Sunset, but I don't want to seem rude or disrespectful either. I think I'll just stick with this." She paused for a moment. "How is Ruby?"

Twilight's brow furrowed. "It's… nobody's quite sure, Penny. She's still in the hospital; she hasn't woken up yet."

"But she's going to be okay, isn't she?"

Twilight hesitated. "I… we all hope so. Study of magic is… non-existent, but it seems that her powers shouldn't have any harmful side-effects, so on that basis… the odds aren't bad."

"That… that's good, isn't it?"

"Yes, Penny, that's good," Twilight replied. At least, I hope it is.

"And everyone else is okay, aren't they?"

"Well… the Breach was not without casualties," Twilight admitted, "but Pyrrha's fine, and Sunset and Jaune and Rainbow and Ciel, so I suppose, from that perspective: yes, everyone else is okay." She smiled. "You don't have to worry about anyone else."

"Do you think they'll come visit me?" Penny asked in that new and unfamiliar voice.

"If they do, they'll hear you like that."

"Pyrrha won't care," Penny declared. "She didn't care when she found out I was a robot; she won't care that I sound like this."

"Then I'll have Rainbow ask them to come," Twilight promised.

"Thank you," said Penny.

The door opened. It was locked, with a code to which only a few authorised personnel had access to, but it was still something of a surprise when General Ironwood walked in.

"General?" Twilight said.

"Salutations, sir," Penny greeted him with all the enthusiasm of which her temporary voice was capable. That wasn't much, but it was the thought that counted.

General Ironwood blinked as the door slid shut behind him. "Penny?"

"Yes, sir; Twilight fixed up a way that I can talk. It doesn't sound like me, but at least you can understand what I'm saying."

General Ironwood glanced at Twilight, who let out a nervous chuckle. "I'm afraid it's the best I could do at short notice, sir."

General Ironwood chuckled. "If Penny doesn't object, then who am I to object?" He walked around the workbench on which Penny lay, until he was standing on the other side of her from Twilight. He reached out and took her hand. "How do you feel, Penny?"

"I can't feel you holding my hand, sir," Penny said, "but don't let that stop you."

A smile crossed the General's face briefly. "Alright," he said, and his voice was so gentle that he might have been putting a young child to bed for the night. "I'm sorry, I just… old habit, I guess." Nevertheless, as Penny had requested, he did not let go of her hand. "But how do you feel?"

"I don't feel much," Penny admitted. "Except… kind of embarrassed. I'm sorry I let you down, sir."

"You haven't let me down, Penny," General Ironwood assured her. "I am the one who let you down, and I'm sorry for it."

"Sir?" Twilight and Penny said at once, and Twilight was sure that if Penny could have expressed her emotions normally, she would have sounded as disbelieving as Twilight did – as disbelieving as Twilight felt.

"I shouldn't have sent you into Mountain Glenn," General Ironwood declared. "I asked too much of you too soon. You were… created to do great things, and I believe you will, but the reason why I had you enrolled in school, the reason I want you in the Vytal tournament, the reason why you aren't already out on the battlefield is the fact that you still have so much to learn. You and Dash and Soleil… I should have thought less of your courage than of your inexperience. I didn't, and I placed too much on you before you were ready."

"But I still-"

"When a mother bird pushes her chicks to fly too soon, and they fall from the branch to the ground, where does the fault lie, Penny?" General Ironwood asked. "With the young chick whose wings simply haven't grown big enough, or with the mother who ought to know enough to realise that?"

Penny was silent for a moment. "Does this mean you're my mother, sir?"

General Ironwood chuckled. "It means I should have known better, Penny. Now, I'm sure that there are lessons that you can learn from what happened to you down in Mountain Glenn, and I want – I expect – for you to take those lessons to heart, but I don't want you to be discouraged or disheartened, I don't want you to think that this reflects on you in any way. Will you promise me that you won't do that?"

Penny took a moment to say, "I'll try my best, sir."

General Ironwood nodded. "You'll grow stronger, Penny. Remember that, and remember that you are not a failure. Remember it, and don't let anyone tell you different, not even your father. Especially not your father." He placed Penny's hand gently back on the workbench, and only then did he release it, rather than letting it fall to the surface with a thunk. He straightened up and looked Twilight in the eye. "I think that I owe you an apology as well, Twilight."

Twilight blinked rapidly. "What… what makes you think that, sir?"

The General's expression didn't alter. "How long have you felt… how long have you thought meanly of yourself?"

Twilight recognised the quotation to which the General was referring. "How did you know, sir?"

"I finally recognised it from the look in your eye when you asked to fly during the battle," General Ironwood said. "I probably should have done something about it after the incident in the tower, if not before. When did it start?"

Twilight hesitated for a moment. "On the train."

General Ironwood frowned momentarily. "You should have said something."

"You would have patted me on the head and told me not to worry about it, sir," Twilight said. "Like you're about to do now," she added.

General Ironwood did not, in fact, move to pat her on the head. In fact, he didn't do or say anything. He just stood there, looking at her, his blue eyes looking rather sad.

So much so that Twilight absurdly started to wonder if she ought to apologise.

"Twilight?" Penny asked. "What's the General talking about? Why do you… think meanly of yourself. Is that what you said, sir?"

"Yes, Penny, I did," General Ironwood replied. "An old quotation: Every one-"

"'Every one thinks meanly of themselves for not having been a soldier,'" Twilight said softly, cutting the General off.

"Twilight," Penny said. "Is that true? Do you?"

"Shouldn't I?" Twilight asked. "What have I done? Nothing!"

"You helped make me," Penny pointed out. "Or do I not count because I haven't done anything yet either?"

Twilight winced. "No, Penny, that's not what I-"

"If you thought about it for a moment, Twilight," General Ironwood said, "you've done more than any of us."

Twilight frowned. "Sir?"

"You uncovered Cinder's treachery," General Ironwood reminded her. "You uncovered the virus that she planted in the CCT; you brought back warning about the coming attack."

"But that… anyone could have done that last one, sir."

"Perhaps they could," General Ironwood allowed, "but how do you think the Breach might have gone if our androids had turned against us, or if, thanks to that virus, we'd lost communications, or targeting, or even control of our airships? How much worse might things have turned out if Cinder had continued to operate under our very noses? Vale was saved. For the loss of just six lives, Vale was saved, and I will take that, gladly. Vale was saved, and while many people took part in the saving, you deserve as much credit for it as anyone, and more than some. More than me."

Twilight scoffed. "You're just trying to make me feel better, sir; you-"

"Anyone could have organised that defence, once they knew what was coming," General Ironwood said. "Schnee, Rouge, Fitzjames, any competent major or colonel could have done what I did."

"And anyone with a certain level of expertise could have done what I did, sir," Twilight pointed out. "I didn't… I didn't-"

"Fight?" General Ironwood asked.

Twilight glanced down at her hands. "Yes, sir."

General Ironwood reached into the breast pocket of his coat. "I don't keep my sidearm loaded, but I do keep a clip handy just in case," he said, producing said clip. With his thumb, he flicked one bullet out into the palm of his ungloved hand. "You know what this is?"

"Of course I do, sir; it's a cartridge."

General Ironwood nodded. "One of millions produced in the factories of Atlas and Mantle every year, along with every gun to fire these cartridges, and every rocket, and every grenade, and every other weapon that we wield against our enemies. How many of the people who work in those factories, how many of the people who make the cartridges like this one ever see combat?"

Twilight folded her arms. "Few, if any; only those employees who just happen to be veterans."

"And yet, where would we be without them?" General Ironwood asked. He put the round back in the clip, and the clip back in his coat pocket. With his ungloved hand, he took off the glove that concealed the other, revealing the gleaming metal of his prosthetic. "This was made for me by the Polendina brothers," he reminded her, "neither of whom have ever served a day in uniform, and yet, they have served Atlas as well as any soldier; more in fact."

"You've made your point, sir," Twilight murmured. "A little heavy-handedly, but you've made it."

"And so will you," General Ironwood continued, as though she hadn't spoken. "Once you get your own lab next year."

"Huh?" Twilight felt as though she must have misheard the General.

"Placing you here was a misallocation of resources," General Ironwood said. "One that not only wasted your talent – albeit in a way that seems quite fortuitous now – but also damaged your morale. I'm afraid that it's too late to change the composition of Team Rosepetal before the Vytal Festival, but once the year is out, I'll make sure that you get your lab in the research division. You can choose a small team, one or two others - or you can work alone if you'd prefer - your own budget, your own projects. Civilian or military applications, just submit it to me, and I'll evaluate it upon its merits."

Twilight's eyes widened. What General Ironwood was offering was… well, it was what every researcher dreamed of. Independence, the chance to pursue their own ideas, the chance to lead their own team, the chance to prove yourself with results, the chance to see the fruit of your own mind turn into something solid, tangible, useful.

She thought about the paralysed young man. With her own lab, her ideas for a suit that could give him a measure of freedom once more need no longer remain sketches and draught notes.

It could be real. It could be real, and it could help.

It could help… so much more than her learning how to be proficient in weapons usage could.

"General," Twilight murmured. "Are you… are you serious about this?"

"I'm always serious, Twilight," General Ironwood replied, which, while not entirely true, was certainly belied by his present demeanour. "I'm sorry for not considering how putting you in this environment might make you feel, but I'm certain that once you get back to work, all of this will seem like a distant memory. Chaining you down in an academy was a mistake; you should be free to soar, as high as Atlas itself."

"I… I will," Twilight declared. "I promise, I won't let you down, sir."

XxXxX
​

Author's Note: Cover art by Seshirukun

 

[ScipioSmith]

After Action​

"You've been reading that thing almost non-stop since we got back from Mountain Glenn," Rainbow observed, and a glance across the dorm room showed that Ciel once again had her nose buried in the catechisms of the Lady of the North. Rainbow attempted a grin as she put the last of her neatly folded clothes into a hold-all. "The ending isn't going to change if you keep re-reading it."

Ciel looked up to deliver a rather withering glance out of her blue eyes, matching the frigidity of her tone. "I find the teachings of our Lady very comforting in times of trial."

Rainbow zipped up her hold-all and sat down on her bed. "Are we in a time of trial?"

"We are always in a time of trial," Ciel declared. She looked back down at her holy book. "For whenever there is light, there, too, shall ye find darkness; and evil shall walk the earth as long as thy descendants shall endure, and thou shalt never see the end of it."

"I guess she had a point about that," Rainbow muttered. She clasped her hands together. "Are you all packed and ready to move out?"

Ciel looked up at Rainbow Dash once more.

"It's my job to ask," Rainbow said.

"Is it also your assignment to underestimate me?"

"No," Rainbow said. "Just to ask."

Ciel sniffed. "All my gear is safely stowed."

"Except that book."

"Yes," Ciel admitted. "Except this book."

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. "I thought you knew it by heart."

"And I thought you were above inane conversation," Ciel replied.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. An indirect approach was not getting her very far. Okay then: straight at it, the Atlesian way. "It's got to you, hasn't it? What she said down there?"

"I have no idea what you-"

"Salem!" Rainbow yelled. "Down in Mountain Glenn. What she said, about the Lady in the North... about her dying at Salem's hands."

"At the hands of one of her servants," Ciel corrected her. "Some latter day Cinder Fall. God's intermediary upon the earth and the great enemy could not even be bothered to triumph over her in person, sending instead some cutthroat bitch to do the job."

Rainbow's eyebrows rose. "I don't think I've ever heard you swear before."

"You will not hear it again," Ciel said. "Forgive me, I am-"

"Rattled?"

"A little out of sorts," Ciel corrected.

Rainbow shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. Curse up a storm if you want to."

"No, thank you." Ciel murmured.

"I'm serious," Rainbow said. "Well, maybe not about the cursing, but about... Penny's not here right now; you can take your armour off."

"And what would that serve?"

"What good is pretending that it doesn't bother you when it does?" Rainbow asked. "I tried to pretend that the White Fang didn't scare me anymore, but the moment I found out about Blake, I lost it." She hesitated. "I don't want to see you lose it at the worst time, for your sake."

Ciel shut the book with an audible snap. "You speak of taking off my armour," she whispered, "but the truth is that Salem has shot a hole through my armour already. Duty is my shield, discipline my sword, but faith has always been my armour, but that faith... how can the Lady protect us when she could not protect herself? If God would not intervene on behalf of his beloved, his most faithful servant, then why should he protect any of us?" She shuddered. "When she spoke to me, I saw... I saw Atlas, and it was surrounded by dark clouds which moved as if they were alive. I saw the city burning and the Lady weeping upon her pedestal of stone. And above the clouds, I saw a golden light, and God in all his radiant majesty looking down upon our city... and he turned away, and the darkness consumed everything."

Rainbow crossed the distance between them, leaping over the intervening beds to kneel before Ciel and take her hands. "What she showed us is not prophecy," she said. "It doesn't have to come to pass, and it won't. We won't allow it."

"The two of us?" Ciel asked dubiously.

"All of us," Rainbow replied. "You, me, Applejack, Penny, Trixie, Starlight, Maud, Neon, Flint, everyone. Atlas will not fall while men defend it. What's that phrase, about four corners?"

"Come all four corners of the world in arms, and we will shock them," Ciel said. "We are a rather vain people, are we not?"

Rainbow grinned. "Confidence is sexy; it's why we're so popular."

Ciel snorted. Her face fell shortly after. "It feels less appropriate now than it did before."

"Because we've reached the end of vanity," Rainbow murmured.

"Even so," Ciel agreed, speaking softly. "If the Lady herself could not prevail, what chance do we have?"

Rainbow was silent for a moment. "Is it true?"

"I... I don't know," Ciel admitted. "I have been reading and re-reading, but... leaving aside the fact that the Lady never mentions Salem or our struggle except by opaque references that I am only now uncovering... it is a first-person account; obviously, it does not cover the circumstances of her death."

"What about her going to fight?" Rainbow asked.

Ciel shook her head. "No. Her last writings are concerned with harmonious relations amongst a community of believers and their relations with unbelievers. All that Salem said may be a pack of lies, but-"

"But you don't think she'd be that obvious," Rainbow said.

"Indeed," Ciel said quietly.

Rainbow got up. "Then I guess we'll just have to find out for ourselves, won't we?"

Ciel looked up at her. "'Find out for ourselves'?"

"Once Penny is better," Rainbow said. "We'll... research. Take a road trip to some holy sites. There has to be something somewhere, something to tell us what really happened."

Ciel frowned. "And if it really happened exactly as Salem said?"

"Then we'll find out what she died for," Rainbow declared. "Because I guarantee that it wasn't for nothing." She paused. "We can't kill Salem; we already knew that. The Lady probably knew it too. But we can stand between her and the people we care about, and I bet that if we look close enough, we'll find that's what the Lady did too."

Ciel was silent for a moment. "I hope you are correct," she murmured. "And I would gladly seek the truth with you, although I do not understand why you would seek it with me. It is not your faith."

"But it's yours, and you're on my team," Rainbow said. "And that means your problem is my problem."

"Then may the Lady guide our steps towards enlightenment," Ciel said. She smiled softly. "Thank you."

"All part of the service," Rainbow said. Her scroll buzzed. "Hold that thought," Rainbow said, as she answered it. "I've got to go," she announced. "The General wants to see me in his office, right now."

XxXxX​

Rainbow Dash came to attention and saluted. "Cadet Leader Dash reporting as ordered, sir."

"At ease, Dash," General Ironwood commanded, returning the salute from behind his desk aboard the flagship. "And tell me what this is."

Rainbow looked at the scroll that the General had just picked up off his desk. She doubted that General Ironwood would appreciate being told that it was his scroll, so she focused on what was currently on the scroll. "That... that's my report on the operation in Mountain Glenn, sir."

"That's what it appeared to be," General Ironwood replied calmly. "I had to ask, since it's like no other report that you've ever prepared for me."

Rainbow swallowed. "Sir, I understand that this may seem-"

General Ironwood held up one hand to forestall her. "You'll get your chance to defend your position on all counts, but for now why don't we start at the top? Why does this report read like you're describing a defeat?"

"Because the victory was yours, sir, not ours," Rainbow replied. "We failed to complete our initial mission objectives: to forestall the White Fang threat to Vale, to kill or capture Cinder Fall, and to report timely intelligence on enemy dispositions and objectives. And on top of that, Penny was badly injured. Vale was saved thanks to your efforts, sir, but Mountain Glenn itself, we messed up."

General Ironwood was silent for a moment. "You're right; Cinder did escape," he said. "What could you have done to make sure you got her?"

"I... I don't know, sir."

"Consider this your homework: I want a revised mission plan detailing how you could have proceeded so as to accomplish all of the mission objectives."

"With hindsight, sir, or just with what we knew going in?"

General Ironwood pondered that. "Both," he said. "As I say, you're correct that Cinder escaped and that Penny was wounded. However, the only reason that we – myself, Ozpin, and the Valish authorities – were able to mount an effective response to the Breach was due to timely intelligence on enemy objectives, wouldn't you agree?"

Rainbow frowned. "Feels like we cut it fine, sir."

"If you could have done better, write it down for me," General Ironwood instructed her. "As the Last King of Vale said after the Battle of Four Sovereigns, 'the only thing worse than a battle won is a battle lost.' But a battle lost is worse. I know that the outcome of this operation wasn't perfect, and I won't say that you didn't make mistakes, but being too hard on yourself won't help you to do better next time. Take heart, Dash; you can't learn from your intakes unless you can recognise your successes too. Like rescuing two Atlesian citizens from captivity."

"Yes, sir. About that, sir, did Professor Goodwitch-?"

"Had some words to say on the subject, yes," General Ironwood replied. "Harsh words. Harsher than I think you deserve in the circumstances."

"Sir?"

"Civis Atlarum Sum, Dash," General Ironwood reminded her. "Glynda isn't one of us, for all her sterling qualities, so she doesn't understand that rescuing the two of them became a top priority the moment you found out they were being held captive, not because they were your friends but because they are Atlesian citizens.

"We fight against Salem under Ozpin's colours, but we are still Atlesian soldiers with responsibilities to keep the people of Atlas safe from harm, first and foremost." The General paused. "That being said, going off on your own was reckless."

"I didn't want to spook him into changing his mind, sir."

"I can't condone lying to Professor Goodwitch either," General Ironwood said pointedly. "What's your opinion of the relationship between Cinder Fall and Sunset Shimmer?"

Rainbow hesitated, thrown off initially by what seemed like a sudden change of subject. A moment's thought, however, revealed to her why General Ironwood had chosen to ask this now. She thought about it for a little longer. "It's a little weird, sir, I admit, but I'm not worried."

"No?"

"No, sir," Rainbow repeated. "But, Sunset... Sunset knows who her real friends are; she wouldn't pick Cinder over her team, or mine. Cinder, though... I think she'd do stuff for Sunset that she wouldn't do for anyone else."

"So you think this may work to our advantage?" General Ironwood asked.

"We did get a hostage back without a fight, sir."

"Hmm," General Ironwood murmured. "I can't say that I like it, but you may have a point."

"Thank you, sir."

"Just," General Ironwood added, "as you may have a point about my asking you to volunteer for this mission."

Rainbow winced. "I didn't mean to imply that... I meant no disrespect, sir; I just think that a Specialist detail should have been assigned to this mission instead of two first-year teams." Rainbow hesitated, wondering if she was about to go too far. "A point I think I raised before the mission, sir."

"Yes," General Ironwood admitted. "And do you remember my answer?"

"You said that Professor Ozpin didn't trust our Specialists," Rainbow replied. "You also said it didn't matter why he didn't, just that he didn't." She paused. "I'm not sure it matters either; you should have fought for it anyway, sir."

"You're being very bold today, Dash," General Ironwood murmured.

"That's what you keep me around for, sir," Rainbow said. "And you said it yourself, sir: we may fight Salem under Ozpin, but we're still Atlesian soldiers, and that means that you..."

The General waited a moment. When Rainbow did not continue, she prompted, "Go on."

"I may not be the best student, sir, but I wasn't sleeping during combat school history class," Rainbow began. "I remember that the Mantle armies in the Great War never fully enforced the rules on self-expression during the war, I know the generals turned a blind eye when regiments kept their Colours and their marching songs, and I know that when the King ordered them to start executing every prisoner they captured, they refused to do that either. They told the King to get his ass down there and do it himself if he wanted it done. He didn't have the guts. The point is, sir, that the military has never been afraid to go its own way when it was in the right."

"And that," General Ironwood said, "is precisely why I couldn't defy Ozpin in this."

Rainbow frowned. "Sir."

General Ironwood got up, turning away from Rainbow and walking to the window, looking out over Vale and all the gallant ships who kept her safe.

"As you rightly recall," General Ironwood said, clasping his hands together behind his back, "the Atlesian forces have a certain historical reputation, dating back to before the Great War. Those who don't see us as emotionless robots see a force that is uncompromisingly obedient to its own officers... and almost beyond the control of anyone else. I have to say that my holding two seats on the Council only adds to that impression of unaccountability. There are many, even in Atlas, who fear that the military is outside the control of the civilian authority."

"We couldn't be the kingdom's conscience if we weren't independent, sir."

"The Kingdom's conscience, Dash; is that what you think we are?"

"I think we could be, sir, if there was a need."

"Some would say that we are more keepers than conscience," General Ironwood declared. "Some even in Ozpin's inner circle. I am not... universally well-liked amongst that group, or well-respected. There are those who don't think that I should be a part of this struggle. Those voices will only grow more vocal and, I fear, more influential with Ozpin, if I am seen to act overtly against him."

"Politics," Rainbow growled.

"It gets everywhere," the General agreed, as though it were a persistent mould. "But I can do more good on the inside than frozen out, even if it means I have to pull in my horns from time to time."

"And that's why Ozpin doesn't trust Specialists, isn't it?" Rainbow guessed. "Because he can't control them."

"That, and he's not a fan of armies in general," said Ironwood. "And he'd prefer it if my students didn't end up in one. Let alone his students." The General fell silent. With one hand, he tugged awkwardly at the tie around his neck. "Dash," he began, sounding as awkward as he suddenly looked, "I don't really know how to... how was it? How was she?"

Rainbow swallowed. "I suppose we have to talk about this, sir."

"You can hardly expect me to ignore it, Dash."

"No, sir," Rainbow murmured. "Have you ever met her?"

"No."

"Lucky you, sir."

General Ironwood frowned. "That bad?"

"Pretty bad, sir, yes," Rainbow admitted. "She... she got inside our heads somehow, it was like she knew our worst fears, knew exactly what to say to ... everyone took it pretty hard, sir."

The General winced. "I'm sorry for putting you in that position," he said. "You understand that you can't talk to a counsellor about this, or to your friends, but my door is open if you want to talk about it."

"Thank you, sir, but right now, I'm more worried about Ciel and Penny," Rainbow replied. It was a generous offer of the General to make, but compared to what Ciel and Penny had been hit with, her own visions felt rather trivial by comparison. Besides, it felt a little late for her, all things considered. "They both got hit pretty hard, and with Penny, it's combined with her injuries... I'm worried they've both been knocked sideways a little."

"So what are you going to do about it?" General Ironwood asked.

"Ciel... Salem got to her through her faith; I'm hoping to help her prove that either Salem was lying or at least not giving all the context. Hopefully, that will help. Penny... I haven't quite figured that out, sir, but I will."

General Ironwood nodded. "And Miss Belladonna?"

Rainbow frowned. "It wasn't Salem thet hit her hardest, sir, or at least, I don't think it was. It was the death of all the White Fang down in the tunnel. Thank you, sir, for releasing her from our service."

"I'm a man of my word, and Miss Belladonna has more than held up her end of the bargain. I'm a little surprised you pushed for it, though. I thought you wanted her to come to Atlas."

"I do, sir, but I want her to want it, and not because she's chained to it or because I keep pushing her that way. I was... I was using Blake as a crutch, putting all my hopes on her so I didn't have to improve. I won't be doing that any more, sir. I'll shape up, and Blake can make her own decision."

General Ironwood said, "I haven't noticed any particular areas in need of improving."

"That doesn't mean they aren't there, sir."

"No," General Ironwood allowed. "Alright then, I look forward to a change in you, Dash. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised for once. Although I am a little concerned about Miss Belladonna. Who's going to help her work through all this?"

"I... I'll make sure that Team Sapphire keeps an eye on her, sir; I'm sure they'll be happy to do it." Rainbow hesitated momentarily. "General... about Blake, but sort of not, do you ever worry that... do you ever worry that the White Fang have a point about us?"

"I can't say that I do," replied the General. "Unlike the White Fang, we don't attack civilian targets."

"No, sir, but we do leave people behind," Rainbow said. "We race ahead and the faunus – some of the faunus, anyway – get left in the dust. Or, I don't know, it's more of a feeling than a thought; I'm sorry to bother you with it, sir."

"Atlas isn't perfect, Dash; it can always be made better," General Ironwood reminded her. "And if you think you have a way to do that, then by all means, let the world know. But first, I want you to work up that revised mission plan."

"Yes, sir."

"That's all; dismissed."

After her meeting with the General, Rainbow returned to Beacon, and with all her packing done for their imminent departure, she sought out the library.

It was pretty empty, what with the semester having officially finished a few days ago. School was breaking up, some students were going home for the break before the tournament kicked off, and those that were sticking around at Beacon didn't have any assignments due. No one had any reason to haunt the libraries right now.

So it was a good thing that Rainbow wasn't looking for a student.

She found the man she was looking for coming out of one of the back rooms with a stack of books in his arms. He reversed out slowly, his back to Rainbow Dash.

"Yo, bookstore guy."

The big faunus put down the stack of books and turned to face Dash with a mildly baleful look in his dark eyes. "That's Mister Bookstore Guy to you, kid. Or you can just call me Tukson."

"Rainbow Dash," Rainbow introduced herself.

"Appropriate," Tukson observed. "So, you're Blake's handler."

"I'm Blake's friend," Rainbow corrected.

"As I understand it, she was running from you just before that mess at the docks."

Rainbow squirmed. "Yeah, well... a lot's happened since then."

"Yeah, I guess it has," Tukson admitted wistfully. He sighed. "I guess I should be thanking you. Now that the White Fang has been taken care of and Adam's dead, I can finally go back to my store."

"Will you?" Rainbow asked.

"Maybe," Tukson said. "This place, well, it really does have every book under the sun. Every book published in Vale, anyway. I feel as though I could spend a lifetime going through the stacks and still not find every hidden treasure here. But... it's my store. I created it, I built it up. Getting chased out of it was bad enough, but never going back? I don't know; that's not a step I could take lightly. Fortunately, it doesn't seem as though Professor Ozpin is in a rush to kick me out, so I still have time to consider it."

Rainbow folded her arms. "You said that you ought to thank me. I'm guessing that means that you don't actually want to thank me."

"A lot of faunus are dead, from what I understand," Tukson said. "I don't expect Vale to mourn their deaths, but I don't have to rejoice at them."

Rainbow didn't respond to that; it was a fair enough point, and not one that she wanted to discuss further. "Have you spoken to Blake lately?"

"No," Tukson replied. "Why? Is she okay?"

Not really, honestly, but if Blake hadn't sought out Tukson's counsel, then Rainbow wasn't going to share her state. Well, maybe she would, but not right now. "I'm not here to talk about Blake. I was hoping... I was hoping that we could talk about you."

"Me?" Tukson said. "Why do... why?"

"Because the only person I know who used to be in the White Fang is Blake, and the only person I know who is in the White Fang would be too busy crowing to tell me anything useful. Plus, I didn't give her my number," Rainbow added. "But I know you used to be in the Wjite Fang too."

"That was a while ago, kid, like I told the cops-"

"This isn't about intel," Rainbow assured him. "I just... I want to know why you joined the White Fang."

Tukson's eyes narrowed. "And why would you want to know that?"

"Because..." Rainbow bowed her head a little. "Do you think it's possible that things could improve enough that people wouldn't want to join the White Fang? And if so, wouldn't we need to know the reasons why if we wanted to stop them?"

Tukson took a few moments to respond. "Well, okay," he said heavily. "Why don't we both take a seat? It'll be easier that way."

They sat down at one of the many empty tables in the library, facing one another across the desk as though they were about to work on a term paper together.

Rainbow leaned forwards as she waited for Tukson to speak.

At last, he did so, although as he spoke, he would not meet Rainbow's eyes. "The first thing you have to bear in mind is that the White Fang I joined doesn't exist anymore," he said. "It got replaced by something different, which kept the name and not much else."

"But people still have the same reasons for joining, right?" Rainbow said. "I mean, I know that some of them are psychos, but not all of them."

"No," Tukson agreed. "Not all of them. That's why I can't help but feel sorry for all the ones who died down there in that tunnel: because they weren't all psychotic killers; in fact, I bet most of them were just people who, in a different life, could have been productive citizens."

"In another life?" Rainbow asked. "Or in a better world?"

Tukson said, "Whatever changes are made now, even if they were made today, it would still be too late to draw back some of those that are on the violent path. Reforms, however necessary, can't erase the memory of past injustices, insults, abuses. And for some, those memories will be too much to bear, too much to shrug off. For some, violence will be the only response still."

"Some," Rainbow said. "But not all? And besides, I'm more interested in whether we can break the chain for any new faunus. The fact that... my first friend has joined the White Fang. That... I don't know if I can say how that feels, but... what's done is done. If that's how she wants it, then fine. But if I can stop more Gildas from joining the White Fang, then... that's not bad, right?"

"Not bad at all," Tukson agreed. "If you can pull it off. There are a lot of reasons people join the White Fang."

"Such as?" Rainbow demanded. "Come on, what's your story?"

"I," Tukson began, then paused. "I was Sienna Khan's Teaching Assistant."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "You were what?"

"Sienna Khan's TA, at Mistral University," Tukson repeated. "I covered some of her classes, assisted in her research, and prepared my doctoral thesis on Ares Claudandus."

"The faunus general from the revolution, right?" Rainbow said.

Tukson nodded. "Impressive. Not many people remember the name."

"Yeah, well, I'm not many people," Rainbow said casually.

She thought it best not to mention that the plume of his hat was said to possess magical protective qualities. Although, with what she knew now, it might actually be true.

"Anyway, he was my field of study," Tukson said. "Sienna Khan was, and probably still is, the most accomplished scholar of the post-revolutionary period living. She's written a biography of Claudandus and was very generous with access to her research material, even as she encouraged me to challenge her interpretations in my thesis. Sienna had taken the same view as many at the time, that he sold out and set the stage for the humans to play divide and rule and reverse the outcome of the war. I planned to be more sympathetic. I think Ares was genuinely trying to build an egalitarian society where faunus and humans were equal, and if he sometimes seemed to be favouring the humans... that was pragmatism, not an abandonment of his ideals."

"I'm guessing things didn't work out that way," Rainbow said.

Tukson sighed. "The thing about studying the history of our people at that level is that it really brings home how much of it really sucks. Did you know that after the counter-revolution, the ex-slaves had to pay reparations? Mistral compensated the slave owners for the loss of their property following the Great War, and for twenty years, faunus were taxed higher than humans to pay that money back. What about reparations to the slaves and the descendants of the slaves to compensate them for the hundreds of years of unpaid labour that was forced out of them under threats of violence and death? And it became so easy to connect those historic injustices to present day problems of low income, low home ownership, tenuous employment. Not that anyone wanted to hear about those connections. What Sienna was teaching didn't fit the narrative of glorious Mistral, ancient and honourable. She was warned by the faculty about inserting too much polemic into her writing, campaigners alleged that she was teaching human students to hate themselves and their race, the Council brought in laws restricting how faunus history could be taught-"

"And was she?" Rainbow asked.

"Was she what?"

"Was she teaching the human students to hate themselves?" Rainbow explained. "I mean, we are talking about Sienna Khan."

"She wasn't the same person then, and no," Tukson insisted. "She was just trying to open their eyes to the truth. But people didn't want to hear the truth; they just wanted us to be grateful that things were better than they had been in the past, as though we should be grateful that we weren't slaves any more. Sienna decided that she couldn't be complicit in that any more, she couldn't record the problems of the past while ignoring the problems of the present. And I went with her. I wasn't going to stay on at the university without her.

"Sienna Khan was welcomed into the high echelons of the White Fang immediately. The Belladonnas were trying to restore the movement after it had atrophied years before, and they were grateful for the support of a heavyweight intellectual with a public profile. That's how I met Blake's parents: Sienna was good enough to keep me by her side for a while." Tukson stopped. "That doesn't really help, does it?"

"It's... kind of specific," Rainbow said.

"I probably should have warned you about that," Tukson conceded. "And even some of the problems I mentioned are more specific to Mistral than Atlas, but... wait here a second; I might have something that will help you more."

He got up and disappeared into the back, leaving Rainbow to sit drumming her fingers on the table as she waited.

Although it didn't help, if what Tukson said about the history lessons was true, it was kind of worrying. Was there stuff she didn't know not because she hadn't been paying attention but because no one was supposed to know? Had things been changed, made to seem different than they really were? Surely not; Atlas was not Mistral; they didn't need to massage their history as a salve to their national ego because the future belonged to them, and they were racing towards it. But, if it was happening, how would she know? Would anyone know, even Twilight?

Blake would know, if anyone did, but Rainbow was loath to bring it up to her, partly because she had enough going on and partly because she... Well, kind of like those Mistralians who had campaigned against Sienna Khan, Rainbow didn't want to damage Blake's perception of Atlas.

Damaging her own perception was bad enough.

Tukson returned and set down in front of Rainbow Dash a book with a faded cover depicting a lion faunus mounted upon a white horse. The faunus wore a blue jacket and a bright red cape that streamed out behind him as his galloping mount bore him along. In his hat was set an enormous white plume, bent back by the air resistance.

The book was titled: A Very God of War: A Life of Ares Claudandus.

It was by Sienna Khan.

Rainbow looked up at Tukson incredulously.

"Like I said, no one's bettered her scholarship since," Tukson explained, "and if you really want to build an equal society, then you could do a lot worse than read about the last guy who tried."

Rainbow reached out gingerly, as though even touching a book written by Sienna Khan would infect her with White Fang-ness. Her fingers brushed against the faded cover. Nothing happened; she didn't feel anything except, well, a book cover.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to take this? I'm going back to Atlas-"

"Don't worry, that's not a library book; that's my own copy," Tukson explained. "Call it a thank you, for all that you've done for Blake."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Take a Trip​

Blake's eyebrows rose. "You... you gave her Sienna Khan's Life of Ares Claudandus?"

"Yeah," Tukson said, as though he couldn't see the problem – probably because he couldn't. "I thought she might get something out of it."

"It's Ares Claudandus!" Blake exclaimed. "Yes, it's unfair that the historical narrative has erased faunus actors from our own revolution, and yes, his generalship deserves to be remembered admiringly, but... this is a man who ruled Mistral in all but name for eighteen months, and in that time, he made divorce illegal, ordered that in the last resort, struggling marriages were to be referred to him so he could decide how best to motivate the couple... in Ares' Mistral, I would have been sent back to Adam and told it was my fault for not trying hard enough to make him happy."

"That's Sienna's interpretation," Tukson replied.

"And it's Sienna's book; what other interpretation is going to be in there?" Blake demanded.

Tukson said, "You don't think-"

"No, I don't think Rainbow Dash is going to become a creep obsessed with other people's sex lives," Blake admitted. "But leaving aside whether she might be as put off by all of that as I was... do you really think it was a good idea to expose an Atlesian to the ideas of a man who held that the people existed to serve the good of the state, not the other way around?"

"The community," Tukson corrected her. "Not the state."

"Whose community was being served when Claudandus decided to reinstate plantation slavery?" Blake asked.

"Is it still slavery when the workers were to receive ten percent of the harvest?" Tukson replied.

"Is it freedom when overseers had the right to beat the workers with clubs and the field hands were legally prohibited from leaving?" Blake shot back.

"Contrary to Sienna's view, I never thought that was Claudandus selling out to the great families," Tukson said. "I think it was a pragmatic decision to get the economy back on track after years of war."

"You could excuse the SDC and all of its abuses on those grounds," Blake argued. "'Yes, it's labour practices are criminally abusive, but the economy!'"

Tukson was silent for a moment. "I suppose you have a point there, and I won't say that the man was perfect, but he had a sincere vision of how to bring humans and faunus together in harmony, and I thought it would do your friend good to be exposed to that. Too many people don't realise that the incarnations of the White Fang aren't the only path to equal standing the faunus have pursued."

"That's true," Blake allowed. "Although that might be a testament to how unsuccessful the others were. I just... I wish I could say for sure what Rainbow would take from it. If I was going to be around to correct any... misconceptions that she might get then... but I won't. Rainbow's team is returning to Atlas for a while before the tournament, but I won't be going with them. I thought about visiting Atlas myself, but... I'm not wanted there anymore."

"Is that what they told you?"

"Rainbow told me my services weren't required anymore."

"I can believe they're not," Tukson said. "I mean the White Fang..."

Blake bowed her head. The two of them were sat outside, on one of the verandas that overlooked the city of Vale. Above the highest towers, the great shops of the Atlesian fleet prowled the skies, symbols of the immense power that had, for a brief season, been her master... and now had cast her off, redundant.

She felt Tukson put his arm around her shoulders. "How are you doing, with all of this?"

Blake closed her eyes. "He let Fluttershy go," she whispered.

"Who?"

"Fluttershy," Blake repeated. "A friend of Rainbow Dash; she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Adam caught her. Except he let her go. He showed... kindness, to her. He released her, for no gain and no reason.

"A part of me would like nothing more than to say that Adam was too far gone, that he couldn't be reasoned with, that he had to be stopped, and a part of believes it, but... but then I remember that he let Fluttershy go... and I'm not sure that I can believe it any more.

"And then... everyone else down there, all those faunus... I know that they were willing to put Vale at risk, but-"

"But that doesn't mean you don't regret it," Tukson murmured.

Blake glanced at him. "There was nothing I could do, there were so many grimm, and we needed to-"

"I'm not blaming you," Tukson assured her. "I don't have the right; no one does." He paused. "I wish that I knew what to say to make it all better, but... but I don't know if there are any words to make it better."

"Probably not," Blake whispered.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," Blake said softly.

Tukson squeezed her shoulder. "Can I ask you to do one thing for me?"

"What?"

"Don't forget that you're not alone," Tukson implored her. "You've got people here who care about you, Blake. Remember that."

XxXxX​

Blake stepped silently into General Ironwood's office aboard ship and then waited, in equal silence, for him to speak.

"Thank you for coming, Miss Belladonna," General Ironwood said, rising courteously to his feet as the door closed behind Blake. "I'm sorry about the short notice of my invitation, I realised that I didn't know if you had any plans for the break, and I didn't want to miss you."

"It's fine, sir; I wasn't busy," Blake said, not feeling the need to explain to him that she wasn't planning to be busy for the near future either. "I was a little surprised that you wanted to see me, however."

"Really?" General Ironwood asked.

"Yes, sir," Blake replied quietly. "I thought you were done with me."

General Ironwood frowned ever so slightly. "You don't sound overjoyed by the fact."

"Was I supposed to be?" Blake demanded. "Is that all the impression that any of you have formed of me over the past semester, that I'd be glad to be out? That I'd be delighted to be stuck on the sidelines doing what, nothing?"

"Miss Belladonna-" General Ironwood began.

Blake ploughed on as though he hadn't spoken. "All the missions I've been on, with all the different people, and that's who you all think I am? All the time I've spent with-"

"Miss Belladonna, it's going to be hard for me to defend myself if you don't let me get a word in edgeways," General Ironwood said in a tone of gentle reproof, seasoned lightly with a touch of amusement.

Blake felt her cheeks heat up a little. "Sorry, sir, I just... I've always had a hard time keeping my opinions to myself."

"I understand," said the General. "What I'm not sure you understand is what's going on. You're not being put out to pasture, by any means. But, we had an agreement: you would assist my forces when necessary to deal with the White Fang threat to Vale, and in exchange, we would keep you out of jail. The White Fang threat to Vale has ended."

"But there's so much more going on now, sir," Blake insisted. "Or at least, I know so much more about what's really going on. With so many forces at your command, I can see why you might think that you don't need me, but I swear, I can be useful to you."

"Is that what you want?" General Ironwood asked. "You want to be useful?"

"I want to play my part, sir," Blake replied. "Yes, I want to be useful. Knowing what I know now, I can't just turn away, or stand back and let other people handle it. General, how much do you know about what happened under Mountain Glenn?"

"Dash submitted her report," General Ironwood replied. "She told me everything."

"Then you know that a lot of faunus died in that tunnel," Blake said. "The White Fang wasn't created by Salem, she didn't even turn it into what it is today, but she got her hooks into it, and she used it, and she caused the deaths of hundreds of people. If I can prevent that from happening again, if I can do anything at all to prevent the spread of her influence that brings about so much death and misery, then I want to do it."

The corners of General Ironwood's lips twitched upwards in a smile. "You could be making this pitch to Ozpin instead of me."

"It wasn't Professor Ozpin who put his faith in me, sir," Blake said. "You did. And if it had been up to Professor Ozpin alone, I don't think I ever would have found out about Salem or the rest. And it isn't Professor Ozpin whose forces I've been assisting all semester. I've spent more time with the Atlas forces than I have with any Beacon team, even my own... either of my own. That's why it hurt when you cut me loose-"

"Can I ask what it is that Dash said to you that made you think this was such a dramatic severing of ties between us?" General Ironwood asked.

Blake frowned. "Her exact words were, 'You're free,' sir."

"Well, you're no longer at my beck and call, or that of Atlas. In that sense, if you wanted nothing more to do with us, then you could walk away, and I would have neither power nor will to stop you."

"But I-"

"But I didn't intend, nor do I think Dash meant to imply, that we wanted nothing more to do with you," General Ironwood said, cutting Blake off before she could build up another head of steam. "If Dash implied otherwise... from what she's told me, she feels that she's been putting a lot of pressure on you, and she regrets it."

"I don't think that she has anything to regret, sir; Rainbow was never anything less than honest about what she wanted from me and why she wanted it. That's part of the reason why this sudden turnaround was so, well, sudden. It's one of the reasons I thought we must be about to part ways."

"Perhaps you ought to tell her that yourself, it might prevent future misunderstandings," General Ironwood suggested gently. "For my part... you've been on several missions with my people now; how have you found it?"

"Your students are... very characterful, sir," Blake said.

General Ironwood chuckled. "They are indeed. I'm sure that every headmaster loves their students – at least, I hope they do – but these kids... Miss Belladonna, why do you think that in Atlas, we push so hard to get graduates to move onto the Specialist track inside the military?"

"I think you're about to tell me, sir."

General Ironwood paused. "Oz told me once that being a headmaster is the best job in Remnant, and the worst. The best because you get to watch these brilliant kids, these impossibly brave young men and women, walk through your halls, and you get to help them become the best versions of themselves possible. And it's also the worst because, after four years of knowing them, guiding them, nurturing them... you have to kick them out to let them risk death on a daily basis facing unimaginable horrors. There are many tactical advantages to having a Corps of Specialists in the military, but I must confess that part of it is... I don't have it in me to just cut these kids loose. This way, I can keep an eye on them, and I can keep giving them the support they need, as best I can." Once more, he paused. "Oz says that I can't protect them forever, and that's true. I've lost good kids... I've lost so many. But even if I can't protect them, I'd like to be able to say that I tried."

Blake blinked. She felt the absurd urge to go over to the General and give him a hug. The fact that she doubted he would appreciate it if she did was only one of the reasons why she refrained. "Sir, I don't need protection-"

General Ironwood's voice was tinged with bitterness as he said. "Then it's a good job that I haven't protected you, isn't it? I owe you an apology, Miss Belladonna; regardless of your desire to be in the thick of things, I shouldn't have sent you or Team Rosepetal into Mountain Glenn; I shouldn't have sent anyone in without laying on more support than I did. As Dash reminded me, it's my job to do what's right for my people, regardless of the opinions of others. What you encountered down there, what happened to you, it would tax a far more experienced huntsman. The fact that you're eager to throw yourself back into the fray afterwards... it either says something very good or very bad about you."

Blake frowned slightly. "Which do you think it is, sir?"

"I'm not entirely sure, yet," General Ironwood admitted. "After all of this and your upset when you thought that our working relationship was coming to an end, I take it that working with my people wasn't unpleasant for you?"

"No, sir, quite the opposite. Or at least, the unpleasantness didn't come from your people."

"I'm glad to hear it," General Ironwood said. "Just as you'll be glad to hear that everyone who has worked with you has sung your praises. However, both Dash and Lulamoon noted with concern what they described as a courage verging on disregard for your own safety."

"Shouldn't a good huntress be willing to sacrifice themselves to protect others?"

"Willing, yes, but not eager," General Ironwood informed her. "You can only die once, Miss Belladonna, and you can often save more lives by using your head than by using your body as a breastwork." The General turned away, leaning on his desk with both hands. "I once had the... the pleasure of teaching a very gifted student: talented, intelligent, diligent, popular with everyone who knew him. But, although he was an Atlesian, his ancestry derived from Mistral, from a warrior family old in honour, and his head rang with those ideals: chivalry, honour, personal heroism. This student was at a training camp, when they came under sudden and severe grimm attack. He, along with some other brave students, volunteered to assist the instructors in covering the evacuation of the rest of the student body. However, even when the rest of the camp had been evacuated and the order to pull out was given, he refused to abandon his post. Turning your back on the enemy is not, it seems, what a hero does. I sent a team to get him out of there, to drag him out if they had to... but they were too late.

"It comforted his sister to know that he had died a hero, bravely and with honour, a true heir to the traditions of their clan," Ironwood went on, bitterness ringing in his words. "But how much more might such a gifted student have accomplished by living to fight on, than by dying for the sake of his personal dignity?"

The General turned to face her once more. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bore you with my personal recollections."

"It's fine, sir," Blake said. "I... I'm sorry about your student."

"What's done is done," General Ironwood replied. "But thank you for your condolences." He took a deep breath. "You're no longer bound to the service of Atlas, but that doesn't mean that I can't find a place for you with us, if you wish me to. We can always use people of your calibre. Is that what you want?"

Blake hesitated. "I... I think so, sir. Sir, do you know Ares Claudandus?"

"The revolutionary?"

"Yes, sir," Blake acknowledged. "I don't think highly of every value he held or decision he made, but in the period between his victory and the betrayal by his lieutenants, he planned to maintain his army, a faunus army, as a force both to protect the Kingdom of Mistral and to maintain order within it. He hoped that the faunus would trust faunus soldiers as they did not trust mostly human huntsmen. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe if there were more faunus in your army, people would start to see that as normal instead of selling out, and maybe they'd start to trust your troops instead of the White Fang."

General Ironwood nodded. "You think the military can bring about social change?"

"You said yourself that it was a great engine, sir," Blake reminded him. "Sir, if I had to come up with just one word to describe your people, it would be... it would be hard, I admit, and open to challenge, but the word I'd choose would be 'righteous.' Everyone is trying to do the right thing. That's what I want to do as well, sir. As I see it, I can do everything that a huntress could, and a lot more that they couldn't."

"But you're not a hundred percent certain?"

Blake shook her head. "It feels... unfair on Team Iron, and there's a part of me that feels that if the battle against Salem remains in Vale, then it would be almost desertion to leave Team Sapphire to it and run away to Atlas."

General Ironwood nodded. "Then take the break to think it over. Get some rest, Belladonna; there'll be plenty of battles to fight without going out of your way to seek them out."

"Yes sir, I... I'll try, sir."

XxXxX​

Blake decided to take General Ironwood's advice and speak to Rainbow Dash about precisely what the Atlesian girl had meant to convey versus what she had, in fact, conveyed to Blake.

As she approached the RSPT dorm – she was fortunate they hadn't transferred to their ship yet – she could hear voices coming from within, muffled by the door so she couldn't make out what they were saying. Nevertheless, despite the risk that she would be interrupting something, Blake pressed on. Although General Ironwood had put her more, well, general fears to bed, she wanted to clear the air over the more specific fears she had with Rainbow Dash.

General Ironwood, it seemed, did not want her gone. He simply didn't want to possess her either, but was content to let her come to him, if she so wished.

If she so wished. She did wish it, having admitted the fact to General Ironwood made it easier to admit it to herself; she did wish it, and the reasons why she might not or ought not do it were becoming few and far between.

She wished it, and until very recently, it had seemed that Rainbow Dash wished it too, and ardently so. Blake hoped that that was still the case, and she wanted to make sure, even if it did mean interrupting something.

Blake approached the door and knocked on it.

Her knocking did nothing, as far as she could tell, to stem the flow of conversation within. As the door opened, Blake could finally tell what was being said.

"All I'm saying is, you can be a little insensitive sometimes," Fluttershy said, in a tone whose softness did not quite manage to make the words spoken or sentiments expressed seem soft.

Rainbow made a sound like she was choking on her indignation. "I am not insensitive! I am... hyper-sensitive!"

"Hey, Blake!" Twilight, who had opened the door, said rather more loudly than necessary. "Everyone, look; it's Blake!"

Now, the conversation stilled, leaving no doubt whatsoever in Blake's mind that they had been talking about her.

Fluttershy was worried that Rainbow had been insensitive when talking to Blake? Well, if she'd been wrong, Blake wouldn't have been here.

Twilight stepped back, allowing Blake inside. Twilight's right hand glowed momentarily lavender as she closed the door with her telekinesis.

In the room, besides Twilight and now Blake, were Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Fluttershy.

Blake didn't look at Fluttershy. She couldn't bring herself to... she didn't want to be reminded of... looking at Fluttershy, thinking about Fluttershy, would lead to thinking about Adam too. It was unfair on Fluttershy, perhaps, but there it was. And Blake didn't want to think about Adam right now, which meant that she didn't want to think about Fluttershy either.

So she ignored her and hoped that it wasn't too obvious.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," she said softly.

"It's fine, sugarcube," replied Applejack. "We was just..." She trailed off without explaining what exactly they had been just, as though Blake couldn't have guessed already.

Rainbow thrust her hands into her pockets. "Blake, hey," she said. "How... how's Ruby doing, do you know?"

"No change, last I heard," murmured Blake. "I asked Sunset to keep me posted."

"Right, and I'm sure she'll let me know too," Rainbow said. She glanced away. "I spoke to your friend Tukson."

"I know," Blake replied. "I've spoken to him as well. Don't... that book is... Ares Claudandus had many admirable qualities, and some that were... not nearly so admirable. You should keep that in mind before you take him for a role model or assume too much about the person who recommended that you take him as a role model."

"Thanks," Rainbow said. "Will do."

Blake was silent for a moment, hoping that Rainbow would make the first move.

Rainbow, for her part, did not oblige.

"I... spoke to General Ironwood-" Blake began.

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" Twilight exclaimed. "Rainbow Dash, will you just tell her?"

"I don't know how!" Rainbow snapped. "It's not that easy!"

Blake resisted the temptation to fold her arms. "Tell me what?"

"I don't know how to tell you that I want you to come to Atlas without telling you that I want you to come to Atlas!" Rainbow shouted.

There was a moment of silence, broken by Applejack stifling a snort.

"You see?" Rainbow cried. "That's why I didn't say it; it sounds stupid."

"What you said at the hospital sounded worse," Blake pointed out. "I thought you were trying to get rid of me."

"Why would you think that?" Rainbow asked in disbelief.

"Because you sounded like you were trying to get rid of me!" Blake snapped.

"That wasn't... I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to... if you really got that from what I said, then... I only meant-"

"As I told you, I've spoken to General Ironwood," Blake said. "Rainbow, you've got nothing to feel guilty about on the way you've acted towards me."

"Don't I?" Rainbow asked. "I put you up on a pedestal, perfect Princess Blake who was going to make everything better in Atlas, and the worst part is that I did it to excuse my own issues. I didn't have to worry about improving myself to help make Atlas an even better place, because I was going to make Atlas better by giving it you. Even after Sunset made me realise what I was doing, I still pushed you to make a choice I wanted."

"I-" Blake began.

Rainbow held up a hand. "Don't stop me now, or I might not be able to start again. I... I don't have the right to tell you to come to Atlas, or to make you come to Atlas, or to... only, I've so much of that that I don't think I can say how I feel because it will sound as if I'm still pushing you just like I always did."

"I... I see," Blake murmured. "Rainbow Dash, whatever you may think of what you did and said, I always understood what you meant. I'm not an idiot or a naive girl who can be taken in by a sales pitch. I heard you, and I understood you, and I watched and I kept my eyes and ears open for the truth, and the truth is... Well, that doesn't really matter; what matters is that the only time I didn't understand you was at the hospital, where I heard you telling me that I wasn't wanted or needed any more."

"That's not what I-"

"Now let me finish," Blake said. "I thought that you were throwing me away at the moment when I had given... everything for you, and that hurt. And I know you didn't mean it, but it still hurt. But it's okay, because now... now we understand each other again, I hope, and you can tell me how you feel without feeling as if you're doing anything else."

Rainbow looked at her. When she spoke, her voice was hoarse. "If you came to Atlas, I'd be delighted," she croaked. "You're the best huntress I've ever worked with – no offence, Applejack."

"None taken," Applejack said genially.

Rainbow went on, "You're brave and determined, and you never give up, and we'd be as lucky to have someone like you as you'd be lucky to have somewhere like Atlas. Maybe luckier." She coughed. "But, it's up to you, totally your decision, nothing I can say or do, nothing that I want to say or do."

"That's right," Blake said. "It is my decision. And a decision that I've almost made. I haven't made it yet, but I'm getting there."

"Good," Rainbow said. "That's... good."

Blake admired her restraint in not prying into what that decision might be.

Twilight sighed. "Is that it? Are you good now?"

"I... think so?" Rainbow ventured.

Blake nodded. "We're good. And I'm glad, because... because the last thing I wanted was... I would never have guessed when I met you that meeting you would turn out to be one of the best things that could have happened to me, but... but it was." Blake hesitated. "But now... now I should probably-"

"Blake," Fluttershy said.

Blake froze. She still didn't look at Fluttershy. She didn't want to look at Fluttershy. She couldn't look at Fluttershy; if she did-

"Blake," Fluttershy repeated. "I'm so sorry about Adam. I know that I didn't know him very long, but-"

"Stop," Blake whispered. "Please stop."

"Blake," Fluttershy said. "Won't you look at me?"

Blake didn't want to look, and yet, she felt herself drawn that way, her eyes and her whole body compelled until she was looking at Fluttershy.

"It's okay for you to be sad," Fluttershy said. "You don't have to pretend that you don't care."

Blake stood still for a moment, and then, the next thing she knew, there were tears running down her face, as many tears as faunus had died under Mountain Glenn, tears for a sweet brave boy named Adam, for the cruel and spiteful man he had become... and for the glimpse of the boy who had let Fluttershy go before the end.

She staggered forwards and into Fluttershy's embrace. Soft lilac hair covered Blake's face like a towel to dry her tears.

"I loved him," Blake sobbed.

"It's okay," said Fluttershy.

"He was dangerous and relentless, and he had to be stopped, but I loved him."

"And you don't have to be ashamed of that," Fluttershy told her. "Not here, not with us."

Blake let out another sob. "I'm glad that... I was glad that none of you asked me how I was doing, because the truth is... the truth is, I don't feel okay right now."

"No," Applejack murmured. "No, Ah can't say Ah'm surprised to hear it."

"That's why Applejack, Twilight, and I want you to come to Atlas with us," Fluutershy said.

Blake blinked. "'Come to Atlas'? You mean now?"

"Some of us," Fluttershy said, "don't think you should be alone right now."

"I wasn't going to just leave her alone; I was gonna make sure that Team Sapphire were there for her!" Rainbow exclaimed indignantly.

"But it sounds as though they've got their hands full with Ruby," Fluttershy said.

"There's her own... there's the team that she's technically on," Rainbow said.

"You said you didn't know them well enough to be sure they'd take care of Blake," Fluttershy said.

"Well, I don't, but-"

"Give it up, partner," Applejack advised.

Rainbow sighed. "Yeah, you're right; I don't know why I bother arguing."

"Neither do we," Twilight muttered.

Blake considered. Going to Atlas – the city, not the school? It wasn't as though she hadn't thought about it. She had thought very seriously about it, as a matter of fact, and at one time had planned to do just that this break. Now, though? Just because the White Fang had been beaten didn't mean that Cinder was, or Salem, and as much as General Ironwood had told her to take a break, did she really want to go to Atlas and leave SAPR to take the strain if anything came up?

"I... I'm not sure that's a good idea," she murmured.

"I'm sure no one will mind," Fluttershy said. "No one could object to you taking care of yourself, or being taken care of."

"But there might be things that need to be taken care of-"

"And I'm sure there are plenty of other people who can take care of them while you take care of you," Fluttershy replied. "And after all, things look set to calm down for a while, don't they, Rainbow Dash?"

"Yep," Rainbow said. "It will take a while for our enemies to recover from this. Even if they plan to come at us again, they'll have to prep from scratch, and that will take time."

"A perfect time to recuperate and recover your strength," Fluttershy added.

"I've done practically no preparation with my team for the tournament-"

"I'm sure your teammates would agree that your wellbeing is more important than some silly tournament," Fluttershy said, her tone sweet and soft and infuriatingly reasonable. "And if they didn't, their opinions wouldn't be worth caring about."

"Plus, I highly doubt you really care about the tournament," Twilight added. "It was just the last excuse you could come up with."

Blake pushed some of Fluttershy's hair out of her face so that she could look at the other girl. "There's nothing I can say, is there?"

Fluttershy smiled. "Let us take care of you, Blake."

"Fluttershy always wins," Rainbow murmured.

"Why?" Blake asked. "Why does it matter to you? Why do I matter to you?"

"Why?" Fluttershy repeated. "Didn't you realise? You're one of us now, Blake."

Applejack grinned. "And we always look after our own."

"One of... you?" Blake murmured. She could have argued, she could have questioned, she could have done any number of things, but really, what round be the point? Why would she want to?

When it felt so warm in Fluttershy's arms, why would she want to pull away?

Wasn't this what she'd been looking for, to belong to something?

She closed her eyes and leaned into Fluttershy's embrace. "Thank you."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Farewell and Adieu​

"You know, it's kind of funny," Flash said as they sat in the lounge waiting for their airship to start boarding. "I expected that, when I told you I was going home for a visit, that I'd have a fight on my hands."

Weiss raised one arched eyebrow as she looked at him. "Really? And why might that be?"

The two of them were sat in the departure lounge of the Vale Heatherfield Skydock. The chairs on which they sat were royal blue, well padded but not particularly comfortable for all of that, while the carpet beneath their feet was a paler shade and quite well-worn. The lounge was just under half full, with many empty seats including, fortunately, around Weiss and Flash. One wall was made up entirely of windows, showing the gigantic skyliners as they waited for takeoff on the concrete outside, while the others were painted in a plain, slightly off-white. A stall selling coffee, cakes, and sandwiches stood before the east wall, while a couple of vending machines, one selling drinks and one selling sweets, sat against the north.

Flash raised one hand preemptively. "I'm not saying that you're a tyrant or anything-"

"I'm glad to hear it," Weiss said. "I don't think I've exhibited any tyrannical tendencies in my entire time as team leader."

"You haven't," Flash assured. "You've been a great team leader."

"Let's not overcompensate for one falsehood with another, shall we?" Weiss asked. "The fact is that, if I had been a little more tyrannical at times, I might have been a better team leader."

"You think?"

"I allowed Cardin a lot of leeway, and look what he did with it," Weiss pointed out.

"That wasn't your fault."

"I'm the team leader," Weiss said. "Everything is my fault. But you were expecting me to row with you for some reason?"

"Well, it's just that the Vytal Festival is almost here," Flash reminded her. "Actually almost here, not 'almost here' the way the professors have been telling us that it's 'almost here' practically since we arrived. It's almost here, and this is probably our last chance to get in some training to make sure that we get selected to compete… only, thanks to me, we're going to miss that chance."

A chance we need more than some other teams, you mean, Weiss thought. "Because of us," she corrected him.

"Yeah," Flash murmured. "That's what surprised me. I thought you'd want to stay here and get ready for the tournament."

Weiss hesitated, because of course, the truth was that was exactly what she'd rather be doing. Flash was right about that, and about the fact that this was their last chance to get in any practice as a team before the tournament selections were made, and that Team WWSR needed the practice more than some other teams. Team SAPR were a man down at the moment, with Ruby in hospital, but even if she didn't wake up until right before the Last Shot, Weiss had little doubt that, between the semblances of Sunset and Jaune, and Pyrrha's all round skill, they would still impress Professor Ozpin enough to get selected for the tournament. It was Pyrrha Nikos, for crying out loud; if she weren't selected, then Mistral would probably declare war on Vale or something.

Team WWSR had no such assurance. They had not impressed particularly during the year – well, not at first; Weiss had some hope that their good service with the police and their glowing reports from Lieutenant Martinez might have clawed them back some of the respect of the faculty – and so, for them, the Last Shot might really be their last chance at impressing Professor Ozpin.

Unless Professor Ozpin was so moved by the name of Schnee and the fear of offending her father that he always meant to put her through to the tournament regardless.

But he had never given her that impression in any of her meetings with him. And besides, she wasn't sure if she'd really want that.

No. No, she was sure. She was sure that she did not want that. She was the heiress to the Schnee name and company, but she was not her father. She didn't intend to have everything in her life handed to her. She would take it for herself, just like her grandfather had.

Or she would try, which would be much harder in the case of Vytal Festival glory if they were not selected because they had no time to practice as a team.

She could say that she wasn't that interested in the Vytal Festival, but while she certainly didn't consider it to be the be-all and end-all – she had come to Beacon to learn how to be a huntress, not a Mistralian tournament fighter – the fact remained that she did want to represent herself in the Amity Colosseum, if only to set herself apart from her father on the world stage and show Remnant that she was a different kind of Schnee.

And besides, she had made no secret of the fact that she had Vytal ambitions in front of Flash, Cardin, and Russel when they had collectively resolved to get their acts together. She could hardly pretend that she had been lying.

Nor did she feel that she had to. Flash was her teammate, her friend, someone who, if he were not her teammate – and were she not the leader of Team WWSR – she might have considered as something more than a friend. She could tell him the truth; she could trust him with the truth. It wasn't as though he would use it against her.

"I'm not… I'm not going home because I want to," she admitted. "I'm going home because…" She hesitated. Saying that she had no choice in the matter sounded rather melodramatic, even in her head. "I'm going home because I promised that I would."

"'Promised'?" Flash asked, his eyes narrowing a little. "Promised who?"

"My father," Weiss replied. "Do you remember that spot of trouble that Cardin got himself into earlier this semester?"

Flash managed to grin in spite of the circumstances. "How can I forget?" he asked. "For a moment there, I thought we were all going to be tarred as racists for the rest of our lives. Never allowed to live it down."

"You're taking that prospect rather well," Weiss observed.

"It wasn't really Cardin's fault," Flash said. "I mean, he was an idiot, and I wasn't happy with him at the time, but the fact that the rest of us got pulled in… just because of what happened to my father doesn't mean that I have to hate all faunus, and just because the SDC enjoys a certain… reputation doesn't mean that you have to hate them either. If people assume our thoughts and feelings because of stuff like that, then that's on them. It's not Cardin's fault; he's only to blame for the things he did." Flash paused. "And besides, while I was a little worried for a minute, it all seemed to blow over pretty quick, didn't it?"

"Yes," Weiss said softly. "There's a reason for that. I asked my father if he would have his PR people take care of it."

Flash's eyebrows rose. "Seriously?"

"As you might imagine, a not inconsiderable amount of their time is spent countering the accusations of racism and impropriety levelled against the SDC," Weiss said, diplomatically leaving out whether the accusations were justified or not. "They're very good at what they do. I don't know how they do it, exactly, but they manage to sweep these things under the rug very expertly, making sure that stories like ours are quickly forgotten."

"And they-"

"Got to work, yes," Weiss said. "And I, for one, was quite relieved when they did."

Flash's mouth hung open for a moment. "You didn't mention that at the time," he said quietly.

Weiss shrugged. "What would have been the point?"

"Our gratitude?"

Weiss snorted. "I will take gratitude for things that I've actually accomplished, not for calling my father and asking him to make my problems go away."

"All the same," Flash said, "I am grateful. I can smile about it now, but… at the time, it was kind of nerve-wracking, thinking that that might follow me for the rest of my life."

"I don't think it would have followed us for the rest of our lives," Weiss replied, "but the rest of our time at Beacon would have been bad enough. In any case, your gratitude… your gratitude belongs to my father." That was a bitter thing to say, and it had to be dragged out of Weiss throat by such effort of will that she might as well have cast glyphs in her windpipe to drive it out. "He was the one who made all of that go away and made it possible for us to go on with that… unpleasantness forgotten."

"Is that why you're going home?" Flash asked. "Gratitude to your father?"

"I'm going home because that was my father's price," Weiss muttered, a scowl settling upon her features. "He wants me back for a little while. My mother has missed me terribly, it seems."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Flash said.

"I'm not sure that it's true," Weiss said. "My mother… wasn't around enough when I was growing up to miss me when I'm gone."

Her mother didn't really miss anyone, so long as she had a well-stocked drinks cabinet, but Weiss was not cruel enough nor indiscrete enough to say so in front of Flash. He was her friend, but… there were some things, you just didn't say in front of outsiders. Some things were best kept within the family, as it were.

Flash's face fell. "You really don't want to go back, do you?"

Weiss was silent for a moment. "Why did you come to Beacon?"

Flash blinked. "You… are you asking me why I want to be a huntsman?"

"No," Weiss said. "No, I know why you're training; what I mean is… why not Atlas? Everyone else from your combat school seems to have gone there except for Sunset, and I can understand why a faunus might want to get away. I can see why Pyrrha chose Beacon – Haven's reputation is absolute garbage – but you… why did you choose Beacon over Atlas?"

"Because I want to be a huntsman," Flash said simply.

"Not a soldier?" Weiss asked.

"I'm not going to say anything against the Specialists, not even where Rainbow can't hear me," Flash said at once, a smile briefly appearing upon his face, illuminating for a moment his deep blue eyes, "but if I had gone to and graduated from Atlas, if I'd gone into the Corps of Specialists, I wouldn't have been a huntsman or soldier, not really. My mom… she's the Council's lawyer; she's the one who tells them if the new laws are going to clash with any old laws, whether she thinks a proposed decree is constitutional, what the likely challenges are. She's not famous, almost nobody outside of political insiders knows who she is, but she knows how the deals are done and where the bodies are buried, and she's got influence. She didn't want me to go to any academy, but she couldn't stop me… but, I knew that if I went to Atlas, joined the military like most do, she'd use her pull to get me assigned to some safe position counting ration packs or something, nothing that would put me in danger. Nothing that would help people."

"She doesn't want to lose you," Weiss murmured.

"That's my choice," Flash replied. "It's not hers to make. So what about you? Why did you choose Beacon over Atlas? After all, your sister went to Atlas, and she seems to have turned out okay."

"Winter," Weiss declared, "has turned out a lot more than 'okay.' She'll be commanding general when General Ironwood retires, maybe even headmaster too."

Flash grinned. "Did she tell you that?"

"No," Weiss said primly. "Everyone else did."

"You must be proud."

"Winter doesn't need my pride," Weiss said. "But she is… an example to me. She's made her own way in the world, carved out a place for herself, and she did it purely on her own merits."

"Are you sure about that?" Flash asked.

Weiss gave him an old-fashioned look.

Flash held up his hands. "I'm just saying… this is Atlas we're talking about, and she's a Schnee; you both are. Do you really think that that doesn't matter, that it didn't matter to anyone who helped your sister get where she is today?"

"My father didn't want Winter to go to Atlas Academy," Weiss said. "He certainly didn't want her joining the military, and he wouldn't help her to advance once she got there."

"But the name still carries weight, especially to people who don't know what you just told me," Flash reminded her. He paused. "Was he worried about her?"

Weiss snorted. "Hardly. He had me, and my brother Whitley, and he'd always had us in case anything happened to Winter. I think… honestly, Father finds all of this beneath him. Fighting, swords, aura, semblances… that's all something for other people to do. Poorer people. Lesser people. People who can't afford to have other people do it for them. People whose power doesn't rest on more lien than many could possibly imagine. Father saw Winter lowering herself, and in a way that would compel her to take orders from someone else, someone inferior, and he didn't like it." She sighed as the memory of those arguments rose to the forefront of her mind. "He didn't like it one bit, and he liked it even less when he made clear his displeasure, and yet, she did it anyway."

Flash looked away. His expression was strained, awkward, like someone who has found themselves eavesdropping on an uncomfortably personal conversation. "You… your father…" he said quietly, his voice a little choked. "He sounds like… he sounds like-"

"I know," Weiss murmured, not forcing him to say anything that went against the image that every Atlesian possessed of Jacques Schnee: the titan of industry, the captain of innovation, the guarantor of Atlas' financial and technological supremacy. Perhaps it had been wrong of her to tell him all this, to intimate what he really was, but if she could let anyone see the truth, it was Flash.

Nevertheless, he looked rather uncomfortable, and for that, she felt sorry. "Well… if you need any help," he said, "just give me a call, okay?"

Weiss smiled. "You'll ride in on a white horse to rescue me?"

Flash let out a self-deprecating chuckle as a blush rose to his cheeks. "Well, when you put it like that, it sounds stupid."

"No, it doesn't," Weiss assured him. "It sounds very sweet." She leaned forward and planted a gentle peck upon his cheek. "Thank you."

Flash's mouth hung open. He stared at her, slack-jawed, making a wordless noise for a moment or two before he recovered himself somewhat, at least enough to say, "It was just, well, you know… whatever you need, okay, I just…" He looked around, seeming to want to look everywhere or anywhere except at Weiss, and it was as his eyes darted around the lounge that he suddenly said, "Hey, is that Blake?"

XxXxX​

"Now are you sure that you've got everything?" Yang asked. "Do you have a scarf, because I hear it can get pretty cold up there. Do you have a warm coat?"

Blake rolled her eyes. "Aura can keep a person warm in the cold, you know that."

"I also know that being out in the cold drains aura, so you should wrap up warm just in case," Yang said.

"She ain't wholly wrong about that," Applejack said, quietly but unhelpfully, from just behind Blake.

They were stood at the gate into the departure lounge; only passengers with tickets for one of the departing skyliners were allowed to wait in the lounge, and so, Blake was saying her goodbyes at the gate that led into the same. Her scroll, with her ticket on it, was held loosely in one hand, while a small hold-all bag with everything she was taking with her – which was most of the few possessions that she owned – dangled from the straps by the other hand, at about the level of her knees. Fluttershy and Applejack stood behind her, Winona sitting by Applejack's heels as they waited for Blake to join them heading through the gate. Rainbow wasn't there to say goodbye to them – Team RSPT were moving Penny onto the Atlesian cruiser Hope, which would carry them to Atlas in probably less comfortable circumstances than Blake was going to enjoy. However, even without Rainbow, Ciel, or Twilight present, there were plenty of people come to see her off: Yang, Ren, Nora, Sunset, and Pyrrha, three of the five having taken a break from Ruby's bedside and the hospital to come and say goodbye to her.

It would have been touching – it was touching, in its own way – if it hadn't led to… well… this.

"I'll be fine, Mom," Blake said pointedly.

Yang laughed nervously. "Sorry, I just… you've been through a lot lately; it would be kind of a shame to go through all that and then die of a chill or a cold or something, right?"

"I'll be okay," Blake assured her. As it happened, she didn't have anything particularly suitable for cold weather to wear, relying on her aura to help with that, but if it really was a necessity, then she was sure that she'd be able to find something in Atlas that was okay to wear in Atlas. "Listen, I'm sorry about leaving right before-"

"It's fine," Yang replied, before Blake could finish saying what it was she was sorry for. "It's just a tournament, right? Who cares, really?"

Sunset coughed into one hand.

Yang smirked. "You always said that you wanted to see it, and you were always honest that we might not be getting you for very long-"

"Or at all, really," Blake muttered.

Yang chuckled. "Or at all, as it turned out," she agreed. "You want to check the place out before you commit, that's fine; that's smart. If you didn't plan to, I'd have suggested you did it."

Blake looked down at her scroll and her bag before she looked back up at Yang. "I barely know you," she said, "and yet, you've done so much for me, worsened your own team's chances for me, sacrificed to help me out, it… I know you far less well than you deserve."

Yang grinned. "The year's not over yet; there's still a little time. And besides, I'm not in this for the glory or the trophies; like I said, it's just a tournament. It might be fun to strut our stuff, but that's not why we're here. Isn't that right, guys?"

"We're here to be huntsmen," Ren declared. "To learn to protect those who cannot protect themselves."

"And together, the three of us are as tough as any four-man team!" Nora added enthusiastically.

"You just take care of yourself," Yang told her. "We'll be fine." She held out her hand. "Best of luck up there."

Blake took her hand; Yang had a firm, strong grip. "I don't plan on needing any luck," Blake said. "I plan on taking it easy for a while."

Yang shook her hand firmly. "You do that," she urged, before releasing Blake's hand and taking a step back.

Sunset stepped forward. "Blake," she said softly.

Blake turned to face her, and they were so close that she could see – could notice, in a way that was unavoidable now – the dark bags under Sunset's eyes. "Sunset, are you-?"

"I'm fine," Sunset assured. "I'm just having a little trouble sleeping at the moment; it'll pass."

Blake's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?"

Sunset's eyebrows rose. "Are you going to tell me to wrap up warm, now?"

Blake snorted. "Sorry, I just-"

"You've got enough to worry about," Sunset told her. "Take care of yourself; let me take care of me and mine."

"You've got… you were there too," Blake murmured, lowering her voice so that it didn't carry much further than Sunset herself. "You don't… are you really saying that…? I don't believe that you can be the one who walked out of Mountain Glenn smiling, like it didn't bother you at all."

Mountain Glenn, after all, had gotten to all of them in one way or another, but Sunset had as much cause to be gotten to than Blake, and more than some others.

Sunset's face was still, almost without expression. She paused for a moment, and her voice became a little hoarse as she said, "Whatever I have to do; for them, for you, whatever… I'll do whatever it takes and with a light heart. My team, my friends, my responsibility."

Blake wasn't sure whether to believe that; at least, she wasn't sure whether to believe Sunset about the light heart. She could believe the rest, but she couldn't believe that it wasn't weighing on her.

It would weigh on anyone, even someone as strong as Sunset.

Still, there was nothing more to be said upon the subject now, at least not by Blake and in this circumstance. There wasn't time, and this was not the place. All there was time to say was, "Thank you, for everything."

Sunset reached out and pulled Blake into a hug, almost clinging onto her as though she feared that Blake might disappear like one of her clones the moment that she let her go, or that she, Sunset, might be swept away into some landless ocean the moment that she let go.

"You're too good for Atlas," she murmured into Blake's ear. "They don't deserve you."

The corners of Blake's lips twitched upwards. "That's kind to say," she said, "but ultimately up to me, don't you think?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Sunset conceded, releasing Blake and stepping back. "You take good care of her," she instructed Applejack and Fluttershy.

"We will," Fluttershy said, "I promise."

Pyrrha stepped forward, reaching out to take Blake's hand in both of hers. "Blake," she said, warmth and softness in her voice in equal measure. "Although I'm sure we both wish your visit was under better circumstances, I hope you have a wonderful time in Atlas."

Blake smiled. "Thanks," she said earnestly; after all of these concerns for her wellbeing – well-intentioned though they were – it was nice to get a simple expression of good wishes.

Pyrrha nodded. "I was only there for a very brief visit, but if you get the chance, I highly recommend the Marigold Museum of Antiquities. Some of it's acquisitions are… controversial, but the fact remains, it has the most varied collection of artefacts from across Remnant anywhere in Remnant. Also, you should try and find time to dine at the Sorbonne, the menu there is excellent…" Pyrrha trailed off, a faint blush rising to her cheeks as she added, "if, uh, if a little expensive." She chuckled. "And besides, what am I saying, recommending places to see in Atlas as though you didn't have several actual Atlesians ready to be your guides?"

"I'll keep what you said in mind," Blake promised.

Even if the museum was filled with loot stolen from across the kingdoms, that didn't mean that it wasn't worth seeing – the reverse might be said to be true – and while the restaurant was probably inaccessible to anyone who wasn't an Atlesian plutocrat or a visiting Mistralian noble, the recommendation had been well-meant, and that was what mattered.

Blake stepped forward, lowering her voice as she said, "Keep an eye on Sunset, okay? I'm a little worried about her."

Pyrrha pursed her lips together as her green eyes flickered from Blake to Sunset and then back again. "Of course," she whispered. She raised her voice to add, "May the gods bless you with fair winds, clear skies, tranquil seas, and not a grimm to be seen."

Blake bowed her head. "And may we meet again, on whatever shore the fates decree."

Pyrrha released Blake's hand. "And now you really had best be going, before you miss your flight."

"Right," Blake said, stepping back. "I should, um, I'd better… see you guys!"

"Have fun!" Nora yelled as Sunset waved silently with one hand.

Blake turned away and joined Fluttershy and Applejack – and Winona. With their scrolls, they showed their online tickets to one of the guards at the door, along with Blake and Applejack's student registrations and accompanying licenses to carry weapons. Their bags were scanned – although Blake was a little unsure as to the point of this, considering that, again, Blake and Applejack were both wearing their deadly weapons openly about their person – and then they were cleared to go through into the departure lounge, with its blue chairs and its slightly paler blue carpet and its vending machines.

They had barely begun to look for somewhere to sit when- "Hey, Applejack!"

Their eyes were drawn by the sound of Flash's voice to where he stood, waving to them. Weiss was also visible, seated at his side, regarding them all with an inscrutable look on her face.

Applejack waved back before the three of them sauntered over to him. "Howdy, Flash."

"Hey," Flash said again, smiling as Winona ran up to him, tongue out, panting eagerly as she leapt up and planted her forepaws upon his stomach. Flash started scratching her behind the ears as he continued, "I'd ask what you guys were doing here, but I guess you're headed home too, huh?"

"Eeyup," Applejack agreed. "And about time too. It'll be good to see the farm again, though we're gonna check in with the girls in Atlas first."

Fluttershy bowed her head a little. "I'm sorry that I got you into this."

"Now, Fluttershy, you know I didn't mean it like that," Applejack replied. "Ah'm just sayin', it'll be good to be home, is all."

Flash looked up from Winona's ears. "How… how was it? I heard that you-"

"We'd rather not talk about it, if that's okay, Flash," Fluttershy murmured with a glance at Blake.

Flash didn't appear to notice the gaze. "Of course," he said. "I didn't mean to… the last thing I'd want is to bring up any bad memories; I'm sorry. I should have thought. Anyway, Applejack, Fluttershy, this is my team leader, Weiss Schnee. Weiss, this is Applejack and Fluttershy, two old friends of mine from Canterlot."

Applejack touched the brim of her hat. "Pleasure to meet ya, Miss Schnee."

Weiss started to get up, but Applejack motioned to forestall her. "Now, now, keep yer seat, ma'am; ain't no call for-"

Weiss got up regardless and held up one hand to silence Applejack. "Applejack, was it? First of all, please don't call me 'ma'am,' it makes me sound old; second of all, while my name is Schnee, and yes, I am one of those Schnees, I'm also a huntress in training just like you, which means that while courtesy is appreciated, deference is not required." A small smile appeared upon her pale face. "I'm not going to buy your land just because you didn't show me sufficient respect. Weiss will do just fine. With all that said," she curtsied, "it's a pleasure to meet you, Applejack, and you, Fluttershy. It's always nice to meet friends of Flash's."

"Likewise, Weiss," Fluttershy replied. "Are you travelling back to Atlas together?"

"I'd rather travel with a friend than alone but with complimentary drinks in first class," Weiss said. She looked at Blake. "And what about you, Blake? I wouldn't have expected you to visit Atlas."

"I want to see what it's like," Blake said, "before I make any permanent decisions on my future."

"I see," Weiss murmured with very little indication of her feelings in her tone.

"Flight to Atlas now boarding," the announcement rang out over the tannoy. "Flight to Atlas now boarding."

"Sounds like that's all of us," Flash said, grabbing his suitcase. "Say, why don't we all have dinner together tonight, the five of us?"

"Blake?" Fluttershy asked. "What do you think about that?"

Are you okay with this, or will it make you uncomfortable, in which case we won't do it? It was… kind of her to be so considerate, Blake supposed, but it also wasn't subtle in the least bit.

Blake, for her part, didn't take her eyes off Weiss Schnee, who was looking at Blake with those icy eyes that hid whatever she might be thinking.

She hadn't done anything to Blake, not even when the truth about her past came to light; she had been scrupulously inactive with regards to Blake.

But still… a Schnee.

I thought the same when I first saw a faunus in an Atlas uniform. If I'm really going to judge Weiss by her family name, then why am I even bothering to go to Atlas in the first place?

How can I ask her to see more than the White Fang in me if I can't see more than the SDC in her?

Weiss was not the one who had branded Adam, Weiss was not the one who ground down the faunus in the mines of Mantle. She was not born guilty of her father's crimes.

There had to be hope for a better future, or there was no hope at all.

"Dinner," she said, "sounds like fun."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Over the Ocean​

The Hope, like all Altesian cruisers, had a long prow stretching outwards like the tip of a spear, enabling the vessel to lance through the sky as it flew from post to post upon its assignments. Most of the ship — CIC, engineering, the great guns, the brig, the canteen, and a large number of the armouries and crew quarters — were contained aft in the wider, boxier rear section of the cruiser; forward, along the prow, were mostly weapons: the mortars that had descended upon Vale to seal the Breach, the point defence weapons bristling upon the hull to engage any flying grimm or missile that got too close, the missiles that the ship itself could launch at anything big enough to need them, they or their launchers were all embedded on or into the prow, although there were a very few quarters and the like built in there too.

As well as being a long, narrow weapons emplacement, the prow was also a great place to stand for a view, especially if one didn't mind the open air or the possibility of a long drop down, and so it was on the prow that Rainbow stood, looking down at the civilian airship that kept company with them, the faster warship limiting its speed to that of the slower, unarmed craft, like a mother whale shepherding her calf.

Speaking of which, Rainbow Dash thought that she could see some whales down below them. Hopefully, Fluttershy was watching them too; someone was definitely out on the deck of the skyliner, and Rainbow was fairly certain that one of them was Blake, thanks to the way that her black outfit and hair stood out against the metallic sheen of the airship, but as to whether or not Fluttershy was one of the others, she wasn't so sure.

But hopefully, she was; she'd enjoy seeing the whales. Even Rainbow thought it was kind of cool, watching them go down there in the sea beneath the airships, breaching the water with their backs and tails, spraying geysers upwards, splashing their tails down as they dived beneath the waves again.

She didn't know what they were doing, but it was fun to watch all the same.

It took her mind off things for a little while.

Mind you, the things that were on her mind were things that bore thinking about, so she couldn't let her mind be taken off them for too long. At this speed, keeping pace with the civilian airship, she estimated that it would be about three days before they reached Atlas.

Three days before everything began. In those three days, she didn't have a lot to do, but she needed to start making some progress with Penny. Penny … well, she'd never really gotten over the fact that Rainbow, Ciel, and Twilight had been set upon her by the General, assigned as her teammates, rather than a team forming around her in the normal course of events like what happened for normal students.

Perhaps Penny had just never made her peace with the fact that she wasn't getting treated like a normal student. That wasn't something that Rainbow could do much about, but she could do something about the way that Penny saw her teammates. She didn't know if Team RSPT would survive … correction; she knew – because Twilight had told her so – that Twilight would be leaving them at the end of the year, and honestly, that was for the best. Getting her own lab was a great opportunity and an amazing show of confidence from General Ironwood; she'd get to pursue her own projects, follow her ideas without the limitations or the jealousies of others, and she'd be able to make Atlas an even better place in ways that she would never be able to do as part of their team.

And making Atlas an even better place was the name of the game, wasn't it? It was what they all ought to be aiming for.

So, yeah, Twilight was going, and good luck to her in the place she was going to, so when Rainbow thought that she didn't know what was going to happen to RSPT, she really meant that she didn't know if she and Ciel would be sticking with Penny or whether they would be transferred to other assignments.

She didn't even know whether the plan was for Penny to go through the entire four years, which, as her team leader, she probably ought to have known, but honestly, she wasn't sure the General even knew himself. He had been very cagey with his plans for Penny, and Rainbow had the impression that that was because they weren't firm in his mind yet. General Ironwood — and Atlas — were waiting to see how things played out, how Penny performed, before deciding how much education she needed.

Right now, Rainbow would say that Penny needed another year, at least. She wasn't without promise, but she wasn't there yet. Her injuries … they weren't exactly her fault, but at the same time, if somebody got hurt that bad in their first year, you'd say they needed more experience before you trusted them to go out into the field … out into the field with a license.

Anyway, it would be for the best if she acted as though she and Ciel weren't going anywhere and made an effort to get through to Penny accordingly.

If she could. Ciel and Twilight — especially the former — had made much more of an effort with Penny than Rainbow had; Rainbow herself had been preoccupied with Blake; she hadn't ignored Penny or been unkind to her, and she had done her job and protected Penny to the best of her ability — even if the fact that Penny was now immobile on a workbench made that 'to the best of her ability' look a little unreliable — and she would even say that she had done some good things for Penny, and Twilight hadn't even had to her prompt her to do some of them. Letting her stay at Beacon that first semester had been one hundred percent Rainbow's idea … okay, it had been Penny's idea, but Rainbow had enthusiastically adopted it, championed it to the General, and nobody had had to tell her that Penny deserved it.

But that had been before she met Blake, before she befriended Blake, before Blake started absorbing a lot of Rainbow's energies.

Still, the main issue was not Rainbow's relationship with Blake, because even if Rainbow had been distracted, and even if Rainbow had thought that Blake was a better bet for Atlas than Penny, Ciel had been there to pick up the slack; no, the main issue was that Penny didn't appreciate Ciel either. She couldn't get over the fact that they had been appointed to her, which was why she held the friends that she had made of her own choice — Ruby and Pyrrha and now, it seemed, Sunset — that much closer to her heart in consequence.

That was fine, as far as it went; your teammates didn't have to be your best friends. Yeah, everyone idealised the teams like SAPR that were a family, the ones that stuck together after graduation, everyone talked about friendships that would last a lifetime. But honestly, Tempest Shadow wasn't friends with Trixie, Starlight, or Sunburst, and it didn't hurt the effectiveness of TTSS; Team PSTL were reckoned a pretty good team for all that their team leader treated them more like servants than like friends, and while Rainbow had been tight with Applejack in the old days, and while she had gotten on with Spearhead well enough, Maud … Rainbow respected Maud, but she wouldn't call them friends. Maud didn't have any friends except for Pinkie, if sisters counted as friends, anyway. The point was that you didn't have to like someone to work with them, even to work well with them. But it could help, and it certainly helped if you didn't think of the people you were working with as an imposition that you'd rather weren't around.

That's what Rainbow had to make Penny understand, that just because General Ironwood had assigned them to Penny, it didn't mean… they all cared about her, even if they didn't all show it very well.

She had to make Penny understand that. She had to try and make Penny understand that, hopefully before they got back to Atlas when it all kicked off, as it certainly would, because God only knew what Doctor Polendina was going to say about the state of her.

He'd probably call for Rainbow to be reassigned, if not kicked out of Atlas completely.

General Ironwood wouldn't let the second one happen, and Rainbow didn't mean to let the first one happen either. She'd been ordered to do a job, and she was going to do that job until the job was done. She wasn't going to quit, she wasn't going to walk away, and she wasn't going to take the easy out of letting Penny's father have her reassigned.

Apart from the blow to her pride, if she wasn't going to put all of her ambitions on Blake's shoulders instead of her own, she was going to have to learn how to play politics, and sometimes, that meant surviving people who were out to get you, even if you had to use your connections against theirs.

If Penny wasn't receptive to Rainbow aboard ship, it occurred to her that maybe her uncle might have some idea of how to get through to her. Yes, he'd been kicked out of the R&D division and was slumming it down in Mantle with the troublemakers, but he was still Penny's uncle, and he might have some ideas.

And apart from that, she also owed Scootaloo some bonding time, since that had been unexpectedly cancelled when the team ended up staying in Vale; she'd promised Ciel that they'd look for answers about the Lady of the North; she needed to read that book that Tukson had given her; and, since Blake was coming to Atlas anyway, Rainbow should probably check in on her at least from time to time to see how she was getting on.

And she needed to speak to Cadance to see if she'd made any progress looking into that SDC brand.

Yeah … she was going to be busy. Still, at least she wouldn't be bored.

"Is there a reason you're standing so close to the edge?" Ciel asked.

Rainbow looked over her shoulder. Ciel was standing a healthy distance behind her, in the centre of the prow, where — even narrow as it was — there was black metal on either side of her. Rainbow grinned. "You can't see anything from back there."

"Is there anything worth seeing?" Ciel asked.

"It depends," Rainbow replied. She turned away and closed the distance with Ciel. "How's Penny?"

"Bored," Ciel said. "I half-think we should have put her to sleep for the duration of the journey."

Rainbow shook her head. "She'd hate that. She'd feel even more broken than she does right now."

"I'm not sure that it's possible for her to feel more broken than she does right now," Ciel said. She paused. "Her father will have harsh words with us when we arrive in Atlas. And he will be right; we have been … we have not been diligent in our duty towards her."

"You've done the best you could," Rainbow assured her.

"Then results would suggest that my best was not good enough," Ciel said frostily.

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. "In my position, if you'd been leading the team in that situation, what would you have done instead?"

Ciel was silent for a moment. "Blake—"

"Yeah, Blake, to make up our numbers and form a rearguard, but what else?" Rainbow asked. "You've done everything you could for Penny."

"And you?" Ciel asked quietly.

Rainbow put her hands on her hips. "I split my focus, and I might not have hit the balance right."

"Have you seen her?"

"Blake?" Rainbow asked. "No. I thought I might pop over for a quick visit, check on Applejack and Fluttershy as well, but I haven't seen them, no."

Ciel nodded. "Her beau tried to stowaway aboard the ship."

Rainbow's eyebrows rose. "Sun?"

"I hope she has no others," Ciel muttered.

"On … on that ship?" Rainbow asked. He could have just bought a ticket.

"On this ship," Ciel corrected her.

Rainbow's eyebrows climbed yet higher still. "Sun tried to sneak aboard the Hope?" At Ciel's nod, she asked, "Is he still alive?"

"I found him when I checked the crawlspace under the floor of our airship before we took off," Ciel informed her. "I told him that he was lucky he had not made it on board the Hope and sent him away. Then I remained on board the ship until the rest of you arrived to make sure he did not return."

"Thanks," Rainbow murmured. "I thought he'd gotten past that."

"He claimed his teammates were amenable to his decision."

"Then why not just buy a ticket?" Rainbow asked loudly. "I mean, he did realise that Blake was on the other ship, didn't he?"

"I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to what that young man knows or does not know," Ciel declared. "If you ask me, Blake would be well-advised to drop him."

Rainbow frowned. She would have liked to have asked just what Ciel meant by that, and why she meant it, but the truth was that it would have been disingenuous of her to do so, because she already knew exactly what Ciel meant. In Atlas, anybody could rise high, but they couldn't necessarily do it by being themselves. If Blake meant to commit to Atlas — and Rainbow hoped she did — then she would have to be careful who she associated with: the wrong man — the wrong marriage — could ruin her entire career in the military. Sun was a good guy, and he was canine in his loyalty, but unless he was hiding a lot of polish under that rough and ready exterior, a lot of people wouldn't think that he was suitable.

He wasn't really suitable, it had to be said.

"That isn't for us to say," she said quietly.

"If you are her friend—"

"It still wouldn't give me the right to police her love life," Rainbow declared. "I have put up with watching Twilight date much worse guys than Sun Wukong." She ran one hand through her hair. "And, you know … he's not a bad guy. Maybe the fact that Blake should drop a nice guy who'd do anything for her because he doesn't know which fork to use with the fish course says worse things about us than it does about him?"

"Such things may seem petty, even ridiculous," Ciel said, "but they are important symbols, and we abandon them at our peril. It is by holding the line for the smallest pebbles of civility that we prevent the undermining of the broader building blocks, the principles that hold a truly civilised society together. A man who cannot be bothered to dress properly, who feels free to behave boorishly in front of his hostess because he knows that he has a good heart and a soul bathed in righteousness, will soon feel free to break his marriage vows with wild abandon and violate the person of his wife because he knows he has a good heart and a soul bathed in righteousness."

"Sun isn't going to hit Blake!" Rainbow yelled.

"I agree that he would not," Ciel allowed. "But my point is that we hold the outer wall of civilised conduct that the citadel of principles may never come under attack."

"I'm not sure everyone in Atlas would agree with you," Rainbow muttered. "Anyway, like I said, I'm not going to bring it up to her."

"I think that is a mistake," Ciel said.

"Oh, now you tell me when you think I'm making a mistake," Rainbow snapped tartly.

"What do you mean?" asked Ciel.

"I mean that you must have realised that I wasn't doing the best job leading this team, and you let me carry on regardless," Rainbow said. "I had to hear it from Sunset!" Her voice quietened. "You must have known."

Ciel looked away guiltily. "I have not been silent," she muttered.

"You didn't say enough," Rainbow replied.

"I was not hoping to see you fail, if that's what you think," Ciel said quickly.

"I didn't think that," Rainbow said softly. "I just want to know why?"

"Is it not obvious?" Ciel demanded. "You are General Ironwood's most trusted … everyone in the academy knows that he favours you, and Atlas … you are not blind. I love this kingdom, I would die in its defence, but we both know the importance of patronage and connection when determining advancement. Or the lack of it."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "You thought … you thought that if you criticised me, I'd screw you over with the General?!"

"Some would," Ciel said, matter of factly.

"Yeah, but God, Ciel!" Rainbow cried. "I … we need to get to know one another a lot better, clearly. I wouldn't… God! You really thought that I would do that? You really thought that I was that thin-skinned?"

She debated whether or not she really wanted to know the answer to that.

Ciel took a moment to reply. "I do not come from a good family," she said. "My father is an NCO; my mother never rose to any great rank. I have not known the General from youth, I do not count his god-daughter as my best friend, I am not insulated against disaster thus. General Ironwood has given me a great honour with this posting, but one that could just as easily turn out to be a poisoned chalice for my ambitions. And with my … manner, I am not likely to win many friends on the way up; I cannot afford to make enemies. Yet it appears that I may have done so unwittingly."

"You haven't," Rainbow reassured her. "I get it. I … just because I'm a faunus doesn't mean that I can't be more privileged than you. I didn't think that it might have been … intimidating, having someone like me as your team leader. But that's not who I am. I'm not going to punish you for being right, or even for disagreeing with me, whether you're right or wrong. Maybe you don't believe me, and I need to try and prove to you that's not who I am, and I'll try, but please … if you think that I'm doing something wrong, then tell me. Because if you don't … if you don't, then we really will have a disaster on our hands." She smiled. "And don't worry, I'll make sure that nothing hits you when we get back to Atlas. Don't worry about Penny's father, or any of it."

Ciel was silent for a moment. "That is generous of you, although I am not sure that you can give such a guarantee."

"I'll try my best," Rainbow assured her. "You don't deserve to be blamed for what happened, not when … not when you're the one who cares about Penny the most."

Ciel did not instantly reply. "I feel … I am the eldest of seven siblings, and the other six all brothers."

Rainbow nodded. "I know."

"Growing up, watching my mother get with child time and time again," Ciel went on. "I prayed to the Lady that she would intercede with God to send me a little sister. Either she did not bother to demean herself with such selfish requests, or God took no notice, because my prayers went unrewarded." A soft smile played across her face. "Until now." The smile died, and a sigh escaped her lips. "And yet—"

"And yet, she doesn't love you," Rainbow said softly.

Ciel bit her lip. "At the risk of sounding unpleasantly jealous, it is a little … Ruby, at least, I can understand; she has a manner easy to get on with, but Pyrrha is nearly as awkward as I am, and yet—"

"She chose them," Rainbow said softly. "It's not about who you are, or who they are; it's about how she came to them, against how we came to her."

"She cannot still think of us as her gaolers?"

"I'm afraid that's exactly how she thinks of us," Rainbow replied. "Which isn't your fault, but … I'm going to try and get through to her about it. Try and make her … I don't know, try and make her see that the days when we looked at her that way are gone."

"I could—"

"I'll go first," Rainbow said. "I'm the team leader; it's my responsibility." She paused, and the corner of her lip twitched upwards. "Unless you think I'm making a mistake."

"No," Ciel murmured. "No, I think it is your right to try. After all, I have not succeeded yet."

"So I'll give it a try," Rainbow said. She stepped back, and let her Wings of Harmony pop out from either side of the backpack. "But first, I'm going to quickly check on the girls on the other ship."

Ciel nodded. "Wish them well for me."

"Will do," Rainbow promised, and kicked off the prow of the Hope and into the blue skies beyond.

XxXxX​

Blake rested her hands upon the cold metal balcony rail.

The skyliner had a large, open observation deck sprawling forward, covering most of the top of the airship's superstructure, but only Blake was using it at present. Only Blake was up here, standing at the rails, feeling the wind blow through her long, black hair.

The wings of the airship beat up and down, up and down like vast oars driving them through the air. Blake couldn't see the rear wings from where she was standing — she was too far forward — but she could see the front wings rising and falling, revealing part of the ocean to her and then obscuring it as the great white paddles descended once again. Up and down, up and down. It was almost relaxing to watch them, to let her eyes become captivated by the lazy rhythm of their rise and fall. Blake wondered how necessary it really was; it seemed incredible that such slow motions could be moving them forward, still less keeping their airborne.

But then, if they were not necessary, then why bother with them at all?

Blake glanced upwards for a moment, to where the Atlesian warship kept them company on the way to its home; it had no visible wings — which was one of the reasons Blake wondered if there was a performative element about the civilian airship — only slender engines emerging from the back to drive it on.

Someone was stood up there, on the open prow, looking down … well, looking down; whether they were looking down on Blake or on the airship or anything of that sort, it was hard to tell. She couldn't make out who it was either; they were too far away and too indistinct against the black of the airship and the blue of the sky.

She didn't wave up at them; she didn't want to be presumptuous in case they weren't looking at her.

Blake turned her eyes down again, looking downwards to the ocean far below. It looked as though there was something moving down there, something … whales. Yes, she was fairly certain that they were whales, although she didn't claim to be an expert on wildlife, so she couldn't be sure. She certainly couldn't say what kind of whales they were, although whatever they were, they looked quite majestic with the way that they rose and fell, their grey-blue bodies partially emerging out of the water, only to disappear again.

It occurred to Blake, watching, that the flippers of those whales were about the same size in proportion to the bodies of the creatures as the wings of her airship in proportion to the ship itself; she began to re-evaluate her opinion of said wings and their effectiveness.

A gasp from beside her alerted her to the presence of Fluttershy, who had otherwise stolen upon her without Blake realising it.

"Humpbacks!" Fluttershy cried. "Oh, this is incredible. I've never seen anything like this in real life before!" She pulled her scroll out of the purse dangling from one arm and began to take pictures, the camera built into the device flashing over and over again.

"'Humpbacks'?" Blake asked. "Is that what they're called?"

"Mhmm," Fluttershy acknowledged. "Humpback whales." She stopped taking pictures and smiled sheepishly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Blake; I should have asked if you wanted company."

"It's fine," Blake assured her. She smiled too, although how bright it was, she couldn't have said; she wasn't feeling particularly luminous at the moment. "Hey, Fluttershy."

Fluttershy chuckled softly. "Hello, Blake. Are you enjoying the view?"

Blake looked out again, her gaze descending from the slowly-beating wings down to the ocean below. The whales had disappeared out of sight, sinking down into the depths once more. "It's kind of relaxing," she murmured.

"Are you sure I'm not bothering you?" Fluttershy asked anxiously.

"I'm sure," Blake said. "The downside of this view being so relaxing is that … well, while there are a few new things to look at out here that I couldn't see from my room, it's still … once you get used to the view, you have a lot of time to think about things."

Fluttershy reached out and laid her hand on top of Blake's hand. "You mean…"

"Yes," Blake murmured, not moving her hand away from Fluttershy's touch. "Do you…? I … you probably don't want to talk about it, but—"

"It's alright," Fluttershy said softly. "I don't mind. I understand that … this matters to you, doesn't it?"

Blake blinked. "I… yes. Yes, it does. I don't know whether it should or not, but it does."

"You were close, weren't you?" Fluttershy asked.

Blake glanced at her, and then looked away. "You … you could say that."

"He mentioned you," Fluttershy told her. "He was … he said that he'd had someone that he cared for very much. Someone he thought that he could trust. Someone … someone who meant everything to him."

Each word was like a dagger through Blake's heart. Her free hand found that heart, hovering over it, her fingertips resting upon her breast. "And what," she asked, "and what did he say happened to me? What did he say that I'd done to him?"

"He said…" Fluttershy hesitated. "He said that Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer had stolen you away."

Blake let out a noise that was somewhere between a snort and a hollow bitter laugh. "Rainbow and Sunset … they stole me? He still … even then, even at the last, he just … he didn't get it. He didn't understand at all. I'd hoped that maybe … maybe whatever it was that you did to him had caused him to see—"

"I don't know that it didn't," Fluttershy offered. "That … the change in him came after."

Blake turned to get a better look at her. The wind was blowing through Fluttershy's hair too, the long lilac hair streaming out behind her, exposing her face. It was a pretty face, a soft face, largely untouched by the hardships of the world, and yet, her eyes made it seem a face more suited for tears than for smiles in some strange way that Blake felt but couldn't really explain. Just as she couldn't explain why, with this face made for tears, it nevertheless felt wrong for Fluttershy to be sad.

"Tell me," she implored, her voice breaking. "Please, tell me everything."

"'Everything'?" Fluttershy asked. "Are you sure?"

"If there is bad along with the good … I know enough bad already, a little more won't change my mind," Blake told her. "I just … I want to know."

Fluttershy nodded silently. She paused for a few moments before she spoke. "He scared me, at first," she confessed.

"He had that effect," Blake replied. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"He came in, and as soon as I realised that it was him and not Gilda, I … like I said, he frightened me," Fluttershy repeated. "Especially since he seemed angry or upset about something. He made fun of my outfit," she added. "I suppose it was a little much, but Rarity had worked so hard on it, I couldn't bear to tell her that it wasn't practical enough. Then Applejack … Applejack said something that made him angry."

"Not difficult," Blake murmured.

"He told us that he hadn't received much generosity in his life," Fluttershy added. "Is that true?"

"That … that depends," Blake said. "When he was younger … did he show you the … did he show you—?"

"The mark on his face?" Fluttershy guessed.

Blake winced. "So he did?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Did the SDC really do that to him?"

"So he told me," Blake said softly.

Fluttershy gasped. "How could anyone … how? That's … that's just … that's just wrong! How … how can you know that things like that happen and still want to come within a hundred miles of Atlas?"

"Because I … because I don't want to be like him," Blake replied, her voice trembling. "I don't want to condemn a whole city or kingdom for the actions of a few. For what I hope are the actions of a few."

"That's incredibly kind of you," Fluttershy whispered. "And you're not scared?"

"Of it happening to me?" Blake asked, to which Fluttershy gave a mute nod of assent. "No," she said. "I trust you. Rainbow Dash, Twilight, I trust all of you. And, if it turns out that I'm wrong … other faunus have suffered far worse than I in the struggle for our liberation and will still have suffered more than I, even if I do get three letters seared into my flesh."

Fluttershy swallowed. "I … I don't know whether to applaud or be appalled," she murmured. "Are you sure that you want to sit down with—?"

"Weiss didn't brand anyone's face," Blake said. "I can't blame her any more than I can blame Atlas. That way lies … you know where that road leads."

"Did he tell you how it happened?"

"No," Blake said. "He didn't like to talk about it."

"Does … does Rainbow Dash know?"

Blake nodded solemnly. "She … she saw it. She knocked off his mask while fighting."

Fluttershy gasped, her hands covering her mouth.

"She's … fine," Blake assured her. "She … it was some time ago, and I think… I can't read her mind, and it seemed to bother her at first, but … don't worry, she's still your friend."

"I know," Fluttershy said. "But that doesn't mean… I'm still sorry she had to find that out. She … Atlas means a lot to her."

"And not to you?" Blake asked.

Fluttershy shrugged. "Gilda came in before Adam could do anything," she said. "She seemed… she tried to protect us from everyone."

"Gilda," Blake murmured. "Gilda was never very fond of bloodshed."

"Adam tried to send her away," Fluttershy said, "but she wouldn't go."

That surprised Blake. "She defied him?"

Fluttershy nodded. "For our sake."

Blake's eyebrows rose. She wouldn't have thought that anyone would have had the courage to defy Adam, and certainly not Gilda Swiftwing; evidently, things had changed since she left. "But that's not why he let you go, is it?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "That was when I told him what we'd been doing in Vale in the first place: studying the wildlife." She smiled sadly. "Did you know that he liked birds when he was a boy?"

Blake looked down at her feet. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, he told me about that. Colourful canaries down the mines and fat—"

"Fat pigeons in the streets of Mantle," Fluttershy finished.

Blake nodded. "He always… he was always angry," she said softly. "He always had so much rage in him, but … when he talked about the birds they had down the mines, or about the football that they used to play once they came up from the mines to unwind before bedtime, about the songs the work gangs sang … all that anger would seem to leave him, for just a little while, and instead…"

"Sadness," Fluttershy murmured.

Blake thought about it for a moment. "Yes," she acknowledged. "Yes, he became sad, and solemn, but not angry. Not the way that he usually was." She paused. "I'd like to say that it was the sadness that drew me to him, not the anger, but the truth was that it was both. It was … the first time I met him, he'd just returned from a successful mission. Successful, but not without cost. Everyone else was celebrating their victory, but he … I found him outside, in the dark, crying over his fallen comrades. He cared then, he cared so much about our people and our cause, and his anger, it … it was a righteous anger, then; a rage against the injustice of the world. But then, later, as time went on, he … it was like he was deliberately trying to put the sadness away, somewhere where it wouldn't weaken him, and his anger came to seem less righteous and more … indiscriminate. And I could see it happening to the rest of the White Fang around me too. That's why I had to leave, leave them and him; it was nothing to do with Rainbow, it was nothing to do with Sunset, it was … it was him, and what he was becoming." She closed her eyes. "And yet—"

"It's not your fault," Fluttershy insisted.

"So I'm told," Blake murmured. "And I'm sure that everyone who tells me that is right, but … what right did I have to judge someone who had suffered so much more than I have? What right did I have to judge any of them, to take up arms against them, to let them die in that tunnel? What right do I have to be here when Adam and so many others have given their lives for our people?"

Fluttershy was silent for a moment. "I'm not a faunus," she said, "and I don't have the right to talk about what the White Fang is fighting for or what you've suffered, but I do know that all life is precious and not to be thrown away lightly. After all, it's only by living that things can get any better, isn't it? For us, and for the people we care about."

"I know," Blake said, "but—"

"Sometimes, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it," Fluttershy replied. "But we have to, all the same."

The door opened onto the observation deck, and Applejack ambled through. "Howdy, girls," she said, greeting them both with a wave of one hand. "I hope Ah'm not interruptin' anythin'; I just thought Ah'd come up here for some fresh air 'fore dinner."

"You're not interrupting," Blake said, "and even if you were, there's plenty of room."

Applejack laughed as she looked around the otherwise empty observation deck. "Yeah, Ah guess you're right about that, ain't you?" She paused. "Feel that wind blowin', Ah'm glad Ah left mah hat back in mah room. Not much chance of gettin' it back if it went overboard, huh?"

"I'm sure it wasn't this windy the last time we came this way," Fluttershy said.

"Probably 'cause summer's drawin' to a close," Applejack said. "Autumn's on the way, so we get that autumn weather. Still, it ain't too cold, and as far as Ah'm concerned, it beats spending all day in that cabin. I don't like to be cooped up too long."

"You missed some majestic whales passing beneath us," Fluttershy said. "They were beautiful."

"Ah'll take your word for it," Applejack said as she wandered over to the railing to join them. She leaned against the cold metal rail. "You're probably sick of folks askin' how yer feelin', sugarcube, so I'll ask you how you feel about gettin' to Atlas?"

Blake took a few moments to consider her reply. "I feel … curious. I've only ever heard about Atlas — and not in the sense that everyone has heard about Atlas — I mean like … I had a friend who lived there for a while, she went to a school you know, Crystal Prep."

"Yep," Applejack said heavily. "We know Crystal Prep alright, don't we, Fluttershy?"

"They weren't that bad," Fluttershy said.

"We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, sugarcube," Applejack replied. "Although, I must say, Ah'm surprised to hear about a faunus goin' to Crystal Prep. Ah don't remember seein' any of them when our schools met up."

"She was passing for human at the time," Blake explained.

Applejack blinked. "You mean … your friend was the one who—"

"Yes," Blake said. "I understand you've heard of that too."

"And she's your source about Atlas," Applejack said.

"For what it's worth, she was actually very complementary," Blake said. "Sort of. She said it was a city of dreams. A city where she had to hide what she really was in order to fit in."

"All the same," Applejack muttered, "Ah don't know if you want to go takin' her word for it."

"I'm not taking anyone's word for it, Ilia's or Rainbow Dash's," Blake replied. "So I suppose that what I'm feeling is … curiosity, to find out for myself what Atlas is really like."

Applejack held her hand up to her eyes, shielding them from the sun as she looked upwards. "Speakin' of Rainbow Dash," she said.

Blake looked up too, in time to see a figure descending through the air towards them from the cruiser up above.

She and Fluttershy sidestepped nimbly out of the way as Rainbow dropped onto the deck.

"Hey," Rainbow said. "How's everyone doing?"

"We just saw some wonderful humpbacks in the water below," Fluttershy said.

"Oh, is that what they were?" Rainbow asked. "I thought they were whales."

"Humpback whales," Fluttershy explained.

"Ah, okay, that makes sense," Rainbow acknowledged. "But are you three okay?"

"Ah'm about as well as could be expected," Applejack said. "But Ah think Blake might be gettin' a little tired of folks asking her if she's okay."

"Right," Rainbow murmured. "On the one hand, I'm sorry, but on the other hand, it isn't my fault if everyone else has gotten to you first."

Blake smiled a little. "It's fine," she assured her. "It's not a problem. I … am okay. I'm as well as could be expected, as Applejack put it."

"Are you—?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Blake said, before Rainbow could finish her inquiry. Although she then felt the need to add, "Although I am a little apprehensive about dinner with Weiss and Flash tonight."

"You're having dinner with Weiss and Flash?"

"We all are," Fluttershy said. "Flash thought that it would be nice, and Blake didn't mind."

"I don't mind," Blake said. "I just … it's Weiss Schnee, you know."

"Weiss Schnee," Rainbow said. "Not Jacques Schnee. We're none of us our parents."

"I know," Blake replied. "But you can understand why I'm a little … I don't know what to expect."

"Expect some nice food on a ship like this," Rainbow said, with a grin. "Do you think there'd be room for one more at your table?"

"Aiming to stick around?" Applejack asked.

"Not me, Twilight," Rainbow said. "I'll fly her over this evening and then pick her up again when you're all done."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Fluttershy declared. "But are you sure that you can't join us too?"

Rainbow shook her head. "I'm having dinner with Penny tonight."

"How is Penny?" asked Blake.

Rainbow scratched the back of her head with one hand. "Defeat bothers her more than her injuries, I think."

"Tell her that she oughtn't let it get to her," Applejack said. "We all take some lumps from time to time."

"Yeah, I know," Rainbow said. "But Penny … Penny's been told that she's really awesome, and now she's finding out that, well, she doesn't feel that way right now." Rainbow paused for a moment. "But she'll be okay. We'll all be okay, right?"

"Ah hope so," Applejack said.

"I'm sure we will," Fluttershy added.

"And … and so do I," Blake said, after a moment. "It might not be instant, it might take a while, but I hope, I think, I'm sure that we'll get there."

But before that, there was dinner with Weiss Schnee to get through.

 

[ScipioSmith]

Evolution​

The RSPT – RST would probably be a more accurate way of referring to them – quarters aboard the Hope were small, but there was enough for an exceedingly modest desk, upon which Twilight deposited the small canister in which swirled Sunset's magic. It glowed a bright and somewhat eerie green as it sat there, casting a light upon the desk around it.

Spike hopped up onto the chair and rested his forepaws on the desk, staring at the glowing canister with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He barked at the magic as it swirled within its container.

"Careful, Spike," Twilight informed him. "If that spills, there won't be any more where it came from." Not for some time, possibly not ever; there would be limits to how much of her own magic Sunset would siphon off for the sake of Twilight's research. Not to mention, there ought to be limits beyond which Twilight could not ask for more. Considering Sunset's misgivings about the idea, one could say that she'd given enough already.

Just to be safe, she moved the canister back until it was touching the wall, then lifted Spike off the chair and put him back down on the floor. He whined a little bit but swiftly started rooting around in her bag for a toy.

"Yeah, that's much safer," Twilight murmured, scratching him behind the ears. "After all, we don't know what magic might do to you. We don't know what magic might do at all. So much to find out, so much to uncover. Although probably something I should study at home; I don't want to raise too many questions about what I'm working on."

Spike barked.

Twilight smiled as she sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the lower bunk on the left hand side of the room, her legs hunched up to avoid touching the opposite bunk. She picked Spike up off the floor and put him on her lap and started to tickle him under the chin.

"I mean, I can't really deny that a part of me would like everyone to know," she said. "To prove that I was right all along, that there really is more out there than we're aware of… but it's not my secret to reveal. I don't want to make trouble for Sunset, especially since she didn't have to give me this magic in the first place, especially since I don't think that she really wanted to. Besides, I'll have to become used to keeping secrets."

She paused for a moment, looking down at Spike, who stared up at her with big eyes, his mouth open and his tongue out.

"I know so many things that I didn't know before, so much that is new, and I can't tell anyone about it, not even our friends. Not that I'd want to tell my friends everything, because some of what I know is kind of scary, but some of it is exciting as well: the Power of Creation. A power wielded by the gods themselves, and they left us a part of it. Just imagine what that relic could do, Spike! We could… we could feed the world, end poverty, make so many lives so much better. But I'll never get to tell anyone about it, and we'll never get to find out what it can do because, from the sounds of things, the only goal is to keep the Relics out of Salem's hands. And I get that that's important, and I suppose that if we used the Relics, then she'd be able to find them much more easily, but… I don't know; it just seems like such a waste to me.

"But do you know what the worst part is?" she asked rhetorically. "The worst part is that none of what I know now tells me anything about what happened to me when I was little. None of it tells me who the woman who saved us was or how she did what she did. I know Sunset thinks that this is all connected, that Professor Ozpin's organisation is connected to the Old Man and the wizard from the old stories, and I can see why she thinks that; I just… I don't know, maybe I'm just hoping that General Ironwood isn't keeping more secrets from us."

The door slid open, and Rainbow Dash came in. "Hey, Twi," she said, looking down upon Twilight as the door slid shut behind her. "What are you doing?"

"Just talking to Spike," Twilight replied.

Rainbow snorted. "What about?" she asked as she stepped over Twilight's legs before sitting down on the floor opposite her, her arms resting upon her upturned knees.

"This and that," Twilight said. "Sunset's magic and how I'll have to study it at home, for one thing."

Rainbow looked at the glowing canister on the desk. "Yeah, that… that's a thing, isn't it?"

Twilight pushed her glasses up her nose. "Does it bother you?"

"Do you understand it?" Rainbow asked.

"Not yet, but-"

"Then yeah, it bothers me a little bit," Rainbow said, cutting her off. "I'm okay with there being things that I don't understand, but the fact that you don't understand them either worries me."

Twilight chuckled. "Everything was incomprehensible at some point, until it became understood," she pointed out. "There was a time in our history when mankind didn't understand dust."

"And I hope they were careful with it until they did understand it," Rainbow said. "And when you understand Sunset's Do-Anything juice, then I'll relax."

Twilight smiled. "I'll try and clear up the mysteries for you as fast as I can."

"Thanks," Rainbow said. "I just flew over to the Skyliner to check on Applejack and Fluttershy; they're having dinner with Blake, Flash, and Weiss tonight; I thought you might like to join them."

"I wouldn't mind," Twilight said. "Although there is the logistical difficulty that I'm on this ship and they're on another one."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Twilight, I have a jetpack – a jetpack you made me – I'll fly you over."

"Are you going as well?"

"No," Rainbow said. "I'll fly back over here, and then you can text me when you're ready to get picked up."

"Okay, Mom," Twilight said, amusement in her voice. "Although you could always just eat with us, and we can fly back together when we're done."

Rainbow grinned. "I'm not sure the Wings of Harmony are appropriate dinner wear," she said. "And besides-"

"This isn't about giving Blake space or anything, is it?"

"No," Rainbow said quickly. "It's about the fact that if I go to dinner with the rest of you, then Ciel will be stuck watching Penny, and it's not right to offload that all onto her. I'll take you over, come back, spend the evening with Penny, then pick you up tonight. Come on, Applejack and Fluttershy would like it, and I think Blake could use a friendly face."

"Applejack and Fluttershy are right there," Twilight pointed out.

"She hardly knows them," Rainbow replied.

"She doesn't really know me, either," Twilight said.

"This is the perfect time to fix it then, isn't it?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight covered her mouth as a slight laugh escaped her. "Okay," she said. Twilight paused for a moment. "Hey," she said, "how big do you think the welcome home party is going to be?"

"I think it will be small, but really, really good," Rainbow guessed. "No guests, just us, but a really great time."

Twilight nodded. "I can see that," she acknowledged. "You know… it's going to be our first time back with all of them since we found out…"

"About all the stuff that we can't talk about," Rainbow murmured.

"Mhm," Twilight agreed. "It feels weird. I've never… never lied to them before."

"Keeping secrets doesn't have to equal lying," Rainbow argued.

"It's a pretty thin line, don't you think?" Twilight responded.

"It's for the right reasons, don't you think?"

"I understand why we have to do it," Twilight said. "That doesn't mean I have to like it."

"There are things that I like less," Rainbow said. "I mean, I… I'm glad I know, aren't you?"

"You mean would I rather not know?" Twilight asked. "No, no I wouldn't. Unless, of course, there was nothing to know."

Rainbow snorted. "Yeah. That would be awesome, but-"

"If it is the way it is, then I'm glad I know," Twilight said. "At least this way, I can help."

"From your brand new lab," Rainbow said teasingly.

Twilight felt her cheeks heat up a little. "The General might be going a little overboard there."

"Twilight, you've been putting yourself down all year for not being something you were never meant to be," Rainbow said. "Don't put yourself down over what you actually are."

Twilight hesitated. "Yeah, thinking that, just because I was on this team, I ought to be a great huntress, or even a capable huntress, was kind of stupid of me. Trying to play huntress at all was kind of stupid of me. I admit that, I realise it, and it won't happen again, but-"

"But nothing," Rainbow said. "You made my wings, you made that armour, you created Midnight. Hell, you helped make Penny! And the first of those three, you did by yourself in your spare time. Think what you could do with, like, work time and proper resources. I don't know what you have in mind-"

"I've got one or two ideas."

"-but I know it's going to be awesome," Rainbow finished, "and I can't wait to see."

A smile briefly crossed Twilight's face, then faded. "Hey. I… I understand that you saw… down there, you saw-"

"Yeah," Rainbow said gruffly. "Yeah, we did."

"What was-?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Rainbow said quickly. "I'm sorry, Twilight, I just… I don't want to, okay?"

Twilight thought that was perhaps unwise, but nevertheless, she nodded. "Alright, but if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me."

"Always," Rainbow said as she got up. "I've got to go."

"I didn't mean to drive you off!" Twilight protested. "I'm sorry, I-"

"It's not about that," Rainbow assured her. "I need to go and speak to Penny."

XxXxX​

The door slid open with a hydraulic hiss as Rainbow Dash walked into the room where Penny was being kept until they reached Atlas.

Since the Hope was the same class of ship as the Valiant, it was no surprise that her room on the Hope looked pretty much the same as her room on the Valiant. Penny was on a table in the middle of the room, just as she had been, and she was even wired up to a computer – although the computer was on the opposite side of the room. This room was less cluttered; there wasn't much paperwork in evidence here. It was just Penny.

Rainbow could only imagine how boring this was for her right now, and for a moment, she wondered if she was doing the right thing, telling her off for not appreciating Ciel enough, trying to change the way that she saw her teammates. Maybe it wasn't the right time. But… if it wasn't the right time, then when was the right time? The longer she put this off, then the harder it would be to get through to Penny, and it would be hard enough already. Maybe it was unfair to take advantage of a captive audience like this, but it was also a chance, and one that she had to take.

"Hey, Penny," Rainbow said, as she walked in. She didn't bother asking how Penny was, because the answer was both obvious and pretty dispiriting.

"Hello," Penny said, and the voice that emerged from out of the computer sounded very appropriate for how downcast Rainbow imagined Penny's mood to be.

There was one thing in the room besides Penny, and that was the book of fairy tales that Blake had given her on their Cold Harbour mission. Ciel had been reading it to Penny while she was incapacitated. Rainbow put the books tucked beneath her arm down beside it with an audible thump before she sat down in the chair next to Penny.

"Did you bring a new book?" Penny asked, unable to see for herself.

"Uh-huh," Rainbow said. "I thought you must be getting to the end of those fairy tales by now."

"I don't mind hearing them again," Penny replied.

"Do you still like The Shallow Sea the best?"

"I think so," Penny replied. "But I really like The Girl in the Tower, too."

Rainbow got up, looking downwards so that Penny, looking up, could look at her in turn. "Is that how you see yourself?" she asked. "Locked up by your cruel father?"

Penny did not reply.

Rainbow frowned. "I'm going to need you to give me an answer on this, Penny."

"Are you ordering me to answer you?"

Rainbow sighed. "I'm asking you to tell me how you feel."

"Like you asked Ciel to carry me away," Penny replied. "And then you ordered her to do it when she didn't want to."

"Do you think that was wrong of me?"

"I'm not sure it's really asking if you insist on getting your own way regardless of the answer."

Rainbow sighed. "Penny… you're very young, I get that, believe me, but… you can't be a kid about this kind of thing. On the battlefield, as a leader, I can't always nicely ask, and I can't always respect everyone else's opinion, especially when they're not making any sense. The only reason Ciel argued with me about taking you back was because she was too proud to want to leave. Yes, I yelled at her, and I threatened her, but what should I have done instead, with you in the state you were in?"

Penny didn't reply.

"Exactly," Rainbow said. "Like I said, on the battlefield, sometimes, I need to give orders, and I need those orders to be obeyed immediately. But we're not on the battlefield, so I'm not ordering but asking you to tell me how you feel?"

Eventually, after some hesitation, Penny said, "What's my father going to do to me?"

"Nothing," Rainbow said.

"Won't he be upset with me for failing so badly?"

"I don't know how he's going to feel, and I don't care," Rainbow replied. "He's not going to do anything to you, I promise."

Penny was silent for a moment, before she said, "I don't believe you."

Rainbow closed her eyes for a moment. "No, I bet you don't." She opened her eyes again. "Penny, do you remember that I let you stay at Beacon, even when I was sent to bring you back to Atlas? Do you remember that I let you tell Ruby and Pyrrha about what you really were?"

"Only because the General gave you permission," Penny replied. "And you made me promise to do exactly as you said while we were at Beacon."

"And I had good reason for that."

"If General Ironwood had told you no, bring me back, then you would have," Penny pointed out.

Rainbow winced. "I mean… okay, yes, I would have-"

"Just because the Girl's gaolers let her out into the garden sometimes doesn't mean that they stopped being her gaolers," Penny replied. "Or that Tower became a home."

"So you do see yourself that way," Rainbow murmured. "And we're the gaolers, right? Me, Ciel, and Twilight?"

"Aren't you?" Penny asked.

Rainbow sat down again for a moment, gathering her thoughts together as she pondered how exactly to answer that. "I should have spoken to you about this a long time ago," she muttered. She raised her voice. "You don't like us, do you, Penny?"

Penny didn't say anything.

"You can be honest," Rainbow urged.

"Why should I like you?" Penny demanded. "You're only here because General Ironwood ordered you to be, to keep an eye on me for him and my father. You're here to make sure that I don't do anything that they don't approve of. And Ciel treats me like a kid, and you baby me and act like I need protection, and the worst part is… the worst part is that you might be right."

"Don't take that last part personally; I act that way with all of my friends," Rainbow told her.

"That's not funny."

"Good, because it's not a joke," Rainbow said; she stood up again, so that Penny could once more see her face and tell that she was being serious about this. "I treat all of my friends as though they need help to keep from breaking. You saw how I was with Twilight after the fight with Cinder in the tower. Let me tell you something: it is killing me that Fluttershy and Applejack are on another ship right now, and it doesn't matter that I can fly over there whenever I want with my wings; the fact that they're over there, on another ship, an unarmed ship, a ship that I'm not on… it's making my hands itch. Now maybe that's a flaw on my part, I don't know; I hope not, but it might be. But even if it is, it's something that I can't change. Some things are just a part of who we are, and we can't alter them without losing who we are. You don't have to like it – which is good, because you obviously don't – but it's not about you or what you are or how this team was put together. And as for Ciel… Ciel is really who I wanted to talk to you about. You're treating her badly, and it isn't right, and I'd like you to stop. You can dislike me all you want, but Ciel doesn't deserve it, and… do you know what Ciel is risking to be here? Do you know what Ciel has given up to be here?"

"'Given up'?" Penny repeated.

"Ciel should have gone to the Academy last year," Rainbow reminded her. "If she hadn't been injured, then she'd be a sophomore by now. Even taking the injury into account, if she'd started at Atlas as an ordinary freshman, I bet she'd be a team leader right now. Gods know that she's got the smarts for it; she knows the rulebook inside out. She's… the kind of person they put on the recruiting poster, because she looks the part just that much. But she didn't start at Atlas as an ordinary freshman; she took a post on this team because the General asked her too, even though it meant serving under me, no chance of being team leader."

"She's so unlucky."

"Don't be sarcastic, it doesn't suit you," Rainbow said sharply. "It never suited you, and it certainly doesn't suit that voice." She paused. "What I'm about to say may sound… not very nice, but here it is anyway: this mission has an equal chance of ending in disaster as triumph for Ciel. And she's the only one who can really say that. Yes, if everything works out, if you do great in the tournament, if at the end of your testing, everyone is really impressed, then we'll all reap the rewards: General Ironwood will be impressed, people will remember our names, we'll get headhunted by elite units once we graduate. But if it doesn't work, if you don't work out, then Twilight will go back to the lab, nobody's going to blame her; I'll still be able to count on General Ironwood, unless I screw up majorly, but Ciel? What's Ciel going to do, who's going to take her side? She's got a lot to lose, but she's here anyway."

"For her duty," Penny said.

"Because duty called, yeah," Rainbow admitted. "But also for you. We care about you, Penny. Maybe… maybe we didn't, at first, maybe you were just an assignment to us, a job that we'd been asked to do, a feather in our caps, but… you've really grown on us. On Ciel especially. I think… you know she's got six younger brothers?"

"No," Penny said. "I didn't know that."

"Well, she does," Rainbow said. "And so, if it seems like she's babying you, try and remember that, with two parents in the military, she's probably spent half her life babying everyone around her, and mommying them, and… telling them what to do. That's another reason she'd have made a good team leader. But what I'm trying to say is that when she treats you like that, it's not because she doesn't like you, and it's certainly not because she doesn't care. It's because she's treating you like part of her family; that's… that's the opposite of not caring. And the fact that you don't… the fact that you treat her like she's some machine just following orders… it's hurting her. And she doesn't deserve to be hurt."

"She doesn't seem hurt," Penny replied.

"Yeah, well, that's… that's part of what it means to be a family," Rainbow said. "You don't… you don't let them see you bleed."

Saying that made her think of her own parents, packed off to Menagerie and out of her life. How much had that hurt them, how much had all of her rejections hurt them, that they had never let on?

Maybe something else I have to make amends for.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Penny asked.

"That… that's a good question," Rainbow admitted. "And I get it, I mean… the worst thing that anyone ever said to me was when they suggested that Twilight and the others weren't really my friends, that they just wanted a faunus friend they could parade around in some kind of virtue signalling. And it hurt because I kind of believed it; I thought it might be true. I get that it's hard to have faith sometimes, and it's hard to take some things on trust, but you… you can feel. If you give Ciel a chance, I know that you'll feel how much she cares about you. So will you do that? Will you give her a chance, not for me but for Ciel? And for you too." She paused. "I know that we aren't the friends that you chose. I know that you didn't get any choice in the matter, and… I can see that might bother you. But that doesn't mean that we can't be your friends, if you give us a chance."

Penny took a very long time to answer, but answer she did, "Okay."

Rainbow let out the sigh of relief she didn't realise that she'd been holding in. "Great," she said. "Thanks, Penny; Ciel will appreciate it, and you… you won't regret it, I promise." She sat down. "And now," she added, "I know that you could listen to those stories over and over again, but I thought we might try something a little bit different today." She picked up the book. "My grandpa read me this story when I was laid up in bed, sick. It's about a farmboy who has to rescue the princess after she gets kidnapped by a pirate. Or is he an evil prince? It's been too long since I've read this, but I remember it being really good, sword fights and romance and everything. What do you say?"

"Sure," Penny said. "I'd like to hear it. Go on."

Rainbow smiled. "As you wish," she said as she opened up the book.

XxXxX​

Rainbow Dash walked into the RST room, wearing her Wings of Harmony upon her back. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready to go," Twilight replied.

She had exchanged her spectacles for contact lenses, which she found somewhat uncomfortable, but at least they probably wouldn't fall off on the flight between the two ships and leave her blind. She was dressed in a knee-length dress of bold pink with a ruffled skirt three layers deep and a white sash bound tightly around her waist, tied into a bow off-centre in front of her. A strip of lavender, and then another of white, crept up the bodice towards the shoulderless sweetheart neckline. Her legs were exposed, but since it was likely to be at least a little chilly flying through the air – however briefly – she had covered them with a pair of long lavender stockings, while a maroon jacket served the same function for her arms and shoulders, which would otherwise have been left bare by her dress. A pair of plain, high-heeled purple shoes enclosed her feet, with straps around her ankles to ensure that they too did not fall off, while her hair was bound up in a bun to ensure that it didn't blow into Rainbow's face as they were flying.

"What do you think?"

"It's a little much for my taste, but you make it work," Rainbow said approvingly.

"Good to hear," Twilight said as the two of them headed out, leaving the room empty save for Spike.

Save for Spike, and the glowing green canister of Sunset's magic that swirled upon the table.

Spike barked. He snuffled. He ran around the room in a circle and leapt up onto Twilight's bed.

He lay down upon the pillow for a moment, but then got up again and restlessly leapt down onto the floor.

He barked and then leapt up onto the chair from where, standing on his hind legs, he could see the canister and its swirling green contents.

The magic danced, reflected in his eyes, as he barked once more.

From out of a crack between the lid and the canister, a thin, wispy tendril of magic emerged, creeping out of its container like a thief. It danced in the air, turning in circles, making a loop, but moving closer, ever closer, towards Spike.

The reflection of the green glow in Spike's eyes grew ever closer, but Spike didn't move. The magic held him spellbound as it worked its way through the air within the room until, finally, it touched him on the nose, as though giving him a gentle gesture of affection.

Spike's eyes glowed green for a moment as he sat down upon the chair.

"Whoa," he said.

XxXxX​

Weiss dressed simply for dinner, in a white dress with a gauzy, semi-transparent collar, and a slightly flared skirt that stopped just below her thighs. The only accessories that she added to this simple accoutrement was a slight and slender diamond bracelet which she clasped about her right wrist and, of course, the tiara set in her off-centre ponytail.

There was a knock on the door into her cabin.

"Who is it?" Weiss called out.

"It's me, Flash," Flash replied.

The doors on this airship were not automatic, and for Weiss, that was a good thing, seeing as it came with a certain suggestion of privacy that would have been lacking on a man-of-war.

She picked up a small white purse – containing her room key, lien, and a few other necessities, since she couldn't exactly wear belt pouches with this dress – and crossed the small stateroom gracefully to the door, which she opened to reveal Flash waiting outside. He was dressed in a suit, minus the tie and with his collar undone; she seemed to recall that he'd been dressed that way at the dance, too.

Not that there was anything wrong with that; so was she.

"Is it that you don't own a tie?" she asked playfully.

Flash let out a slightly nervous laugh. "I'm not a huge fan," he admitted, "but now I'm starting to wonder if I should have worn one anyway."

"I'm sure it will be fine," Weiss said. "It's not as if we're dining first class. Are you ready?"

"Yeah, sure," Flash replied. "Would you, um, I mean, would it be too much if I…" He trailed off, but offered his arm in any case to demonstrate what he meant.

Weiss smiled. "No, that wouldn't be too much at all," she replied as she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. "In fact, that would be quite courteous."

Flash smiled, and a faint blush rose to his face as the two of them left Weiss' room behind – the door slammed shut behind them – and began to walk towards the nearest elevator, the dining room being located at the bottom of the ship.

"Thank you," Flash said as they approached.

"What for?" Weiss asked, as they reached the lift; she pressed the button to summon the car. "Having dinner with you?"

"Having dinner with my friends," Flash corrected her. "I haven't seen Applejack or Fluttershy in a while; it'll be good to catch up."

"It's no problem," Weiss assured him. "They seem like nice people."

"They are," Flash assured her. "They're… they're the best people I know. Everyone at school – hell, everyone in Canterlot – knew that they could depend on those girls in a pinch. No matter what the problem was, no matter what was going on, you could always rely on them to help and to find a way to fix it."

The elevator arrived, the doors sliding open to reveal an empty cab. The two of them stepped inside, and Flash pushed the button for the deck they wished to go to.

"Please stand clear, doors closing," announced the automated voice as the doors slid shut. The lift began to grind downwards, thrumming and throbbing as it went.

Weiss looked up at Flash. "Did they ever help you?"

Flash glanced down at her. "Once or twice," he said softly. "After Sunset and I broke up… they were there for me when I needed them. Twilight, especially."

"Ah, yes," Weiss remembered the awkwardness of their first meeting when RSPT had shown up at Beacon. "You had a crush on her, didn't you?"

Flash laughed. "I misread the signals," he replied. "Not for the last time," he added, glancing down at her again.

Weiss adjusted her grip on his arm. "I wouldn't say you misread the signals," she said casually, "so much as the situation."

"I… see," Flash murmured. "Doesn't it come to the same thing, in the end?"

"Perhaps," Weiss admitted. "But it isn't your fault, and it isn't something you should blame yourself for."

The lift came to a stop. "Doors opening."

The doors did, in fact, open, and Weiss and Flash stepped out into a lobby, tastefully decorated in emerald furnishings, made all the greener-seeming by the soft green lights which illuminated everything. Beyond the lobby, Weiss caught sight of their dining companions – Applejack, Fluttershy, Blake, and Twilight Sparkle too – all standing at the bar, drinking something that she was too far away to identify.

"I hope we haven't kept you waiting," Weiss said as she and Flash swept – well, Weiss swept; Flash just walked – across the lobby to join them. The bar was deliberately antique in style, with a wooden, well, bar, to stand at, and two pumps like they used to have in the old days, even though all beer was bottled now. Weiss wondered what the point of the pretence was; it struck her that, in its own way, Vale looked to its past just as much as Mistral did. It just didn't shout about it so much.

Fluttershy lowered the orange juice – as she got closer, Weiss could see that they were all drinking some kind of fruit juice – and said, "Not at all, Weiss, you're just in time. And you look lovely, by the way."

"Thank you, Fluttershy," Weiss replied. Applejack and Fluttershy had not bothered to dress, although considering their circumstances, that was quite understandable, indeed to the point where Weiss might have felt guilty about dressing up herself except that Twilight had bothered to dress, and rather nicely too, as had Blake, who was wearing a plain dress of dark purple with a narrow skirt and a black belt around her waist. "Good evening, everyone."

"Evenin', Mi- I mean, Weiss."

"Good evening, Weiss, Flash."

"Hey, Twilight."

"Weiss," Blake said softly. "Flash."

Weiss inclined her head. "Blake."

"I feel," Blake added, "as though I ought to thank you."

Weiss' eyebrows rose. "For what?"

"For being at the Breach," Blake said. "For standing your ground there and being part of the fight, both of you."

"For being huntsmen and huntresses, you mean?" Weiss replied. "No thanks are necessary. It's what we – what I, for one, signed up for."

"What we both signed up for," Flash added.

"Hear hear," Applejack murmured, raising her glass of apple juice and taking a drink.

Blake's golden eyes locked onto Weiss' icy blue eyes, and for a moment, neither said anything.

"So," Twilight said, "would you two like something to drink, or shall we get our table?"

"Why don't we sit down?" Weiss suggested. "If that's alright with everyone else?"

Nobody had any objections to taking their seats, so they approached the 'Wait here to be seated' sign, where fortunately, there was a waiter in a waistcoat and bow tie waiting to take their reservation and show them into the dining room proper. It was somewhat crowded at this hour, and the waiter led them through tables occupied by couples, families, or work colleagues talking shop before he brought them to a trio of square tables shoved together to make room for six places. A white tablecloth covered the table, as such a cloth covered all the tables, but did not disguise the joins.

Flash pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down on the left-hand side of the table, finding herself opposite Blake with Flash sitting at her right. Twilight sat opposite Flash, next to Blake, with Applejack and Fluttershy taking the last places at the table. Applejack took off her hat and placed it on the floor beside her.

Everyone except Weiss and Flash already had drinks which they hadn't finished, but the waiter took their order and left them with the menus before they disappeared.

Weiss studied the menu in front of her idly. The food was not of the highest quality, but then, if she'd wanted that, then she ought to have travelled first class and used that, separate, restaurant. Besides, it looked to be as good quality as the food at Beacon, perhaps even a little better.

It wasn't all particularly healthy, but considering where she was going and how reluctant she was to be going there, Weiss wondered if she could perhaps afford to indulge herself just a little.

If her figure was even a little too wide in the waist when she arrived back home, her father would have it put right soon enough.

Unfortunately, he would also feel the need to mention it to Weiss, repeatedly, and without much politeness in his tone… or in the method of his correction, most likely.

Her mother had begun to let herself go a couple of years ago; her father had tolerated it up to a point, but when his patience with it had snapped…

Weiss was already letting him drag her back to that house; she wasn't about to give him an excuse to lock her in her room on a strict diet for the duration of her stay there.

She dismissed the idea of indulgence and turned her gaze upon the healthier options.

Yes, the seabass ought to be safe enough.

Weiss glanced up from her menu. "Applejack, Fluttershy," she said, "I imagine you're relieved to be going home after what you've been through."

"You can say that again," Applejack muttered.

"Oh, yes," Fluttershy said. "It was fun up until… well, you know, but I'm glad to be going back to Atlas."

"You were really unlucky, running into those people the way you did," Flash said, "and nobody knows what they were doing or why? Four students just decided to try and hack the CCT, almost killed Twilight, kidnapped you two, and allied with the White Fang, and no one knows why?"

"'There are more things in heaven and earth than we can dream of,'" Weiss murmured. "I'm sure that their reasons made sense to them, even if to an outside eye, they appeared nonsensical or deranged."

"And they didn't say anything to you about their motives?" Flash asked.

"They don't have to talk about it," Blake said.

Flash frowned. "I know, and I'm sorry if you don't, but… when Blake and I were being held by The Purifier, he had plenty to say about why he was doing all of this."

"Oh, that Cinder had a few things to say," Applejack agreed. "Not much of it of any use in workin' out why she was doin' the things she was doin'."

"The White Fang made a little more sense," Fluttershy offered. "I felt… I felt sorry for them."

Blake blinked rapidly, and looked down at her menu and said nothing.

"'Sorry for them'?" Weiss asked. "After they kidnapped you and held you hostage?"

"They didn't hurt us," Fluttershy pointed out. "Their leader even set me free, since I wasn't a huntress or a fighter."

Weiss' eyebrows rose. "I… really?"

"You don't believe her?" Blake asked.

Weiss was quiet for a moment. "The White Fang does not have a history of sparing non-combatants."

It hadn't helped her father's temperament when the few friends he had started being picked off, either in bombings or kidnapped and executed. None of them had been huntsmen or fighters, either.

"No," Fluttershy whispered. "I'm aware of how lucky I am. But that doesn't change the fact that it happened, and it doesn't change the fact that the faunus we met down there weren't evil; they'd just been given bad opportunities and so made bad choices."

"Hmm," Weiss murmured. "Very bad choices. And I, for one, feel better for knowing that the consequences of those choices caught up with them."

"You mean you're glad they're dead?" Blake demanded.

Weiss did not flinch. "They were willing to encompass the deaths of the entire city of Vale," she replied, her voice calm and a little cold. "They unleashed a horde of grimm into one of our great cities, the heart of a kingdom. I feel as though that should be borne in mind before we start shedding tears for them." She paused for a moment, but not long enough for Blake to get a word in before she added, "I suppose you must be glad to be going home as well, Blake, after so long away on your undercover assignment."

You'd do well to remember your cover story, even though everyone here knows that it's false; it was bad enough at Beacon when you nearly gave yourself away with your attitudes; not everyone in Atlas will be as forgiving.

Blake hesitated for a moment. "I, yes, my… undercover assignment," she said.

Weiss smiled at her. "Try and keep up, Blake; this is supposed to be your life, after all." She paused for a moment. "May I offer you a piece of advice?"

Blake's eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"I suppose that, being among the White Fang for so long, it became very easy to sympathise with them," Weiss suggested.

"You… could say that," Blake murmured.

"I have no opinion on that, one way or the other," Weiss said, "but that sort of talk won't go down too well everywhere in Atlas. Not from anyone," she added, with a glance at Fluttershy, "but certainly not from a faunus, however valiant your service to the kingdom. Just something to bear in mind, for your own good. Not everyone who has suffered at the hands of the White Fang will be as tolerant as Flash is being."

"We're not without experience of the worst of the White Fang ourselves," Twilight reminded Weiss.

"All the more reason to remember what others have been through," Weiss told her. "I'm not denying that the faunus have suffered, and I'm certainly not denying the part that the SDC has played in that… but that doesn't change the fact that, in their campaign for justice, the White Fang has left a trail of bodies in their wake."

For a moment, the table fell silent. Then Blake said, "You're right, of course; after… after spending so long with the White Fang, I do feel the desire to help my people, because they are still my people. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't also feel the need to stop them."

"As I understand it, you have," Weiss said. "In Vale, at least."

Blake glanced away. "Well… so it seems."

Weiss' brow furrowed. "I apologise, perhaps I shouldn't have brought the subject up."

"No, it's fine," Blake said quickly. "You… you gave me some very good advice, which I'll bear in mind, and which I needed, having been… so long away from Atlas." There was a pause as the waiter returned with Weiss' and Flash's drinks. Once he had set them down and then – having taken their orders – departed once again, Blake raised her glass. "To Atlas."

The rest all raised their glasses, clinking them together in the air above the white-clothed table. "To Atlas!"

XxXxX​

Twilight carried her shoes in one hand and walked barefoot down the corridors of the Hope back to their room, with Rainbow following behind her.

Neither of them said anything as they reached the room itself. The door slid open, and the two stepped inside. Rainbow flicked on the lights as the door slid shut after them.

"Hey, Twilight, check this out!" Spike cried in a high, boyish voice.

"Aah!" Twilight cried, stumbling backwards into Rainbow Dash, hitting her in the act of stumbling backwards in turn so that they both fell over together, landing with a crash on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

"Uh," Rainbow said, "did Spike just-?"

"That's right," Spike said smugly, grinning from where he sat on the chair. "I can talk now. Pretty cool, huh?"

"No!" Twilight yelled, as she untangled herself from Rainbow Dash. "Not, 'pretty cool,' not cool at all!"

"Well-" Rainbow began.

"Not cool at all!" Twilight repeated, louder and with additional emphasis, silencing Rainbow in the process. She returned her attention to Spike. "What… how… since when? How did this happen?"

"I dunno," Spike said. "I was looking at that canister, and then this green light came out of it-"

"What do you mean it came out?" Twilight demanded. "It's sealed up!"

"Apparently not," Spike replied.

Rainbow groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. "Great. Spike, did you see any more green stuff come out of there and where did it go?"

"What kind of a question is that?" Twilight snapped.

"Look, Twilight, I admit it's kind of weird that Spike can talk now-"

"'Kind of weird'?"

"But I'm more worried about what magic leaking everywhere could do to the ship," Rainbow went on. "Or, you know, the crew. Or us."

"I didn't see any more coming out," Spike replied. "Just the stuff that got me."

"Well, that's good to hear," Rainbow said. "All the same, I think we should try and find somewhere safer to put that, just in case. Like a dust case; they're resistant."

"I don't see what the problem is," Spike said. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, but I don't want to count on us getting that lucky every time," Rainbow said.

She knelt down and reached under the lower bunk, dragging a shining metallic case out across the floor. Rainbow opened the case with a click, revealing various phials of dust of every different type and colour nestled within. Two by two, Rainbow began emptying the case, depositing the dust on the floor beside her.

"Will you please stop having a conversation with Spike?" Twilight moaned as she sat down on the bed.

Rainbow looked at her from over her shoulder. "I mean, he's answering back. It's not like I'm talking to a regular dog."

"There's nothing wrong with talking to a regular dog," Twilight declared. She sank down onto her bunk. "It's the answering back that's the problem!"

"But why?" Spike asked. He hopped into her lap. "Twilight, I'm still me."

To prove it, he leapt up and licked her face for good measure.

A smile crept onto Twilight's face in spite of herself. "Sorry, I just… this is… how do you feel?"

"Confused?" Spike suggested. "But not that I can talk. More like I'm confused that I couldn't do it before. It's so easy."

Twilight couldn't help but chuckle as she picked Spike up and cradled him in her arms.

"So long as you're okay, then I guess that's okay," she said, pressing his face to her cheek. "After all, I guess we all change, all the time, and that's a good thing."

"Sure," Rainbow agreed. "But I'm still going to lock that canister away until we get to Atlas."

The laughter of Twilight – and Spike – filled the room.

XxXxX​

The door slid open before her.

Ciel stepped inside. Her footsteps echoed upon the metallic floor beneath, and the door hissed a second time as it closed after her.

Other than that, the room was silent. Like an empty church after the congregation had departed.

No, not like that at all. There was a comfort to be found in such silences, or at least, Ciel found it so; she meant nothing against an organised service, there was something to be said for hymns or communal prayers, there were certainly times when there was something to be said for a sympathetic ear from the pastor, but there were also times when Ciel preferred to simply walk into the empty church — the door was left open, even though the valuables were often secured at such times — and sit in one of the pews in the back row and pray. Or to approach the altar and kneel at the feet of the Lady, as the Lady knelt before God, and seek solace, wisdom, guidance, whatever one felt the need of at the present time.

It was sometimes good to be able to commune with the Lady — and through her, with God — absent intermediaries or interruptions, with nothing getting in the way of one's thoughts flying heavenward. And, to speak truth, an empty church was about the only place left in the world where you could truly escape the world; there was no getting away from it anywhere else these days; if the people didn't follow you, the culture would.

This was not a comforting silence. This was not a silence conducive to contemplation or to seeking solace. This silence had a prickly and uncertain edge to it, a silence that bred fear and misgiving, a silence that revolted against her presence. A silence that evoked darkness, however brightly lit the room might be.

A silence that made her want to leave.

But she would not leave. She would not turn and flee. She was a Flower of the North and made of braver stuff than that by far.

This … this might not be pleasant, but it was necessary.

Although the fact that the room was so silent was not a good sign.

Penny lay on the desk. It revolted Ciel to see her this way: immobile, naked, voiceless. It reminded her of the … the streets of Mantle, her home, were full of the homeless; they lurked upon street corners, and whether they sat hunched under the light or sought the shadow was a good indicator of whether one should offer them alms or stay well clear; sometimes, they were not alive to receive such charity. Despite the heating grid, the cold of night sometimes claimed them all the same. One saw their bodies, eyes open, bodies frozen in the position of their last shivering moments. One morning, they had found one such poor fellow blocking the stairwell of their tenement. It was never a pretty sight, and never an easy sight to forget. And Penny was lying there in just such a way, it…

Ciel trembled, as though the cold of Mantle's night was reaching her even here. She swallowed. Her throat was dry.

"Penny, will you speak?" she asked, words tripping swiftly out of her mouth. "Say something, anything."

"Good evening, Ciel," Penny replied, her voice issuing out of the computer to which she was connected. "Is everything okay? You sound anxious."

Ciel swallowed again, and was glad that she had not yet stepped into Penny's field of vision. "I am … as well as you are," she said. "Or 'So long as you are well, then I am well,' as the Lady opens her epistles."

"I don't feel well," Penny opined. "I can barely feel anything."

Ciel stepped forward, until she was looking down on Penny, so Penny could see her. She hoped that none of her feelings about Penny's present condition communicated themselves in her expression. "Then my own wellness is reduced accordingly, for how could I be…"

Ciel trailed off; even in her head, that sounded absurdly melodramatic; it was one thing for the Lady of the North to write that way, but she was not the Lady of the North to speak so.

"I am not happy if you are not happy," she said plainly.

"Sceptical: Really?" Penny asked.

Ciel frowned. "What is that?"

"What is what?"

"Saying the word 'sceptical,'" Ciel explained.

"How else are you supposed to know how I feel?"

"Don't do that," Ciel instructed her. "It sounds ridiculous."

"Now you understand why I'm sceptical," Penny said.

Ciel paused for a moment. "I apologise; that was poorly judged of me." She sat down. "Although, that being said, simply because I cannot be happy while you are unhappy does not mean that your happiness alone is enough to bring me joy."

"Because I have to be happy doing what you want," Penny said.

"What I want is not the issue," Ciel insisted. "The issue is … Penny, why do you think that we have etiquette classes at Atlas?"

Penny was silent for a moment. "I don't know. I thought they were boring."

"I suspect you are not alone in that," Ciel muttered. "Nevertheless, there is a purpose."

"What?"

"Well," Ciel said, "in one of the trashy novels with which Rainbow Dash is unfortunately enamoured, the hero identifies a supposed ally as an enemy spy by the fact that he is so gauche as to order red wine with fish, which no well-educated Atlesian would ever do." She cleared her throat. "Not that I've read any of them, of course."

"Your secret's safe with me, don't worry," Penny said.

Ciel chuckled. "I miss your voice, Penny," she confessed. "I … miss being able to hear the emotion in it as you said such things."

"Amused: Your secret's safe with me."

"That is no substitute at all, I'm afraid," Ciel said dryly. "More pertinently, the reason for an etiquette is not merely the whim of some past headmaster; rather, it is because we are civilised people, defending a civilised world, and it behooves us to behave as such. Virtus, Penny, sometimes translated as virtue — although that is not as exact as the similarity in words might have you think — as set against the furor of grimm and of barbarians alike. And the higher, more refined quality will always triumph over the baser. The Vacuans think us soft, they think that a hard land has made them strong, and with their strength, they would sweep us aside if it came to it, but history shows it is not so. Nor shall it be so, because our virtus will always be superior so long as we maintain it. So, if it sometimes seems that I am hard on you, that I hold you to standards that are unnecessarily higher … it is only because I do not wish to see you fail."

"Because that's your mission," Penny said. "To make sure that I don't fail."

"That is the mission," Ciel conceded. "But it is not the source of my desire. I … I care about you, Penny. It… I confess it saddens me that you did not realise that."

Penny was silent for a moment. "Rainbow Dash says that I should apologise to you, for being mean," she said, "but I don't think this is my fault; how was I supposed to know that you cared when you treat me like that?"

"I treat you as I would treat any of my own brothers!" Ciel declared hotly.

"Do your brothers know that you care about them?" Penny asked.

"Of—" Ciel stopped, because as easy as it would be reflexively to declare that of course they did … she hadn't actually asked.

Such things … they didn't tend to talk about such things in her family. Feelings, care, all rather awkward. And there were always more important things than sentiment, and in any case, with mother and father both so frequently away, she had — as the eldest — been forced to step into a role that made her somewhat more than an equal to her brothers. It was hard to talk about love and devotion when you were trying to corral an increasing number of boys to get their baths, or brush their teeth, or go to bed on time, and I know you didn't say your prayers, Maurice! God may forgive you, but I may not!

She thought about her youngest brother, Alain; he was ill, quite grievously so, if the doctors were not very much mistaken. His condition made him fragile, and Ciel — they all, but Ciel's focus was upon her own behaviour — took great pains with him on account of it.

She wondered, suddenly, if he found that as irksome as Penny apparently found her treatment.

"I … I hope so," she said softly. "But I fear … you are correct; the fact that you could not discern my intent is not your fault. I should have been … I should not have assumed. I am sorry."

"I'm sorry too," Penny said. "I didn't want to … I just wanted to … I want to be my own person."

"And you think that I do not allow that?" Ciel asked.

"What is it that you want me to become, Ciel?" Penny responded.

Ciel considered her response for a little while; she would not lie to Penny — she might only get one chance to say this — but she would phrase the truth in the best way.

"I want you to be a good Atlesian girl," she said.

"Like Rainbow Dash?" Penny asked. "Is she a good Atlesian girl?"

Ciel licked her lips. "Rainbow Dash … our esteemed leader has her virtues, although she is not without fault."

"What about Neon Katt? Or Trixie Lulamoon? Or Starlight Glimmer?"

"Neon is a fine fighter and a better wit," Ciel admitted, "but she takes her virtue to such excess that it becomes a vice; she has in her a little too much levity at times. I confess I do not know those other two save by reputation."

"Are they good Atlesian girls?" Penny asked.

"I think you have a point to make," Ciel guessed. "I would have you share it."

"Why do they get to be weird, or flawed, or less than perfect, or something other than a good Atlesian girl, but I don't?" Penny demanded. "Is it because I was made?"

"Yes," Ciel admitted. "But not for the reasons you think."

She paused for a moment.

"My brother Tyson wants to enlist as a mechanic, the same as my father," she said. "I have no doubt that he will be accepted; he has skilled hands, and the military is always eager for recruits. In that position, any eccentricities he possesses — I confess I do not know if he has any — will be tolerated, as long as he keeps the airships flying. But I … I desire more than that."

Again, she took a moment to gather her thoughts.

"Do you know that Neon Katt and I grew up in the same tenement in Mantle? That our families worship at the same church?"

"No," Penny said. "I didn't know that."

"No, Neon doesn't seem the religious type, does she?" Ciel commented dryly. "Nevertheless, it is the truth. Neon … Neon is more entertaining to be around than myself, I grant; I myself enjoy her company, although perhaps I should tell her so in case she, too, has failed to realise it. She is witty, charming … and I fear she will be lucky to reach lieutenant in this army, let alone higher. Starlight Glimmer, with her record … she may behave as she pleases, for she has blotted her copybook with her conduct already; no one will trust her with a command. Rainbow Dash enjoys General Ironwood's favour and his patronage. Trixie Lulamoon … as I say, I do not know her; I cannot say whether she realises what an impression she is making with her antics. But I do know that she is not from Mantle."

She took a deep breath and forced down the anger that she felt, the anger that she did not allow herself to feel, over the way in which those who hailed from Mantle were treated like second class within their own kingdom. Over the way in which those with ability and the accomplishments to prove said ability were passed over in favour of those who spoke with the right accent, who came from 'the right background,' who had 'good families' who would speak up for them and ensure their places.

"Do you remember our mission to Cold Harbour?" Ciel asked.

"Yes," Penny replied.

"I fear I maligned Blake there," Ciel admitted. "When she … gave you cause to doubt yourself, and to doubt how Ruby and Pyrrha would react to learning the truth about you, I was very cross with her. But the truth is, she was not entirely wrong. You and I … we will always be outsiders, and that means that we cannot afford to be anything less than good girls, not if we wish to prosper on the inside."

"And what if I don't want that?" Penny asked. "What if I'd rather just be me?"

"You do not know the cost of what you ask," Ciel replied.

"And you do?"

"I know it well; my father has lived it his entire career," Ciel declared, her voice rising even as she herself rose to her feet. "My father … my father wanted to be a pilot. He had the educational qualifications necessary to qualify him to enter flight school, but when he went to the recruiting office, the sergeant assumed, based on his background, that he had come to join up as an enlisted man."

"Why didn't he say anything?"

"He was too nervous," Ciel said, "and confrontation is not his way. It has to be admitted that he is a good mechanic, but at the same time, it must gall him, to have been treated in such a way, never to rise beyond the middle reaches of the non-commissions, to grow old in the service taking orders from a succession of arrogant young officers who do not know one tenth of what he has learned about airships or engineering, but they were born in the right place, and they know the right people!"

She turned away, half-covering her mouth with one hand.

"I am sorry, Penny, I did not mean to raise my voice. The Lady teaches us that anger is not a thing to be indulged. And yet … and yet, there are times when … there are times when I fear that the light of Atlas is not so pure and untarnished as I would have it." She sighed. "But we must live in the world that is, even if we seek to make a better one. I would be more than my father was condemned to. That will not happen if I am not … correct, in all aspects."

"That's what you want," Penny pointed out. "But that doesn't have to be what I want."

"You want to spend your life watching others rise around you while you are ignored?" Ciel asked, turning back towards her.

"I don't think I want to be a general, or a colonel, or even a major," Penny said. "I think I'd rather be happy. Are you happy, Ciel?"

Ciel did not reply for a moment. "So long as you are happy, Penny," she said, "then I will be happy."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Through the Clouds​

"Huh," Rainbow said.

"Hmm?" Ciel said, looking up from her book. "Something interesting?"

They were on the open deck of the skyliner. Everyone was there in some fashion: Rainbow, Ciel, Twilight, Spike, Applejack, Fluttershy, Blake; Twilight had even rigged up Penny's optical sensors to a drone so that – the drone being over there with them – she could 'see' everything that the drone's cameras could see and speak out of a speaker plugged into the miniature flyer. Since Rainbow couldn't bring everyone over to the Hope – you could make a case for Applejack or Blake, but definitely not for Fluttershy – she had instead flown everyone and the drone over to the civilian airship, where they all stood or sat upon the deck. Rainbow was leaning with her back to the safety rail, reading that book that Tukson had given her; Ciel was standing, ramrod straight, in the middle of the deck, likewise reading – In Search of the Historical Lady of the North. Fluttershy was fussing over Spike, while Applejack and Twilight sat on the deck playing cards. Blake leaned upon the rails, her elbows resting on the metal as the breeze whipped through her long dark hair as she looked out across the white expanse of Solitas spread out all around them.

That was why they were all on the open deck; that was why Rainbow had gotten everybody here like this. They had crossed the ocean, and now, the two ships were on their final approach to Atlas itself. Rainbow wanted everyone to be here for that moment when they broke through the clouds and beheld the shining kingdom because… well, because it was a sight to see, and it would be cool for them to all see it together.

It made Rainbow's heart soar, every time.

"I've only just started, but listen to this," Rainbow said. She cleared her throat. "'This book is dedicated to Doughnut Joe Sr., whose shop I frequented when I was living in Atlas.' I never realised that Sienna Khan lived in Atlas; I thought she was from Mistral."

"No," Blake murmured. "She was born in Atlas and only moved to Mistral when she was a young adult."

Twilight looked up. "But why would she dedicate her book to a guy who owned a doughnut shop, even if she did used to go there? It's not like I'd dedicate a book to Mr. and Mrs. Cake."

"I'm getting to that," Rainbow told her. "'He was a man of great curiosity and always willing to talk with me about anything and everything new that I had learned or discovered. One day, he said to me, "You're always talking about this book of yours; why don't you write it?" I told him that I needed to go to Mistral to research in the archives there and that I didn't have the money right now – at the time, I was working as a researcher for the Atlesian News Network, saving as much as I could. Joe asked me how much I needed, and I told him about a thousand lien. That was all he said on the matter at the time, but the next time I was in there, he pressed eleven hundred lien into my hand. "On to Mistral, then," he said, "and if you need more, let me know." Without his help, I would never have been able to start on this journey.'" Rainbow lowered the book. "It makes you think, doesn't it?"

"What does it make you think?" Penny asked, her mechanical voice emerging from out of the drone where it sat on the deck.

"It makes you think about the White Fang," Rainbow explained. "And what would have happened if Joe Senior hadn't lent Sienna that money to go to Mistral. Imagine if he'd kept his lien and Sienna had had to stick around Atlas trying to get enough money together for her trip. Maybe she never would have managed it, and maybe the White Fang would have stayed a peaceful organisation under Blake's father."

"I doubt that," Blake said, turning to face Rainbow. "To be honest, I don't think even Sienna Khan would attribute that kind of importance to herself."

"She is pretty important," Rainbow pointed out. "I mean, she's the reason that the White Fang turned to violence five years ago."

"No," Blake replied, "she's the one who led the White Fang into violence; there's a difference."

"Post hoc ergo propter hoc," Ciel said.

"Post what now?" Applejack said.

"'After this, therefore because of this,'" Twilight translated. "Just because one thing follows on from another doesn't mean that the thing that came before is responsible for what came after."

"But if a leader takes charge of a group and then that leader does a thing, then the leader taking charge is responsible for the thing that they did," Rainbow said. "That seems obvious."

"I believe Blake's point is that at or around that particular moment, it was inevitable that there would be a change of leadership in the White Fang and that that new leader would adopt policies similar to those instituted by Sienna Khan," Ciel said.

"Exactly," Blake agreed. "Five years ago, my father was tired of the struggle, and faunus inside and outside the organisation were tired of the lack of results; it wasn't Sienna Khan who forced my father to step down, it was the general clamour for a new approach. And yes, Sienna Khan was the person who stepped up in those circumstances, and yes, she advocated for a muscular, confrontational, violent approach to the struggle for equality, but no one who didn't advocate for that could have succeeded my father – that was what people wanted, a High Leader who would stand up to the Kingdoms – which means, equally, that anyone who succeeded my father would have done as she did. It's interesting to speculate on Sienna Khan's personal history if she hadn't been given that gift that allowed her to go to Mistral, to study, to publish, to get her PhD, but her personal history is all that would change. If you wanted to change the trajectory of the White Fang, you would have to have my father achieve some tangible results to stave off criticism and renew his energy for the fight."

"So the person doesn't matter?" Applejack asked. "Who they are, where they come from, how they were raised don't make no difference? We're all just… placeholders? Ah don't know if Ah buy that."

"I wouldn't go that far," Blake replied. "Sienna herself goes into much more detail on this in that book, but the thrust of it is that people are shaped by their world far more often than the reverse, and that while writing history as the story of a heroic protagonist shaping said history by their actions may make for a good read, it betrays the complexity of the world and the economic and cultural forces that shape it. Sienna concedes that there is such a thing as a Great Man – and that Ares Claudandus himself was one of them – who can exercise an outsized influence on events, and without whose presence, the course of history would look different; but even they rise out of their specific moments and are shaped by them. Without the Great War, there would have been no Faunus Rights Revolution, Claudandus or no."

Rainbow began, "And Sienna Khan-"

"Is not on that level of greatness, no," Blake said. "As I said, I don't think even she'd claim that."

"Hmm," Rainbow murmured. "I get what you're saying, but… like Applejack said, I don't know."

"None of us are immune to the influence of where and how we grew up," Twilight pointed out.

"Influence, sure, but we're all so much more than that," Rainbow insisted. "What about where or how I grew up made it obvious that I would become a huntress? What about-?" She pointed at Applejack, and then stopped. "Okay, it kind of works for you."

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks."

Rainbow grinned. "Come on, it's not my fault you're like 'salt of the earth family values' one hundred percent."

"There ain't nothin' wrong with family values," Applejack declared. "Or with salt of the earth, for that matter, neither. Ah'm proud to be proud of where Ah come from and what Ah come from."

"I never said there was anything wrong with that; I'm just saying that you really are who you are because of where you were born and how you were brought up in a way that isn't true for the rest of us," Rainbow said. "It isn't true for me, it isn't true for Fluttershy; Fluttershy, your parents were engineers; who could have predicted that you'd be able to communicate with animals, or that your brother would become a hairstylist? And a creep."

"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy said reproachfully. "That isn't very nice."

"Nor is getting hit on all the time," Rainbow muttered. "But I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't have said it, but the point is that we're all so much more than where we came from. Ciel, sure, your folks are religious, but society isn't, so how do you explain that?"

"I understand your point, but feel as though you may be missing Blake's," Ciel said. "Or at least reducing it down to a level it was not meant to sink to."

"No, I understand what Blake is saying; she's saying that big historical events happen because of everything else that was going on at the same time," Rainbow said. "And I'm saying that, haven't we been involved in big historical events? The White Fang in Vale were not defeated because of the economy or the culture or society or any other big ideas like that; they were defeated because of you, Blake. They were defeated because you decided that you wanted out, you decided that you couldn't take it anymore, you decided that you had to do something. And also because I tried to kill you and scared you into running away and somehow we ended up at the docks but we're all friends now so let's move on anyway. My point is that if Sienna Khan is right, then that would have all happened anyway with or without you, but how? Who would have stopped the robbery, who would have captured Torchwick? Are you just a placeholder, like Applejack said, and if you weren't around, someone else would have left the White Fang and come to Beacon instead? I don't buy that. I don't buy that one bit, and you know why: because no one else did. Only you."

"You never know," Spike said. "Maybe Blake's one of those Great Men of history?"

Rainbow was of the opinion that Spike had a very good point there, and once upon a time, she would have said so, but she'd promised Blake – okay, maybe she hadn't technically promised, but she'd as good as promised Blake – that she wouldn't put that kind of pressure on her anymore, so she didn't say anything, and even tried not to smile as a flush of colour rose to Blake's cheeks.

"That is…" Blake trailed off. "I'm sorry, I still can't believe that you're talking."

"I'm getting that a lot lately," Spike said.

"I also can't believe that you're all so okay with this," Blake said.

"Why wouldn't we be okay with this?" asked Penny.

"It isn't exactly normal," Blake pointed out.

"Neither am I," Penny replied. "Normal is very relative."

"I…" Blake trailed off for a moment. "I suppose you're right about that, Penny."

"Besides, it ain't like we got much choice 'cept to accept it," Applejack drawled. "It is what it is: Spike's talkin' now, and hootin' and hollerin' about it ain't gonna change it."

"I'm a little concerned," Fluttershy admitted, "but I've checked Spike over, and I agree with Twilight that it doesn't seem to have done him any harm."

"I told you I was fine!" Spike declared.

"I know," Fluttershy said, scratching him beneath the chin, "but I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You know I'd be worried sick if anything was wrong with you."

"Well, when you put it like that," Spike said, rolling over onto his back in Fluttershy's lap, kicking his legs happily in the air.

Blake smiled very slightly at the sight, then turned away to once more look out beyond the airship. They had left the ocean behind, crossing the shoreline and passing over Solitas itself. The water beneath them had changed to tundra fields; it wasn't quite fall yet, so the ground wasn't frozen, but it was hard and rocky and desolate all the same. Nothing grew, nothing lived – or at least not much, and nothing that could be seen at the moment. Venture along the coasts, and you could find penguins, seals, and maybe you might find caribou or, if you were unlucky, a polar bear, but not very many of any of them, and none could be seen right now.

"How do you manage to grow any food?" Blake asked.

"The first colonists didn't bother," Rainbow said. "They lived on seal meat and other things they could hunt, like walruses or whales."

Everyone looked at her.

"I know some things!" Rainbow said defensively.

"Thankfully, we don't do that so much any more," Fluttershy said.

"It was never quite so simple," Ciel announced. "Although it is true there was no farming in the early days of Solitas, there was some gathering of wild plant life."

"But you don't still live on seal and whale meat?" Blake asked.

Applejack shook her head. "We farm just like any other folks do these days. Solitas ain't all this bleak lookin'. There's some darn fine farmin' country off towards the west coast. That's where I grew up; that's where we've still got our family farm: Sweet Apple Acres." Her face fell. "Of course, out west where it's less icy and such, the grimm are a lot friskier than they get out here. Something you always gotta watch out for."

Blake winced. "I'm sorry."

"I wasn't sayin' it fer pity," Applejack said. "And I'm just sayin', that's the way it is. You asked, I answered."

"There are also the biodomes," Twilight said.

"Don't talk to me about them; they ain't real farmin'," Applejack said dismissively.

"'Biodomes'?" Blake asked.

"Big greenhouse kind of things," Applejack said. "Artificial indoor farms stuck in the middle of the cold. Lot of robots in 'em, doing all the hard work. Well, like my Pa always said, you ain't a real farmer 'less you getting your hands dirty." She shrugged. "Anyway, truth be told, most of the food in Atlas ain't grown in fancy domes nor in the west. It gets shipped up from Mistral in huge airships."

"Really?" Blake asked.

"Uh-huh," Applejack said.

"The General told me once that about a third of the fleet is protecting the Mistral food convoys at any one time," Rainbow said.

"I suppose there's not much more important than food," Blake said. "A kingdom could survive running out of dust more easily than it could survive running out of food for its people." She paused. "It's funny, isn't it, the way that everything is integrated? As if someone deliberately set out to make the four kingdoms dependent on one another."

"Why would anyone do that?" Twilight asked.

"To prevent another war?" Blake suggested.

"Attention all passengers," the loud-speaker declared, "we are approaching Atlas now. We'll be in sight of the city shortly."

Rainbow shut the book and stowed it hastily in a waterproof bag at her feet. "Okay, everyone this is it, get ready. Blake, Penny, this is your first time, or first time back, so you won't want to miss this."

"I might," Penny murmured as everyone else got up and found somewhere to stand where their view would not be obstructed by anyone or anything.

Rainbow looked at the drone, sat down on the deck. She knelt down in front of it, so that she was closer to the camera. "It's going to be okay, Penny. I'm going to make sure of it." She grinned. "Now come on. This is one of the greatest sights in Remnant."

She picked up the drone and held it up above her head as the skyliner – and the Hope which kept it company – sailed on towards a thick cloud bank, a wall of whiteness which obscured anything which might be found upon the other side.

The frigid tundra, white with the snow which covered the ground, bleak with the lack of anything but snow, fell away beneath the airships as they sailed onwards. The skyliner's wings beat up and down, up and down, as it bore its passengers towards the clouds.

The Hope was slightly in the lead, and its long prow was the first to pierce the cloudbank. The black hull began to disappear from sight as more and more of the great ship flew into the all-consuming whiteness, but Rainbow could still see the green position lights of the cruiser's port side blinking on and off, dim but visible, penetrating out through the cloud.

Then the bow of their own ship, just a few feet away, passed into the clouds, and as it did so, Rainbow ceased to be able to see it. The cloud, the wall of white, seemed to roll towards them over the deck, devouring all before it.

"My glasses always get so wet after this," Twilight moaned.

"It's part of the experience," Rainbow said, as with one hand – the other still holding Penny's drone aloft – she pulled her goggles down over her eyes.

But as the cloud bank engulfed her, engulfed them all, as it swept across the skyliner and consumed it, Rainbow didn't activate any of the modes that might have helped her see better. Not only would they have spoiled the view when they came out of the clouds again, but Rainbow felt as though this, too, was part of the experience.

Everyone was gone. Everyone had disappeared, lost from sight in a fog so thick that Rainbow couldn't see them. They had been so close before, all around her, but now, they were gone, as if they had been snatched away in an instant.

There was nothing. Nothing but the deck beneath her feet – a deck which, for all that she could see, didn't extend much past her feet – and the blinking green lights of the Hope where it flew upon their right, and even then, it seemed to be nothing but green lights, disembodied, blinking as they floated in the air.

The droplets of water touched her face, tickling her cheeks, dousing her hair. She could feel the water running down her raised arm.

"Is everyone still here?" Penny asked.

"We are, Penny," Ciel confirmed, her voice emerging from out of nowhere. "We are all still here."

"Am I the only one who thinks this is a little creepy?" Spike asked.

"Only if you're quiet," Twilight said. "And even then, it's the good kind of creepy."

"There's a good kind of creepy?"

"Of course there is," Twilight explained. "It's the difference between a horror ride and a horrifying experience."

"Does it always take this long?" Blake asked.

"It builds suspense," Rainbow replied.

Blake paused for a moment, before she asked archly. "When we get out of this cloud, are we going to find that somebody has been murdered."

"'Murdered'?" Penny cried. "Why would anyone be murdered?"

"Blake is referring to a cliché of melodramas and murder mysteries," Ciel explained. "A group of characters gather in a room. The lights go out. Somebody screams. The lights come on again, and one of the characters is dead. Obviously, that will not happen here."

Rainbow let out a blood-curdling scream at the top of her voice, prompting a squeal of alarm from Fluttershy.

"Rainbow Dash!" Applejack snapped reproachfully.

"Oh, come on!" Rainbow replied, as sniggers slipped out of her mouth. "Ciel set that one up perfectly!"

"That was not my intent," Ciel murmured.

"I thought it was funny," Penny said.

"Thanks, Penny," said Rainbow Dash.

And then the skyliner passed through the layer of cloud, emerging once again into the clear skies to behold, floating in the air before them, Atlas.

It was the most glorious sight that Rainbow Dash had ever seen, and probably would ever see; certainly, she couldn't imagine anything more magnificent than the sight that confronted them as they cleared the cloudbank. This was what they were here for, this was why she had gathered them all out here on the open deck, because this… this was worth it.

The city of Atlas flew. It was something that everyone knew, but it was one thing to know it and quite something else to see it, an entire city raised up into the sky, reaching towards heaven.

And they weren't just talking about floating buildings, or a flat disk to build upon, no, this was a whole chunk of rock, a mass of earth so deep that a crater had been left where it had been before, all of it lifted up out of the ground by gravity dust and great engines of unmatched power.

Lifted out of the ground by science and cleverness, by geniuses like Twilight and Penny's father, by the same kind of people who had designed the fleet of airships that patrolled around the city, the black shapes of the cruisers looking like insects buzzing around their hive.

The skyliner was approaching from slightly higher than the city itself, although not as high as the highest towers, so Rainbow and the others could get a good view of the upper city as they made their way in: they could see the irrigated fields on the east and west sides, where the climate control systems allowed a little farming to be done in spite of the temperatures and the high altitudes; she could see the miniature mountains to the north, which would have been dwarfed by the actual mountains on the tundra below if Atlas had been set down upon the ground but which looked pretty cool when taken by themselves – how many people could say they made their mountains fly, huh, even if they were just little mountains? She could see the raised spur on the eastern side just below the mountains, the mansions of the Schnees and the Marigolds built up on the highest land in the highest place in Remnant where people could live. She could see the rest of Atlas, forming first an O around the central peak, then moving downwards between the farmland to the east and west before spreading out like a fish's tail as it approached the edge of Atlas, stopping short of that edge because, you know, it was a long way down to the tundra below. She could see the high towers of glass and steel, she could see the megamalls, and the parks, and the open squares. She could see the monorail lines looping around the Academy and spreading out across the city.

And she could see Atlas Academy itself, the highest pinnacle in the highest city, set upon a lonely mountain of dark rock, joined by air and monorail and elevator with the city around it; the grounds weren't as spacious as Beacon, it didn't have the same wide open expanse, but it was beautiful nonetheless, at least in her eyes: the iron tower, lit up with lights of blue and white, surrounded by lesser towers like the points on a crown.

And it shone. It shone in the night with the million lights that were as high up as the stars themselves, it shone in daylight as the sunlight reflected off the glass. It shone with what it was, what it meant, what it represented, not just the greatest kingdom, but a shining light for all the kingdoms. A promise to Remnant.

A promise you broke.

Rainbow Dash frowned. That was Sunset talking, not her. She was… she didn't feel… she had done what she had to do, for Applejack. More than that, she'd done the tactically smart thing. She'd done the only sensible thing. None of what had happened after was on her. She had no regrets.

This wasn't the time for regrets, or the place, not with Atlas in view, and getting closer.

True, it wasn't perfect, and true, the presence of Low Town in the crater down below, lurking in the shadow of Atlas above like a shameful secret, was like a stain on a picture – except worse, because it was kind of like a stain on the spirit too, but still… it was Atlas. It was Atlas, bright and beautiful, grand and glorious, Atlas in all her radiant majesty and hers. Hers to have, hers to fight for, hers to share with those she loved.

A shining kingdom in the clouds, for all of them.

"Everyone," Rainbow said, a smile spreading out across her face. "We're home."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Welcome​

"Does anyone need a ride anywhere?" Weiss asked.

The Rosepetals had returned to the cruiser; they had to take Penny to the lab to begin her repairs immediately, and so Blake and the others might not be seeing them again for a little while. Blake, Applejack, and Fluttershy had gone back to their cabins to get their bags — Blake had been packed and ready before they went up on deck — and were now waiting on the concourse deck for the airship to finish docking and let them out. Weiss and Flash had joined them there, likewise waiting alongside all the other passengers aboard the skyliner. The hubbub of casual conversation rose all around them as men and women waited to depart.

"You mean share a cab or somethin'?" Applejack asked.

"No," Weiss replied. "I, um…" She paused and, for a moment, looked a little embarrassed to have brought the subject up. "My, um," she cleared her throat. "My butler will be coming to pick me up in the limo, and it would be no trouble to drop you off wherever you'd like to go."

"That's very kind of you," Fluttershy said, "but we're meeting my parents at the skydock, so we'll be fine."

"Are you sure that it's okay for me to stay at your house?" Blake asked. Fluttershy had offered her the use of the spare room in her parents' place for the duration of her stay. "I wouldn't want to put your family to any trouble."

Fluttershy smiled. "It will be fine, Blake; my parents are looking forward to having you. We couldn't just let you stay in some hotel all by yourself after everything you've done for us."

"Ah'd let you stay at mah place," Applejack said. "Only mah place is on the other side of Solitas."

"So where are you staying until you go back there?" Blake asked. "Or are you leaving right away?"

"Nah, Ah'm stayin' with Pinkie for a little bit," Applejack said. "Just a couple of days, most likely, but still. Most of her family spend their time out on their estate, so the Atlas house always has plenty of room — it's just Pinkie and Maud right now — but… well, Pinkie can take some gettin' used to; Ah ain't sure you'd want to room with her."

"Hmm," Blake murmured. "I think I know what you mean."

"I wouldn't mind taking you up on that offer, Weiss," Flash ventured. "I mean, if it's no trouble; I wouldn't want to put you out."

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't willing to follow through," Weiss informed him. "Trust me, going out of my way a little before going home will not be putting me out."

The bulkhead opened. Unlike at Beacon, where the airships that carried them to school had extended a ramp out to meet the docking pads which had been built only for much smaller airships, here, the skyliner had landed bodily upon the much larger docking platform, and at once, the passengers began to pour of the open doors, heading across the dark grey platform to the docking complex on the other side.

Applejack grinned. "Well, y'all have fun, now."

"Thank you," Weiss said. "It was lovely to meet you… all of you." She glanced at Blake before she began to move, dragging her case behind her as she joined the throne headed for the doors.

"Bye, girls," Flash said, before he fell in behind Weiss.

"Goodbye, Flash," Fluttershy said.

"Don't be a stranger, ya hear?" Applejack called to him.

Flash, already halfway to the door, turned and waved back at them before he turned away, presenting his back to them once more. Soon, they had lost him in the crowd.

"We should probably get movin' ourselves," Applejack said. Winona, on a leash at Applejack's side, tugged upon the lead in her eagerness, but Applejack kept a firm grip on it and kept her dog from getting away or causing any trouble as the three of them made their way out.

They were some of the last to leave, joining the tail end of the crowd as they spilled out of the narrow exit and onto the wide expanse of tarmac, and then narrowing again like a river which briefly forms a lake to pile through the doors into the skydock. A blast of cold air hit Blake's face — and other places besides, biting through clothing that she was beginning to think might not be entirely suitable for the surroundings — as they left, before being replaced by a sudden feeling of warmth as they stepped out of the open and into the skydock lounge.

The access and exit lounge was white as snow, with lights flickering through the colours of the aurora above them so that the white lounge was continuously being cast into different shades — and so was everyone within it. Android attendants, the cool blue lights of their heads reflecting off their pristine white bodies, moved amongst the rows of padded chairs, bearing trays of drinks and snacks. A hologram of a woman in a crisp blue uniform was being projected from a raised circular podium near the door.

"Greetings, visitors, and welcome to Atlas," the hologram said in a chipper voice. "I'm sure that you'll enjoy your stay here in the greatest kingdom in Remnant. Unless, of course, you are Atlesian and returning to us, in which case, welcome home! Now that you've seen what lies beyond, I'm confident you'll never want to leave again! Those of you travelling from other kingdoms on a first class ticket may be confused by the absence of a first class lounge. It's quite simple really: here in Atlas, first class is standard class! So please take a seat, and an attendant will be with you shortly to offer you a full selection of hot, cold, or alcoholic beverages — proof of age may be required — as well as snacks, cakes, sandwiches, and hot meals all included in the price." The hologram looked directly at Blake. "Blake Belladonna, welcome; it appears that you don't have any accommodation or transport booked; why not use one of our terminals and rectify your lack of forethought before you leave?"

Blake's ears pricked. "How… how does it-?"

"It accesses your scroll through the network," Fluttershy explained.

"It can do that?"

"Uh huh," Applejack muttered. "Sometimes Ah think we got a little too much fancy technology around here."

Winona barked.

"Jacqueline Apple," the hologram said, "all dogs must be kept on a lead at all times."

"And Ah hate it when it does that, too," Applejack said. "Come on, let's go."

"What is the point of that?" Blake asked as they made their way towards the exit. "Other than making people uncomfortable?"

"It's a security measure," Fluttershy explained.

"It's supposed to detect wrong'uns," Applejack clarified. "Accessin' their data, findin' out who they really are, that kind of thing. Ah guess it's needful, what with shapeshiftin' White Fang types trying to impersonate Councillors — no offence."

"None taken," Blake said evenly.

"But that don't mean Ah gotta like it, and Ah'll wager Ah'm not the only one who feels that way," Applejack went on.

They left the lounge, emerging onto the concourse, which was every bit as starkly white as the lounge, but without the somewhat distracting lighting that shifted colours nearly constantly; Blake wondered if the absence of it here was because the queues of people lining up to buy or collect their airship tickets needed to be able to see in order to work the machines.

As they walked, Blake could hear the terminals talking to the customers.

"Greetings, customer! If you are collecting a pre-booked ticket, press the green 'Collect Tickets' icon; if not, select the red 'Choose My Destination' icon to choose your destination."

"Hooray! You have selected a destination! I'm sure you will enjoy your visit to… Mantle. Now it's time to pay!"

"You're all set! Enjoy your destination and have a nice day!"

Blake couldn't help but think they sounded inordinately cheerful; far more so, in fact, than the people using them appeared to be.

"So," she said, "where are-?"

"YOU'RE BACK!"

Blake's eyes widened, and her ears pricked up in astonishment, as a pink blur appeared out of nowhere and collided with Applejack, who did very well to keep her feet — and keep hold of Winona's lead in one hand — in the face of the flying object which resolved itself into Pinkie Pie, dressed in a puffy blue parka and tight lavender pants, with her arms wrapped around Applejack's neck.

"You're back," Pinkie repeated, slightly more quietly this time, before she reached out with one hand to grab Fluttershy, pulling her in so that she had one arm around each of them. "Both of you. You're back and you're okay and you're right here."

Applejack smiled fondly as she wrapped her free arm around Pinkie. "It's good to see you too, Pinkie Pie."

"We missed you as well," Fluttershy added.

"'Missed you'? It's not just about missing you!" Pinkie cried. "I mean, I did miss you, of course I missed you, I missed you every single day, but that's not what this is about! This is about the fact that… that we almost lost you."

"But we didn't, Pinkie Pie," Rarity declared as she strode towards them, wearing a sparkling overcoat of royal blue with buttons fashioned to resemble gemstones and a light grey fur — or faux fur — trim around the hem. "So let's leave the past behind us and not dwell on old unpleasantness. Our friends are safe; that's all that matters now." She turned to Blake. "And I believe that we have you to thank for that, Blake."

Blake looked away. "I… I didn't do anything; I was just… there."

"Oh, you were just there when a rescue mission happened to be going on," Rarity said dryly. "Well, if you put it like that… I mean, haven't we all found ourselves in that situation at one time or another, just passing through when people are being rescued in the vicinity?"

Blake looked at her.

"I may not have taken my combat training as far as some," Rarity added, "but I do know that not everyone can be the one who kicks down the door and cuts the bonds. In the circumstances, I think that simply being there is quite enough, and quite worthy of praise." She held out one pale, slender hand; the golden band around her wrist glimmered under the lights. "Thank you," she said. "I only wish I could conceive of a circumstance in which I could repay you."

Blake took her hand, and was a little surprised by the firmness of Rarity's grip. "You say that," she replied. "But I have been wondering about whether I'm really dressed for this kingdom-"

"Well, I wasn't going to bring it up — it would have been rather rude to have done so unprompted — but yes, darling, your attire is somewhat unsuitable. It won't repay our debt, but what do you say tomorrow we go shopping for something a little more appropriate?"

Blake smiled, even as she let go of Rarity's hand. "That sounds like a great idea. I'll look forward to it."

"Marvellous!" Rarity declared. "I'd offer to make you something, but I'm afraid you need it rather sooner than that. Although I shall probably make you something anyway, because one can never have too many outfits, can one? Anyway, I'll pick you up at Fluttershy's, we can go shopping, and maybe see some of the sights of our fair city afterwards."

Blake nodded. "I… yes, that would be great, I'm sure."

"Maybe if Rainbow and Twilight are done with their work, we can all meet up," Pinkie suggested, releasing Applejack and Fluttershy.

"That would be nice," Applejack said. "But Ah don't know if it'll be possible; they said they're gonna be pretty busy."

"But you're going to stick around until they're not so busy so we can all hang out, right?" Pinkie asked. "You have to! We have to all go to Sugarcube Corner together like we promised! Our first trip as the Spectacular Seven!"

"Um, 'the Spectacular Seven'?" Fluttershy murmured.

"Uh huh," Pinkie said, nodding eagerly. "There were six of us, but now we have Blake; that makes seven."

"Pinkie," Fluttershy said softly. "I'm not sure that Blake-"

"I'm honoured," Blake said, "to be a part of your group, provided that none of you object."

Applejack chuckled. "It ain't our objections we were worried about," she said. "And yeah, I'll stick around. We do deserve some kind of reunion."

Pinkie gasped. "A reunion party, that's perfect! Applejack, you're a genius!"

"That wasn't quite what I-" Applejack began.

"The cab is waiting outside," said a girl who sauntered up to them. She was tall, taller than Blake, about of a height with Rainbow Dash, with stern grey-violet hair with bangs, cut straight across her forehead, descending to about the level of her eyebrows, with the rest of her hair straight down around her head to just below her shoulders. She was dressed in grey, with only a black belt to add a little variety. Her voice was soft, and rather even, without much in the way of inflections. "Hey, Applejack. Good to see you."

"Nice to see you too, Maud," Applejack said, taking a step towards her and holding out one hand. "How've you been?"

Maud slowly took Applejack's hand. "I'm good," she said in that same even tone.

"This here is Blake Belladonna; she's been workin' with Rainbow Dash these past few months," Applejack said. "Helped get me out of a tricky spot too. Blake, this is Maud Pie, used to be mine and Dash's teammate."

"I'm also Pinkie's sister," Maud said. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Blake murmured. "You have the same… eyes."

"So I've been told," Maud said. "Pinkie, we should go. The meter's running."

"Okay, looks like this is goodbye for now," Applejack said. "See you soon Fluttershy, Blake."

"See you both tomorrow, darlings!" Rarity trilled.

"It's nice to see you, by the way, Rarity."

"Oh, Applejack, you know I'm always delighted to see you!" Rarity said, and as the four of them walked away, she put one hand on Applejack's back. "But there, I've said it, do you feel better now?"

Fluttershy smiled. "I suppose we have tomorrow planned out already."

"Yes," Blake said. "Unless… sorry, I didn't think, did you-?"

"No, it's fine," Fluttershy said. "What better way to start than by showing you around Atlas? Anyway, we should probably get going; I'm sure my parents will be waiting around here somewhere."

XxXxX​

"Welcome home, Miss Schnee," Klein declared jovially as he waited by the side of the waiting car.

Weiss smiled. "It's good to see you again, Klein," she said, carefully not saying that it was good to be home. "I'd like you to meet my teammate, Flash Sentry; Flash, this is my family butler, Klein Sieben."

Klein was a short, slightly portly man with a round face and a slightly large nose; his eyes, at the moment, were a shade of light brown, the same shade of remaining hair that circled the back of his head and, indeed, the moustache that covered his upper lip. The bald crown that was normally visible was presently concealed beneath a hat, just as whatever else he might be wearing was hidden beneath his dark double-breasted overcoat.

"Pleasure to meet you," Flash said affably.

"Hmm," Klein murmured as he took a step towards Flash. His eyes turned to a smouldering red as he suddenly thrust his face forward into Flash's space. His voice hardened and became a harsh croak as he said, "Now listen, sonny, I don't know what your little game is, but any funny business, and you'll answer to me, understand?"

"Klein!" Weiss gasped.

Klein's eyes changed colour again, turning to a bright blue as he laughed a childish giggling laugh. "Sorry, madam, just having a little joke."

Flash laughed nervously, casting a sidelong glance at Weiss.

"Flash isn't used to you, Klein," Weiss pointed out. "Try and bear that in mind."

Klein's eyes returned to their usual brown colour. "Of course, Miss Schnee. Forgive me, sir."

"That's uh, fine," Flash said. "Don't worry about it."

"I told Flash that we'd give him a ride home," Weiss explained.

"Ah, then allow me to take your luggage, sir," Klein said, and he seized Flash's case without waiting to be invited. "Miss Schnee."

"Thank you, Klein," Weiss said as she handed over her own case in turn.

As Klein put the luggage in the boot, Flash stepped closer to Weiss and whispered to her, "What's with the eye colour?"

"It's… I suppose you could call it his party piece," Weiss explained. "He can change his voice, his mannerisms-"

"How is he changing his eye colour?" Flash asked.

"I don't know," Weiss admitted. "But ever since I was a little girl, he's always been able to cheer me up by 'becoming a different person,' as it were. It's just something he does and something I appreciate."

"I… well, I won't say that I understand, but that's fine," Flash replied. "Just so long as he doesn't actually hate me just for standing near you."

Weiss chuckled as the two of them made their way into the car. It was her father's car, which meant that it was spacious and comfortable, without chairs at the back, but rather, a sofa which wound from the door to the back, then around in a blocky U-shape before stopping at the other door. The seats were crushed leather and soft beneath them.

There was a mini-bar propped up against the partition separating the passenger section from the driver, although it was currently empty; however, the glasses marked with the Schnee snowflake were still there, even if there was nothing to put in them.

"Nice," Flash observed. "Very nice."

"Mmm," Weiss murmured noncommittally.

"Is something wrong?" Flash asked.

"No, nothing," Weiss replied. "I just… it's nothing."

Klein, having stowed their luggage, returned to the driver's seat in the front. "Where to, young man?"

"Number Nine, Frederick Street, please," Flash replied.

"Of course, sir," Klein replied, and the car sprung to life, elevating just off the road and beginning to glide above it, guided by Klein's deft hand on the wheel as he drove them out of the skydock car park and onto the roads. Atlas was not completely friendly to cars — there were quite a few narrow pedestrianised districts where people could move on foot without fear — but there were also roads enough for them to get around unimpeded.

"So," Weiss said, leaning back on the leather sofa, "do you have any plans?"

Flash hesitated. "Not really," he admitted. "I guess I'll just see what happens. You?"

"No," Weiss replied. "No, I don't have anything planned. I'm not even sure that I'll be able to keep in practice."

"Maybe we could… practice together, sometime?" Flash suggested.

The corners of Weiss' lips turned upwards slightly. "I'd like that," she said. "Unfortunately, I can't guarantee it. I think that I shall have to remain at home for most of this vacation."

"It's not enough that you're here in Atlas?" Flash asked.

"I…" Weiss sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "It ought to be, but… I don't know. I'm not sure what my father… I'm not sure why he's so anxious to have me back. It may involve a blizzard of tedious social functions, for all I know. He might even want me to sing."

Flash shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, if you can get away, give me a call. I'd… I'd like to see you."

"I will," Weiss promised. "If I can get away."

The rest of the journey to Flash's home passed in silence, a silence made awkward not by the company but by the situation — or perhaps better to say, the uncertainty of Weiss' situation, the questions to which there were no answers, the things that they could not speak of regarding her father and his intent in dragging Weiss back here from Beacon. It would have been difficult to speak freely at the best of times, but judging by the way in which Flash kept glancing at Klein up in the front, Weiss thought that he might also be put off by the butler's presence. Technically, he did work for her father, after all, and while Weiss knew that Klein would never betray her confidence, she also didn't want to put him in the position where he would have to lie to her father. For all his faults, or perhaps because of them, Jacques Schnee was not a man to be trifled with, and it was hardly Weiss' desire to see faithful old Klein thrown out on the street like Laberna had been before him. Once had been quite bad enough; to have it happen again and because of her, because of a position she had put him in… no, she could not bear that. She wouldn't treat Klein that way; she would not discomfort him that way.

And so she allowed Flash his misapprehension and kept her own counsel until the car pulled up outside of an elegant townhouse in one of the more elegant streets in Atlas.

"This is me," Flash said as the car came to a stop. "Thanks for the lift."

"It was no trouble," Weiss said as Klein got out and began to walk around the car to get Flash's luggage out of the trunk. "I hope to see you, but if I don't, have a good break."

"Thanks," Flash said. "I… I'd wish you the same, but I'm worried it would come off as clueless or fake."

"I'll take it in the spirit that it was intended," Weiss assured him.

Flash nodded. He opened the door and started to climb out. "Call me, if you can," he said. "Or even if you can't," he added. "I mean, even if you can't leave the house, we can still talk, right? I'd like… I'd like to know you're okay."

And what would you do if I wasn't? Weiss thought, but did not say. It might have sounded like a discouraging question, and she didn't want to discourage Flash any more than she wanted to compromise Klein. And besides, it was a good point about their scrolls; just because they couldn't meet didn't mean that they needed to have nothing to do with one another.

"I'll call you when I get home," she promised.

"Great," Flash said. "I want to know that… if you need… let me know if… tell me if there's anything wrong."

"I will," Weiss said. It was not a lie, but at the same time… it would depend on what exactly was wrong. It was very gallant of him to clumsily offer his aid like that, but her father was not a monster to be defeated by a gallant knight in shining armour. An eager young man with a good heart could not rescue her from his castle. If it was that easy, she would have rescued herself some time ago.

Nevertheless, her lie — or half-truth — seemed to reassure Flash; he looked a lot better, even smiling as he shut the door, accepted his luggage from Klein, and made his way up the steps towards his own door.

As Klein returned to the driver's seat, Weiss slipped out and into the front, sitting down on the less comfortable seat beside him.

"You don't mind, do you?" she asked.

"Not at all, Miss Weiss," Klein said as he started the car again. "He seems a nice enough young man," he added as the car began to move at his instruction.

"Yes," Weiss said, a slight smile playing across her face. "He is a nice young man."

"Is he-?"

"No," Weiss said quickly. "He's my teammate, and I think it's rather foolish to mix relations that way."

"I wasn't aware there were any rules against that at Beacon," Klein observed. "Although I know that there are in Atlas."

"No, Beacon doesn't have rules against… fraternising within the team," Weiss agreed. "But perhaps it should. It seems… a little unwise to take the risk, when you still have to work together, put your lives in one another's hands, even after things haven't worked out."

"Assuming that things don't work out, Miss Schnee."

"Yes, but one has to account for the possibility," Weiss said. "I think, to try it, you would have to be either unaware of the risks or else very, very certain that it was going to last, at least until graduation."

"No doubt you're right, ma'am," Klein said in a voice that made it unclear if he really did think that Weiss was right or not. "If I may, I'm glad to see that you have at least one friendly face at school."

"I'm closer to Flash than to my other teammates," Weiss admitted, "but I think we've reached an understanding. By the end of the semestern we were working quite well together."

"Really, Miss Schnee?"

"Yes," Weiss declared proudly. "We were seconded to the Flying Squad of the Valish Police Department and assisted in the capture of a dangerous White Fang terrorist and his associates."

"That does sound terribly impressive, Miss Schnee," Klein said. "And I understand that you were involved in that dreadful business with the grimm recently."

"Yes," Weiss murmured. "As you say, it was… not good."

"Although it could have been much worse, so they say," Klein added.

"Well, the city didn't fall to the grimm, which it could have done," Weiss replied. "So, yes, I suppose you could say that it could have been worse. Although, I think that a horde of grimm emerging out of the ground into Vale itself is probably bad enough."

"It does make me glad to live in Atlas, Miss Schnee."

"Because we don't have an underground for the grimm to come up from?"

"I suppose so," Klein acknowledged. "But also because it isn't the sort of thing that one can ever imagine happening here. It just doesn't happen in Atlas."

"It didn't happen in Vale either, until it did," Weiss pointed out.

"No, but that's Vale," Klein said. "Atlas is, well, Atlas, and it always will be." He paused for a moment. "But in spite of that, are you enjoying Beacon, Miss Schnee? I must confess, there was a time when I was worried about you there. Not because of the physical danger — I know that you're extraordinarily capable — but because things… didn't seem to be going so well."

"You mean when I had to ask my father for help in getting the press off my back?" Weiss asked.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, ma'am, yes."

"That was… a low point," Weiss admitted. "But, as I say, I've come to an understanding with my teammates, and our performance has improved accordingly. And, although it came at a price, it's one that I'm prepared to pay."

"But are you happy there?" Klein pressed.

"Not all the time, no," Weiss conceded. "But the path to success cannot always be easy; indeed, one might almost say that it should not always be easy. I may not always enjoy it, but I am more convinced than ever that this is the road I want to walk."

"I see," Klein said. "And how is Miss Winter, if I may ask?"

"Well, I think," Weiss replied. "Although her duties mean I don't see much of her."

"She, too, has found the road she wishes to walk."

"Yes, and she's doing quite well," Weiss said. "She's a brevet major now, and on General Ironwood's staff."

"I had no idea, ma'am," Klein said. "Your father doesn't much mention Miss Winter these days."

I'll bet he doesn't. "How is my father?"

"As successful as ever, Miss Weiss."

"And my mother?"

Klein hesitated for a moment. "I'm afraid she's suffering the old trouble again."

You mean she's drinking. Weiss sighed. "I see. And Whitley?"

"Oh, Master Whitley is in very high spirits, ma'am."

"Really?"

"Yes, indeed, Miss Weiss," Klein assured her. Once more, he paused for a moment. "I know that you're not overjoyed to be here, but I hope you understand what I mean when I say that I'm glad to see you back. I've missed you, Miss Weiss."

Weiss smiled. "I understand perfectly. Thank you, Klein."

Shortly after, having passed out of Atlas and up onto the Spur where the self-proclaimed elite of Atlas made their homes, Klein pulled up the car in front of the palatial Schnee Manor. The house that Weiss' grandfather had built was large enough to swallow entire city districts, a grand expanse built in the Art Deco style, with two wings five storeys high and a centre flanked by four high towers — two at the front and two at the back, just visible from the front — which were too narrow to have anything but decorative value. The driveway itself was interrupted by a raised section, upon which were mounted three pillars, one — in the middle — much taller than the others, and all topped with the Schnee snowflake; they glowed only faintly in the daylight, but come nightfall, they would shine as bright as the stars themselves.

It was a beautiful house. Weiss only wished that that which lay within could be so fair.

"Chin up, Miss Schnee," Klein urged as he lifted her luggage out of the boot. "I'll take these to your room, shall I?"

"Yes, Klein, thank you," Weiss said, and as Klein carried the bags inside, Weiss remained outside for a moment longer, looking up at this immense house.

Immense, beautiful, and yet, like the company whose wealth had financed the house, it had become corrupted. Something wicked had crept in and taken root here.

She did not want to go in. She did not want to enter here. She did not want to come back, she didn't want to stay, she didn't want to subject herself to what it meant to live in this house and be a part of this family. But she was a part of this family; she availed herself of the luxuries of being part of this family. And there was a price she had to pay for that. This price.

Weiss took a brief breath and attempted to steel herself as she walked in through the door which Klein had left open for her.

She closed it behind her. It shut heavily, with a solid thump that seemed to seal not only itself but also her fate.

Oh, don't be melodramatic; it's only for a little while.

That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.

"Ah, home the hero comes," Whitley said. Her younger brother was small and slight, with a fragile build that was accentuated — in Weiss' eyes, at least — by his utter lack of martial training. But while he showed no sign of inheriting any of the warlike talent or semblance of the Schnee family, he did possess their white hair, blue eyes, and remarkably pale complexion. He was dressed like their father in miniature, with a blue-grey waistcoat over a white shirt, dark trousers, and polished shoes.

"Hello, Whitley," Weiss said dryly.

Whitley approached across the large but largely empty hall, crossing the giant snowflake emblazoned on the floor. "I'd ask if you missed us, but I know that you're only here because you ran into some trouble at school."

"So," Weiss murmured, "you know about that?"

"Yes," Whitley said. "I was sorry to hear about it, although I don't see why it bothered you. Accusations of that nature never seem to bother Father."

"I'm not our father," Weiss said.

"No," Whitley agreed. "You've got a thinner skin. I also heard that you were in some sort of battle. Was it dangerous?"

"Battles usually are," Weiss replied.

"Well, thank you for trying to get yourself killed so that I can inherit the company," Whitley drawled, "but it all seems so very… unnecessary. Why do you need to risk your life in these barbarous brawls when there are so many other people who can do that for you? People… with less to lose."

"I doubt you'd understand it even if I tried to explain it to you," Weiss said.

She didn't even get the chance to explain it to him, because at that moment, their father appeared, descending the stairs towards them. Jacques Schnee, although not a Schnee by birth, nevertheless appeared to possess the features common to the name: the white hair, the blue eyes, although the painting of him as a younger man showed his moustache as black. But then, he had been younger then, and the moustache which had been pencil thin was now rather thicker, so perhaps he had simply gotten older. He was dressed in a white suit with a blue shirt and just a hint of a blue waistcoat visible beneath, with a white tie and a red handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket.

His hands were clasped behind his back, and his smile did not reach all the way to his eyes.

"Weiss, sweetheart," he said, "how wonderful to see you again." He crossed the hall to her and planted a kiss upon her cheek. "Welcome home. It's so good to have you back where you belong."

Weiss fought the urge to wipe her face. "Hello, Father. It's good to see you again."

"Of course," Jacques said. "Now, you must be tired after your trip, so why don't you go to your room and rest up for a little while?"

Weiss bowed her head. "Of course, Father."

"But I'm having a little dinner party at eight, just a few business associates," Jacques went on. "So make sure that you're both presentable by then. Sadly, your mother will be too ill to attend, but I'm sure that you'll both make a good impression. Especially you, Weiss; everyone would be delighted if you would sing for us."

Weiss sighed. "Of course, Father, I'd be delighted to."

Welcome home, Weiss.

 

[ScipioSmith]

Polendina​

Doctor Japeth Polendina was a man entering the end of middle age, with long hair falling down in waves to his shoulders, carefully brushed back from his forehead and curled around his ears. His hair remained dark, in spite of the fact that his beard was almost completely grey or white with only a few flecks of darkness remaining. His eyes were brown and sharp and fixed upon the three organic members of Team RSPT as they wheeled Penny into the lab on a pair of gurneys.

Rainbow and Ciel pushed the first gurney, with Penny's actual body on it; for reasons of operational secrecy, they had to wheel her in covered up in a black bodybag – what people thought they were doing, wheeling a dead body around the office of Research & Development, hardly bore thinking about, but if everyone had been able to see Penny, it would have looked even stranger. They had tried to be as gentle as possible as they had carried Penny out of The Bus and then wheeled her down off the landing pad on top of the research building, into the elevator and down the hall; Rainbow wasn't sure what, if anything, Penny could still feel, but there was no reason not to be gentle with her. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to avoid the bumps getting the stretcher into and out of the lift.

But they were here now, and now, they could finally unzip the black bag and, together, lift Penny out of said bag and off the gurney and place her on the high-tech examination table. Said table sat in the centre of the lab and had all kinds of scanners and stuff built into it. It was solid and grey, and the surface was white right now, though it would change soon enough once it got turned on.

Penny was completely still. She had been disconnected from the computer and from any drone, so she couldn't speak. It was all kinds of unfortunate that they'd had to stuff her up in that bag, because she looked… kind of dead already. It was only the light in her eyes that stopped from looking like a corpse.

At least there are no injuries to cover up because they're too upsetting to look at.

Twilight followed Rainbow and Ciel inside, pushing the second stretcher with the disconnected blades of Floating Array laid out upon it.

The lab to which they had brought Penny and her weapons was cold, grey, and metallic, with the only spots of subdued colour coming from the computer monitors that lined four out of the six walls of the hexagonal chamber. The lighting was subdued, leaving Doctor Polendina in his pristine white lab coat to stand out all the more in the room. His stare was more like a glare as the two huntresses and Twilight brought in Penny in all her pieces.

Rainbow and Ciel both stood to attention. Although Doctor Polendina wasn't an officer, he was a senior member of the R&D division and was entitled to respect on that basis.

For now.

Twilight didn't stand to attention; she'd been a part of Doctor Polendina's team working on Penny, so he knew that she wasn't any kind of huntress and wouldn't expect her to act like one. Instead, she crossed the room to stand by Moondancer, the only one of Doctor Polendina's assistants who was here today, where she lurked in the corner.

"Team Rosepetal reporting, sir," Rainbow said.

Doctor Polendina glowered as he made his way over to the examining table. "Penny. Oh, Penny, what have they done to you?" He glowered at Rainbow Dash. "What have you done to her?"

"Doctor, this isn't Rainbow Dash's fault," Twilight murmured.

Doctor Polendina ignored her. "Are you the team leader?"

Rainbow's face was without expression. "Yes, sir, I am."

"Then this is your fault," Doctor Polendina said. "Your job is to protect my daughter; that is your only job! How could you let this happen?"

"My report-"

"I have already read your damn report; I know what happened!" Doctor Polendina snapped. "I want to know why you let it?"

"Sir-" Ciel began.

"Quiet! I'm not interested in what you have to say, I don't even know who you are, I'm talking to the leader, not the…" He waved one hand dismissively. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I made a decision," Rainbow said, her voice even. "That decision turned out to be… a mistake."

"'A mistake'? A mistake is an understatement. Your orders were to keep my daughter safe!" Doctor Polendina yelled. "If you can't do that, then I will see you tossed out on your ass and find someone who can do the job they were selected for! That goes for both of you."

"This isn't Cadet Soleil's fault, sir," Rainbow said. "She followed my orders and performed her duties to the best of her abilities-"

Doctor Polendina held up one hand to silence her. "You," he said, snapping his fingers at Ciel. "Are you alive?"

Ciel blinked. "Sir?"

"It's a simple question," Doctor Polendina declared impatiently. "Are you alive, or am I talking to a ghost?"

What kind of question is that? Rainbow thought.

"I am alive, sir," Ciel said.

"Then you didn't do everything you could," Doctor Polendina growled.

Twilight gasped. "Doctor?!"

"Sir!" Rainbow cried. "I must protest. That's out of line!"

"'Out of line'?" Doctor Polendina repeated incredulously. "You bring my daughter home broken, and you tell me that I am out of line? You do not have the right to tell me what is or is not out of line in my own laboratory!" He turned away, his lab coat swirling behind him. "Twilight, it's good to see you again."

Twilight nodded. "Likewise, Doctor."

"The lab has been a little less bright in your absence," Doctor Polendina said. "I've been starved of intellectual conversation."

Twilight let out a slightly nervous laugh, even as she kind of turned away from Doctor Polendina so that she was half-facing Moondancer instead. "That's very kind of you to say, Doctor, but I'm sure that Moondancer-"

"Doesn't come out of her shell as much when you're not around, do you, Moondancer?" Doctor Polendina said. "She shuffles about, does what I instruct her, answers my questions, but she doesn't think for herself. You must learn to think for yourself, Moondancer! A good scientist must be an iconoclast, and a good iconoclast must be courageous!"

"Yes, Doctor," Moondancer murmured, her head bowed and her shoulders hunched.

Moondancer Crescent had the pale complexion of someone who didn't get out in the sun very often; her purple eyes were framed by a pair of glasses rounder than Twilight's spectacles but with thicker rims; they'd broken at the bridge and been stuck back together with so much white tape, the original bridge was invisible. Her hair was mainly auburn but with a streak of lavender and purple going straight down the centre, lining up perfectly between her eyes. Her lab coat was half-open, revealing underneath a badly-fitting dark grey sweater that was starting to shed fluff like a cat.

She glanced at Twilight. "I've missed you," she whispered.

Twilight smiled with one corner of her mouth, making it look as nervous as it was encouraging.

"Moondancer, would you mind putting those swords on the workbench on the right, please?" Doctor Polendina said. "We won't start any work until I've completed my examination and analysis of Penny."

"Of course, Doctor," Moondancer said as she left Twilight's side and crossed the lab to where Twilight had left the gurney with the swords on it. She didn't look at either Rainbow or Ciel, but calmly moved the swords from the gurney onto the workbench as quickly and efficiently as she could.

"Thank you," Doctor Polendina said. He stood over Penny, looking down upon her while Penny had no choice but to look up at him, paralysed as she was.

"Unacceptable," he said, shaking his head so that his hair flew from side to side behind him. "Absolutely unacceptable. You should be better than this, Penny, and you…" He rounded upon Rainbow and Ciel. "I trusted you with Penny because I was told that you could be trusted! Ironwood assured me that…" He paused, running both his hands through his hair. "Do you have any idea what Penny is?"

"Yes, sir," Rainbow said quietly.

"No," Doctor Polendina said. "You don't. How could you? How could either of you?" He looked at Twilight. "I'm a little disappointed in you, Twilight; I thought you understood."

"Twilight wasn't there, sir," Rainbow informed him. "As my report states."

"Ah, yes, yes, I remember now," Doctor Polendina said, "Twilight, you remained behind, didn't you, that was very wise. Perhaps the only sensible decision in this whole wretched endeavour."

"Doctor," Twilight said timorously. She clasped her hands together over her chest, dry-washing them as she spoke. "Are you… how are you feeling?"

Doctor Polendina sighed. "Angry. Distressed. My daughter is lying on my table in this state; how do you think I feel?"

"Have…?" Twilight trailed off. She licked her lips. "I'm sorry to ask—"

"You want to know if I've been taking the pills?" Doctor Polendina suggested. "If that's what you mean to ask, Twilight, then just spit it out, don't stand there stammering. Courage, Twilight!"

"Yes, Doctor," Twilight said softly. "So, have you been taking your medication?"

"The pills dull my mind, you know that," Doctor Polendina said. "It's bad enough that I have to be reminded of something I read a few days ago, but…"

He began to walk away from Penny, approaching a desk which sat, laden with paperwork, towards the back of the lab. And as he walked towards it, Doctor Polendina began to speak quietly to himself. "Sinusoidal signals and responses to them of a linear system are the basis of acoustic systems. This introduction gives a brief summary of mathematical expressions for sinusoidal functions that develop the basic… develop the basic… come on, I read this when I was a graduate student, and I've been able to recall every word of it ever since. This introduction gives a brief summary of mathematical expressions for sinusoidal functions that develop the basic… the basic…"

He let out a wordless growl of frustration as he flung out his hands, sweeping the papers off the desk and flinging them across the room, engulfing the lab in a flurry of white sheets as if it had been caught in a sudden heavy snowfall. Anything heavier than paper crashed to the floor with clangs and bangs and clatters.

"Doctor!" Twilight cried.

Doctor Polendina leaned upon the suddenly empty desk with both hands. "I… I'm dying," he announced.

Rainbow glanced at Ciel. It was clear from the widening of her eyes and the way that her mouth was slightly open that this was as much a shock to Ciel as it was to Rainbow Dash. "I… we didn't know that, sir," Rainbow murmured. "General Ironwood didn't-"

"I haven't told General Ironwood," Doctor Polendina said. "If I told him, if I told my colleagues, if I told the Director of Research and Development, I'd be put on leave, told to go home, get some rest, put my affairs in order. Prioritise my wellbeing. Take care of myself." He spat those last two statements as though the sentiments that they contained were worthless — or worse, actively insulting.

"Doctor, you shouldn't be so pessimistic," Moondancer murmured. "The experimental treatments—"

"Are just that, experimental, unproven—"

"'A good scientist must be an iconoclast,'" Twilight said softly.

Doctor Polendina laughed. "Very good, Twilight. An iconoclast indeed, and courageous; that's why I'm submitting myself to an ever-growing list of quackery and unreviewed research, but…" He paused for a moment. "I do not seek death. I will not submit to its embrace lightly, but nor will I live in denial about my chances any more than I will go home and spend what could be my last days pottering about like a race horse put out to pasture. I have dedicated my life to the greatness of Atlas, and I will continue to do so as long as I am… as long as I am alive. That is why I am keeping my condition a secret. Aside from my personal physician and his team, the only people who know are my brother Pietro, Twilight, and Moondancer. And now, the two of you."

"The three of us," Rainbow said. "Penny can't speak, but she can hear everything." Rainbow glanced at Penny, where she lay on the table. It was probably all in her head, but she almost thought that if Penny could speak, she would be screaming right now.

Doctor Polendina looked around. He looked as surprised to be told that Penny could hear him as Rainbow had been surprised to hear that Penny was dying. "Penny, I… I thought you'd put her to sleep. Twilight, why didn't you put her to sleep?"

"There didn't seem a need, Doctor," Twilight said.

"No need? What need was there to keep her awake so that she could hear everything?"

"I don't like turning her off, Doctor," Twilight said, her voice rising. "I don't like the fact that we can switch off a person by command, even with her consent. And in her present state, we can't ask for her consent. And besides, Penny preferred being awake. I hooked her up to a computer on the Hope so that we could talk on the way back and connected her sensors to a drone so that she could watch the final approach to Atlas. Penny preferred that to being shut down for days."

Doctor Polendina was silent for a moment. "I see," he said quietly. "You … you are a good girl, Twilight, kind and considerate; Penny is… Penny will be lucky to have you."

Twilight looked away from him. "Doctor, I really think that you should take your medication."

Doctor Polendina shook his head. "I need to be able to think. It's bad enough that my memory is slipping away from me, but when I take the pills, it's like a fog has come down over my mind. I… I don't need a stable temperament to work on Penny, I need my intellect at its fullest… and I need your help, both of you, especially as I start to… I need you to pick up my mistakes and anything that I might miss, and I need you to bear with my moods, even if that's difficult. Can you do that, Twilight? I need you to do that, and so does Penny."

Twilight hesitated for a moment. "Of course, Doctor."

"Sir…" Ciel began. "Why are you telling us this?"

"Because, since I appear to be stuck with the both of you, at least until the Vytal Festival is over, I need you both to understand," Doctor Polendina said. "Penny is more than just my creation, more than just my daughter, more than just a soldier or a weapon; Penny is... Penny is the last and greatest gift that I will ever bestow upon the Kingdom of Atlas. Penny is my legacy, she is that for which I will be remembered and that which will benefit this kingdom long after I am gone, Penny is… Penny is everything."

And what if she doesn't want to be? Rainbow wondered.

Doctor Polendina went on. "I have always been glad to serve this kingdom. Atlas is… Atlas is a light of knowledge and science and progress amidst a world which is still awash with backwards ideas and nonsensical traditions. In Mistral, they cling to their past because they know in their heart of hearts that they have no future worth speaking of; in Vale, they haver between a past that is gone beyond recall and a future they fear for its uncertainty, shuffling awkwardly between both, taking one step forward and two steps back; in Vacuo, barbarians dwell amidst sandy wastelands, scavenging for scraps and scraping for water in the dirt. Only here in Atlas do we embrace the true gods of knowledge and reason. Only here in Atlas do we truly move forward, not only for ourselves, but for all others who share in the gifts that we bestow, like… like angels in the old myths. I am proud of all the good that we have done, and of the contributions that my work has made towards that good, but none of it compares to Penny. Yes, the circumstances of her creation make her difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce; yes, my vision was circumscribed by time and budgetary limitations; yes, if I had unlimited resources, I would do things differently, but what I did… what I did was to not just create life itself, but life imbued with capability and purpose from the outset. Penny carries my name, and so long as that name lasts, then I will be remembered long after I am gone. She is the culmination of everything that I have done, all my research and my experimentation, all the years spent learning my craft, refining my skills, testing my ideas, it has all led to this. To her.

"That is why Penny cannot fail. That is why I will not allow Penny to fail. That is why you cannot allow Penny to fail. That is why the Vytal Festival is so… so vital; I need the world to see Penny for the wonder that she is, I… I need it."

"And what about her, sir?" Rainbow asked. "Have you talked to her about any of this?"

Doctor Polendina straightened up and looked at Rainbow Dash. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you've got some big plans," Rainbow said. "What if they aren't what she wants?"

"This is what she was created for," Doctor Polendina declared.

"But… she's a person, sir," Twilight reminded him. "She has aura, a soul, free will. She isn't just an instrument of… of our will."

"What are you saying, Twilight?"

"Twilight's asking whether this is what Penny wants, sir," Rainbow said.

"I'm suggesting that we ought to consider it," Twilight suggested, modifying Rainbow's language somewhat.

"To what end?" Doctor Polendina demanded. "So that if Penny wants to do something other than that for which I created her, she should be allowed to? Twilight, you have a… you have a sister, don't you?"

"A brother, Doctor," Twilight said. "I have an older brother."

"Older, yes, older brother," Doctor Polendina muttered. "Moondancer, do you have any siblings?"

"No, Doctor."

"What about you, Crash?"

"Dash, sir, and no." She didn't want to talk about Scootaloo with Doctor Polendina, at least not before she was clear why he was asking.

"You?"

"Yes, sir," Ciel said. "I have six younger brothers."

"Younger brothers, yes, good, and suppose that one of your younger brothers no longer wished to apply himself to the limits of his potential, suppose that he wished to waste his life and the treasure of his time in idleness and frivolity, would you allow it? Would you let it pass because it was what he wanted? Would you observe it without comment?"

"No, sir," Ciel admitted. "Not without comment. My comments would range from disapproving to… fiercely disapproving, depending on the exact nature of the behaviour involved, the company kept, the place concerned. I would prefer to see my brothers become virtuous and upstanding citizens."

"Precisely! You have some rudiments of sense after all!" Doctor Polendina proclaimed. "Just because something is wanted does not mean that it is desirable, just because Penny does not want what she was made to do doesn't mean that she should be allowed to do something else just because she wants it. I have a brother, Pietro, a mind almost as sharp as my own, talents almost my equal, so much ability to do good for Atlas, but what does he do? He lives in Mantle, in Mantle, down in the dirt, fitting prosthetics to mine workers. Anyone could do that! A fourth-year medical student could do that; you could program robots to do that! All the things that only Pietro can do, all the things that only his intellect could conceive, all wasted and for what? Forget for a moment the vast sums of lien that have been spent to make Penny a reality, I will not see her gifts thrown away like my brother's, not while I have the power to see it otherwise."

Rainbow took a deep breath. "Penny… Penny doesn't belong to you, sir," she declared. "Nor to any of us. Only to herself."

"Penny belongs to Atlas," Doctor Polendina replied. "As do you, so long as you wear that uniform."

"I can choose to take the uniform off if I want to."

"Good for you; I can arrange it very easily if that's what you desire," Doctor Polendina said sharply. "But Penny, thank goodness, does not have that option. Though this city is full of wasters forgetful of the debt they owe to the kingdom that has nurtured and protected them, I will not have Penny join their number. What was she doing in Mountain Glenn?"

"Huh?" Rainbow said, thrown by the sudden change of subject.

"What was she doing in Mountain Glenn?" Doctor Polendina repeated. "What were any of you doing in Mountain Glenn? That was in no way a suitable mission for Penny or for students at all."

Rainbow glanced at Ciel. "That's… classified, sir."

Doctor Polendina folded his arms. "Don't play games with me; I have vermillion-level clearance."

Rainbow swallowed. "And this information is classified beyond vermillion. And General Ironwood will confirm that."

Doctor Polendina looked down at her in silence. "You're dismissed," he said, as he turned away. "I have work to do."

"Yes, sir," Rainbow said. She glanced at Penny and mouthed 'we'll be back' to her, before she and Ciel turned away and marched out of the laboratory.

Rainbow didn't say another word as they walked down the corridor back the way they had come, ignored by the scientists in lab coats passing this way or that, until they reached the elevator, which was empty until they stepped inside.

She pressed the button for the roof, where their airship was waiting.

Only once the doors closed, and the lift began to move smoothly up the building, did Rainbow say anything.

With her arms folded, standing on the other side of the car from Ciel, she said, "You could have backed me up a little bit there."

Ciel kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. "Doctor Polendina made a rather compelling analogy," she said.

Rainbow's eyebrows rose. "You think?"

"Doctor Pietro Polendina does waste his talents," Ciel sniffed.

Rainbow frowned. "Do you think the people with the prosthetic arms feel that way?"

"As Doctor Polendina said, many less talented could perform such routine work."

"Maybe they could," Rainbow allowed. "But they aren't."

Ciel glanced at her. "Since when did you start sounding like a Happy Huntress?"

"Hey!" Rainbow snapped. "Do not lump me in with the Happy Huntresses or anything like that; I am nothing like Robyn Hill! I'm just saying that… look, there are places in the kingdom that are pretty deprived, and where if someone were to come in offering to make your life a little better, you probably don't ask if that's the best use of their talents. You're just glad that someone showed up."

Ciel was silent for a moment. "I suppose you have a point. However, it does not detract from Doctor Polendina's larger point. If one of my brothers sought to take a crooked or unworthy path, I would do all I could to dissuade them."

"Would you force them to do something they didn't want to do?"

Ciel snorted. "I will not suffer disapproval upon this point from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you are the most controlling person I know," Ciel declared.

Rainbow made a wordless sound of outrage. "What? What are you talking about?"

Ciel gave Rainbow a sideways glance. "Would you be happy to see your friends become huntresses?"

Rainbow's mouth opened, and then closed again silently. When she opened it again after that, she was able to get words out, "That is completely different."

"Is it indeed," Ciel murmured.

"Yes!" Rainbow snapped. "I never sat down any of my friends and told them that they had to do a certain thing with their lives, I never called them 'my legacy,' I never talked about them like the most important thing about them was how it reflected on me, and I certainly never acted like I owned them! Yes, okay, I would 'do all I could to dissuade' Pinkie or Rarity from becoming huntresses, because guess what, you can die doing this; if you're not strong enough, or fast enough, if you don't know what you're doing, or if you don't have the right attitude, then you can die. But I would never, ever force any friend of mine to do something that they didn't want to do because it would make me look good."

"Do we not each have a task?" Ciel asked. "What is Penny's, but to serve Atlas? It is literally what she was created to do, at vast expense."

"But what about what Penny wants; don't you care about that?"

"Of course I care!" Ciel snapped, rounding on Rainbow. "Do not dare suggest otherwise. I care as much as if Penny were of my own blood, but… we must confine our wishes within the limits of the world in which we live. If one of my brothers wished for a pair of wings to sprout from his back, I could not give them to him with the strength of my affections. If Penny were my sister out of my mother's womb, I would give full weight to her desires, limited only by what was right and proper and due concern for her reputation, but it is not so. Penny is not… she is not ours to do with as we will."

"Nobody owns Penny."

"Her father does, and so does Atlas."

"And that doesn't bother you?" Rainbow asked. "When Twilight asked me if we were making a slave, I didn't buy it, but now… how is that not exactly what we've done? How is that not exactly what she is?"

"I would think a faunus would have more care not to diminish the horrors of real slavery," Ciel said. "If this is slavery, it is more comfortable than the most comfortable lies that ever the slave-owners of Mistral spun about the condition of the faunus."

"But she isn't free," Rainbow said.

Ciel frowned. "Perhaps not," she allowed. "But we cannot make her so. Therefore, if we love her, then our best course is to not encourage her to dream beyond the realms of possibility, but to accommodate herself and find such happiness as she may within realistic limits, as we all must. There comes a time when we must all put aside childish wishing and set our sights on what we know can be. And we will serve Penny better by remembering that than by throwing futile tantrums that her condition is not as we would like."

"So you don't like it."

Ciel was silent for a moment. "There is nothing to be done."

Really? Rainbow thought. We'll see about that.

But first, we have to see what Penny actually wants.

XxXxX
​

Author's Note: I mentioned this before in regards to Cinder's backstory, but this fic was concieved and originally written during the V5-6 break, before Pietro was introduced in volume 7 and we didn't know anything about Penny's father. Although Pietro will be appearing in this fic a little later on, I decided to keep the character that I created for Penny's father.

 

[ScipioSmith]

Atlas​

A little faunus girl from Mantle going to the city of dreams.

As she walked down the street, with Fluttershy on one side of her and Rarity on the other, Blake found herself thinking about Ilia Amitola.

They hadn't seen each other in a few years now; Adam had taken Blake to Vale, Ilia had remained with the Mistral Chapter. Skilled as she had been, there was a good chance that Ilia was dead now. Life expectancy in the White Fang could be as short as it was down any Atlesian mine; even the very best tended to die before their time: gunned down, cut down, bombed, devoured by grimm, all lost to the hazards of the huntsmen, the Atlesian military and the monsters of the night.

Perhaps Ilia filled a shallow grave somewhere in Anima; perhaps there wasn't enough of her left to be so disposed of; perhaps she still lived and fought for the White Fang's cause; perhaps she still lived and had seen the folly of their ways as Blake had. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps; the truth was that Blake had no way of knowing for sure, or of finding out.

But as she walked down the street, with the cold air nipping at her face and nibbling at the tips of her cat ears, Blake thought about her and her story.

She'd found it incredible at the time, the rules that Ilia had consented to obeying, the shackles that her parents had sought to place upon her, the way that she had denied who and what she was in the name of fitting in.

Blake had listened to Ilia's story and found it impossible to believe that Ilia — that anyone — could have failed to resent the imposition involved in such self-denial. Of course, she had then been hypocrite enough to start engaging in just such self-denial herself during her first semester at Beacon but only, so she had told herself, out of absolute necessity.

She hadn't been able to bring herself to believe Ilia when the other girl had claimed it wasn't hard.

Especially if it meant being in Atlas.

It was the tone of her voice that Blake remembered most of all: the lingering longing as Ilia said the name of Atlas, the city of dreams; the way she said it, it almost sounded as though it were not a place but an idea to strive for, a kingdom of heaven built on Remnant. So different from the scorn and hatred with which Adam had spoken about his home; it had seemed impossible to think they could be speaking of the same place or to conceive why anyone would speak of the infernal pit of Adam's memories with Ilia's lovelorn sighs.

It had been impossible for Blake to believe that any place, still less a place so racist that Ilia's only chance to dwell there had been to deny her race, could inspire such feelings.

Of course, Rainbow Dash spoke that way as well, something that Blake had found equally hard to believe as Ilia's nostalgia at first. Now that she was here, now that Fluttershy and Rarity were showing her all the wonders of the technopolis amongst the clouds, Blake found herself starting to get it.

It must be wonderful to live here as yourself without having to hide, to be accepted in this place where it seemed like anything was possible and life could only get better.

The city flew. The city was flying. The clouds were not only above, forming vague shapes before getting blown away by the passage of the angular cruisers proceeding on their stately passages overhead, but beneath them too, and all around them as the floating city nestled in their midst like a particularly rocky cuckoo in the nest.

Blake and her companions passed a robot using an extendable clawed hand to pick up litter off the sidewalk, and as they sidled around it, the android had given a courteous nod of its inhumanly square head. "Good day, ladies."

Blake stopped and stared at it. "Uh, thank you."

"No, thank you, Miss," the cleaner-bot said, before resuming its litter picking.

Blake watched it go along its merry way. "That… that was politer than the hologram at the skydock," she observed. "Do all the robots talk in Atlas? And so politely?"

"A lot of them do, yes," Fluttershy said. "My parents' vacuum cleaner is very polite when he's asking me to move my feet out of the way, but Rainbow was so annoyed by her toaster that she, um…"

"There was a little bit of an accident," Rarity explained. "Involving Rainbow, the toaster, and a lump hammer. Twilight fixed it up, but then there was another accident, and she ended up scavenging it for parts."

"Huh," Blake said as she continued to look at the litter-picking robot. For a moment, she wondered why they still needed faunus to work the mines of Mantle, but then she remembered that faunus were cheaper than robots, and in some ways more durable as well, able to recover from injuries that would break an android beyond repair.

And faunus labourers don't cost anything for the SDC to replace.

"Blake?" Fluttershy asked. "Are you okay?"

Blake realised that she must have been showing something of her thoughts upon her face and quickly forced her expression into something more neutral, even as she covered her mouth with her scarf against the bracing breeze. "I'm fine," she said softly. "Is it always so cold around here?"

"'So cold'?" Fluttershy asked. She was dressed for the weather in a turquoise overcoat with a lilac belt clinching her waist and bands of the same colour around her cuffs. In fact, lilac was the dominant colour of all Fluttershy's accessories, including the mittens enclosing her hands and the beanie sat loosely atop her head. "Oh no, when fall really starts, it's going to get much colder around here; I'm almost glad to be spending the autumn in Vale for the Vytal Festival … except that means I won't be able to adjust to the cold before winter gets here."

"How bad is it?"

"Oh, it's never allowed to get too bad," Rarity said. "In fact, thanks to the city's heating grid, it can often be quite pleasant, even in winter, but they do turn the temperature down enough to allow a little snow from time to time. Not enough that anyone gets snowed in or put at risk, but enough that there is a decent layer for children to play in for a few days or a couple of weeks."

Blake looked around, at the towering structures of glass and steel that loomed over her head, rising like stalagmites into the sky. "I'm a little surprised that the city puts up with the disruption just to let kids have some fun."

"It isn't just for that," Fluttershy conceded. "Twilight explained that … well, I don't really understand it myself, but apparently, it isn't healthy for us or good for the heating grid to keep it running at maximum all the time; we need to conserve the systems to make sure they don't wear out unexpectedly, and allow time for routine maintenance. And besides, if we melted all the snow that fell on Atlas, then Low Town would get too much rain at once."

"What?" Blake asked, not understanding.

"When the snow melts, the water falls down to the city below like rain," Fluttershy explained. "It's the only weather they get, living in our shadow like they do."

I wonder if they enjoy the slight variation in their weather routine or curse it, Blake thought.

"Speaking of the weather," Rarity said, "we were going to help you find something more suitable to wear, weren't we?"

Blake shivered a little. "Yes, that might be a good idea."

Rarity smiled. "I know just the place. Follow me, darlings!" She strode off, leaving Blake and Fluttershy to follow in her wake as swiftly as they could.

They followed her down the wide thoroughfares and the bustling streets, beneath the shadows of the towering structures and past the robots diligently working to keep the streets and windows clean and the city on the move; Atlas, Blake observed, was a city of many parts, and none of the parts that she observed matched Adam's rancorous description. She had no doubt that something like the hellish place that he described existed, perhaps in the Low Town dwelling in perpetual shadow of the city amongst the clouds, living around the ever-growing heap that was the refuse of those literally and figuratively set above. But not here. Not when she was amongst the clouds herself.

Here, she could see why Ilia had been so enamoured of Atlas. Here, she could almost see why her old friend had described it as a city of dreams. Atlas, as she walked through it in Rarity's wake and with Fluttershy by her side, seemed almost like a place where anything was possible.

Atlas was a city of technology. Blake had always known that, everyone knew that; even more than martial force, Atlas prided itself as an exporter of all the most advanced technology, on being the workshop of the world, the place that had given Remnant not only the CCT network but all of its other modern wonders that so enriched the lives of everyone who dwelled within the kingdoms.

But being in Atlas itself, standing on the sidewalk of Remnant's self-proclaimed workshop, brought home to Blake the fact that this was no idle boast. Every building was a cathedral to the worship of science and technology; it was like an entire city modelled after the CCT tower (of course, the tower was modelled after the city, but Blake's thoughts went to that with which she was more familiar), where even the shopping malls had a sepulchral feel to their architecture and design.

Everything was modern; there were a couple of stores they passed with a faux-antique front, but in design, in construction materials, everything looked as though it had been built within the last few years using the most advanced techniques and cutting edge materials. Blake would seriously not have been surprised if Fluttershy had turned around and told her that they tore everything down after about five years and built it all from scratch so that it never got old.

Small hordes of robots toiled unseen, unthanked, and unregarded by the people milling around them: they picked the litter; they swept the streets; they scaled the vertical sides of the towers of glass and stone with spidery legs to wash the windows until they sparkled; they controlled the flow of traffic on the roads; they patrolled the streets and plazas. Some of them, like the litter pickers with one clawed hand and the other holding a bag, looked human, or at least they looked humanoid; some of them, like the rolling street sweepers or the little security ancilla that looked like bins on wheels, that Blake only recognised were robots when she saw one of them ram into a pick-pocket hard enough to knock him off his feet before tasering him, did not look human at all. Of the vast variety of droids Blake saw maintaining Atlas, only the battle droids — surprisingly few in number, but then, she supposed that the Atlesian authorities thought it was overkill to deploy robots designed to kill their enemies for law and order duties — were familiar to her; the rest, she had never come across even in the heart of Vale.

"I've heard that technology in Atlas is twenty or thirty years ahead of the rest of the world," Blake murmured. "Now that I'm here … I guess it's true, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't know much about that," Fluttershy murmured. "You should really talk to Twilight if you want to know about science and technology."

"We're here!" trilled Rarity, coming to a stop outside of a store with a blue front which sparkled as though the stone had been infused with diamond dust, and where graffiti-styled art decorated the windows and the displays behind the dresses out for show.

"Um, Rarity," Fluttershy murmured. "Isn't this where you work?"

"Yes, it is, as it happens, where I'm doing my internship," Rarity conceded. "But that only means that I know we'll find something suitable for Blake inside."

Blake eyed the window displays. The dress that looked as though it had a skirt made of clouds certainly looked pretty enough, but she wasn't sure about its practicality. "Does this place have anything…? I mean, just because I'm here on a break doesn't mean I don't need something … day to day."

"Oh, these are just some high-end examples to attract custom," Rarity explained, with a degree of exasperation in her voice. "There are plenty of … mundane items on the other side of the door. Honestly, sometimes, I must say that I grow weary of the constant suspicion under which I labour. You'd think I wanted to put everyone in avant-garde every moment of every day." She paused. "As opposed to every conceivable special occasion."

Blake smiled, if only a little. "You're right; I should trust you," she admitted and allowed herself to be steered inside by Rarity, with Fluttershy following them in.

"Coco!" Rarity called out, projecting her voice across the open, spacious boutique.

Blake's first, absurd thought was that Rarity was calling out to the second-year protégé at Beacon, who would have been a favourite to win the Vytal Festival if Pyrrha had been just one year younger; but that was ridiculous; just because that was the only Coco Blake knew didn't mean that it was the only Coco in Remnant.

The girl who emerged from the other side of a rack of dresses was not Coco Adel. She was a deal smaller and more slight, for a start, and paler for another. Her hair was cyan and opal, cut short and worn in a bob that curled around her ears, and she was dressed in a purple blouse with a sailor neckline and a ruffled blue and purple skirt above cyan stockings. Her light blue eyes blinked in surprise.

"Rarity?" she said. "Oh, so you did bring your new friend here! You must be Blake."

"That's right," Blake said softly. "Blake Belladonna."

"This is my roommate, Coco Pommel," Rarity explained. "She's also interning here at Prim Hemline's boutique."

Coco stepped forward, and offered Blake her hand. "Thank you, for all your service."

"All my— oh, yes," Blake said. That's right, I'm supposed to be an Atlesian spy, aren't I? "It was nothing, really."

"Blake, as you can see, needs something more appropriate for our kingdom," Rarity said.

Coco smiled. "You have something in mind already, don't you?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Rarity replied.

"Shouldn't this be my choice?" Blake asked.

"Oh, of course it's your choice, darling," Rarity said. "I'm simply going to ensure that you don't choose poorly."

Rarity proved all of Blake's suspicions unfounded, as Blake had to admit as she emerged from the store some time later; with Miss Hemline, the boutique owner, absent and Rarity taking the day off, Coco Pommel had been left to hold down the fort, and she was ever so obliging; she hadn't done much to help Blake choose an outfit — Rarity had that well in hand — but she had rushed from one end of the store to another and then allowed Blake to change in one of the fitting rooms after Fluttershy had paid for the ensemble.

Yes, Fluttershy had bought her outfit. That wasn't something Blake had requested, it wasn't something that she had sought, but she had nevertheless found it impossible to prevent. Fluttershy hadn't raised her voice, Fluttershy hadn't said anything particularly forceful, she had simply smiled and adamantly refused to take no for an answer until Blake had given in.

Blake exited the boutique with her black scarf still wrapped tightly around her neck, as well as her white crop undershirt and her white shorts. Underneath her black vest, she wore a second undershirt, this time of purple that covered up her exposed belly and offered an additional layer of warmth in Atlas, while her arms and shoulders were covered by the long black and white tailcoat, falling down to below her knees, which she wore over the top. The front was white, although bordered by black at the neckline and in stripes running down the sleeves; the back was black, turning to white again as the tails fell away; the inside was lined with soft purple velvet. She had exchanged her boots for a much higher pair which went up almost to her thighs, concealing her stockings and even a little of her shorts.

It was, to be perfectly honest, more comfortable than Blake had been expecting. She felt a little warmer already.

"Thank you for this," Blake said, as they stood once more on the sidewalk outside. "Thank you for your help, Rarity, and Fluttershy, for—"

"Don't mention it," Fluttershy said.

Blake chuckled. "Okay, I won't."

"Now that you're properly dressed for Atlas," Fluttershy went on, "where would you like to go next?"

"I don't know where I am," Blake said with perfect honesty. "Where would you like to show me?"

Fluttershy raised her head to look at the drones passing by overhead, some of them laden with parcels and packages while others looked as though they might be watching the crowds below. "Would you like to see the Garden of Serenity? It's one of my favourite places in the whole city."

"Then I'm sure it's great," Blake said. "Lead the way."

Atlas was a city of surprising greenery. Atlas was a city torn out of the earth, uprooted and unmoored from the land, only to be moored again with technology, and Blake would have expected it to have little patience and less love for green and growing things. Yet as Fluttershy led the way, and Blake kept pace beside her, Blake could see that it was not so. In fact, Blake found herself surprised by how much of Atlas was not given over steel and glass and carefully-shaped stone. It was true that, for any sign of greenery, Blake had, paradoxically, to look upwards onto the rooftops of the ornate buildings — and that fact did make her a little suspicious as to how many of these spaces were open to the general public, as opposed to those who owned those buildings or leased out parts of same — but at least it was not nothing, and even those who could not enter the rooftop gardens could hopefully appreciate the sight of them, for whatever that might be worth.

But while green spaces might grow in the sky, it appeared that animals and birds did not. So far as she could see, nothing lived here but people, hordes of people untroubled by beast or bird or insect. Blake had never been considered a particular lover of any of those things — she couldn't stand dogs, for one — but she noticed their complete and utter absence now and wondered that those all around her could not do so. No doubt, time had rendered them carelessly complacent of what they were missing.

"Most of the animals in Atlas are pets," Rarity explained, seeming to guess at Blake's thoughts. "And kept indoors. There's the public zoo, and rumour is that the Schnees have the most fabulous menagerie— oh, goodness, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"It's just a word," Blake assured her. "The issue is with those who named the island, not with your use of it. You were saying, about the Schnees?"

"It's said they have a private zoo," Rarity said. "Containing absolute wonders, creatures that are extinct in the wild."

"If they do, then it seems very cruel to keep them that way," Fluttershy murmured.

"But if they were to be released now, then surely they would just die off, darling?" Rarity asked.

"Animals aren't meant to live in cages," Fluttershy insisted. "I volunteer at an animal shelter, where unfortunately, we don't have much choice sometimes, but my dream is to open up a real sanctuary here in Atlas, an open space where the creatures can run free and wild."

Blake frowned. "Then why not just release them into the wild?"

"Some animals can't survive without help," Fluttershy said. "Because they were bought as pets and then abandoned or because their natural habitats have been destroyed. Do you know how much damage dust mining does to the environment?"

"No," Blake replied. "I was always more concerned with the damage that it did to the miners."

Fluttershy didn't seem to know how to reply to that; she looked away without saying anything.

Blake felt a twinge of guilt. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to—"

"You didn't," Fluttershy assured her rapidly. She brightened up. "You should come and visit the shelter sometime; if you're going to transfer to Atlas, then you should meet Major Leaf."

"Major who?"

"He's sort of General Ironwood's pet tortoise and sort of the Atlas Academy mascot," Fluttershy explained. "Rainbow says that it's considered an honour if the General lets your team take care of him, but with General Ironwood and so many of the students away at Beacon, the shelter has been taking care of him so he doesn't get lonely. Tank's there, too."

"Rainbow's pet tortoise," Rarity explained.

"Ah," Blake said. "Is there any reason why tortoises?"

"They're very adorable," Fluttershy said. "Maybe that's enough."

Nevertheless, despite having been assured that animals did live in Atlas, they did not live out in the open where they could be seen but, apparently, huddled behind closed doors, out of sight and mind. Atlas was a city built by humans and occupied by humans, and by the machines that they had built to serve them. It had neither time nor place for animals, whether they were true beasts or simply those colloquially described as such.

Atlas was a city of division. In this whole bustling metropolis, she couldn't see a single other faunus face, not a single one glimpsed in the crowd, no trace of a tail or a pair of ears, no teeth or claws. High Atlas was a human city, built by men for men to dwell in, and they meant to keep it that way. No one commented upon it, Blake didn't even notice anyone staring, let alone whispering; she didn't see any 'no faunus allowed' signs on any shop doors.

But she didn't see any faunus either.

No wonder Ilia had snapped the way she had; passing for human or not, knowing that you were the only faunus in the room, day after day … it must have been hard on her. It would be hard on anyone.

At least I'll have Rainbow, if I make that choice.

Atlas was a city of war. If Blake hadn't known that already, if she hadn't already possessed enough experience to have told her that, if the sight of the cruisers and the airships passing overhead had not been sufficient to tell her this, then she would have certainly realised it as Fluttershy and Rarity led her past what looked like the only structure in the entire city that was more than a few years old.

To reach the Park of Serenity, the girls brought her through another city plaza, open and empty, with grey stone slabs staring upwards at the sky and clouds above. In the centre of this plaza, the only object in the entire square, the focal point without any distractions, was a statue. An old statue; Blake didn't know exactly how old it was, but in the middle of this hyper-modern city all around it, placed in the midst of a world that was racing forwards towards a new and brighter future, it looked like a relic from some ancient bygone kingdom. A woman, carved out of pure white marble, unmarred by vein or blot or flaw in the design, stood atop a towering plinth of black stone. Her face was ageless, her eyes were closed, and her head was bowed downwards towards the ground; she was simply dressed, with her arms bare and her feet hidden beneath her long skirt and one breast bared as though she were about to feed a child. Perhaps it was for that reason alone that she put Blake in mind of a mother, or perhaps there was some other ineffably maternal quality that Blake could detect but not really describe.

Blake stopped and stared at the statue as her friends, noticing, halted also.

"Would you like to get a closer look, darling?" Rarity asked softly

Blake nodded, and the three of them walked across the pedestrianised space until the maternal figure, high upon her plinth, would have been looking down upon them if she had but opened up her eyes. Her arms, bare and devoid of sleeve or glove, were spread out on either side of her, gesturing or encompassing that which lay before her. Beneath her feet, upon the heavy bronze disk that separated her statue from the black pedestal that hoisted her into the air, were embossed in gold the words 'These Are My Jewels.' And all around the statue, beneath the woman's hands, were more statues wrought in bronze, statues which had an antique style but nevertheless appeared newer than the woman who embraced them as her children: a soldier, his rifle resting upon his shoulder; a huntress in the uniform of the specialists, one hand upon her sword; a pilot, her face concealed beneath her helmet and visor; an engineer with a toolkit in his hand; a scientist in a lab coat. The jewels of Atlas, who kept the city safe from the monsters who surrounded them.

Flowers were laid around the statues' base, garlands and bouquets, blots of colour around the black stone plinth and grey stone slabs that formed the floor. Some of the flowers were accompanied by photographs; other photographs had been pinned to the pedestal itself: smiling faces, laughing faces, grave faces, faces set in posed expressions, proud and noble faces; so many faces set in a single moment staring out at Blake with sightless eyes.

"Who are all these people?" Blake asked, thinking that she knew the answer already.

"Those we've lost." The answer came not from Fluttershy or Rarity, but from Applejack. Blake hadn't seen her there, but she wandered around from the other side of the statue now, her hat held in her hands. "Those who've given everything for this kingdom. Anyone can leave a picture here, don't matter who it is: your brother, your cousin, your best friend, that jerk you knew in school who made something of himself … and gave everything of himself. Your parents." She glanced away, and her smile was as thin as it was brief. "Howdy, girls."

"Good morning, Applejack," Fluttershy murmured. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

Applejack brushed one of her twin ponytails over her shoulder. "It's been too long since Ah paid a visit, what with … well, you know."

Blake frowned. "Is … is someone you know on here?"

Applejack nodded. "One or two," she said softly. She didn't elaborate, and Blake didn't push her. She'd said enough.

They stood in silence, under the shadow of the marble woman and her treasures, the jewels of Atlas that would never gleam again.

Perhaps it was nothing more than her imagination at work, but as she looked again, Blake almost thought that it looked as though the woman was about to weep. Perhaps that was why her eyes were closed.

"Who was she?" Blake asked.

"She represents the city," Rarity said.

"I thought she was meant to be a queen from long ago," Fluttershy said.

"Ah don't rightly recall," Applejack admitted. "You'd need to talk to Twi if you want a history lesson. All Ah know is, this is where we say goodbye."

"I'm sorry," Blake whispered, feeling the inadequacy of the words. How many of the photographs strewn around or pinned upon this statue had met their ends not because of the grimm but because of the White Fang?

How many brothers and sisters of the White Fang have lost their lives in exchange?

The answer, she was sure, was too many on both counts. Too many had given their lives in this war, too many heroes on both sides had paid the ultimate price for their ideals, and all for what? What had changed? What had all the gallantry and sacrifice accomplished? The battle lines could not have moved less if Atlas and the White Fang had dug their trenches across either side of a muddy field somewhere and competed to see who could slaughter more of their own men trying to move the battle lines an inch or two.

Is there no alternative to this? No better way? Is this doomed to be the way it is forever?

It was enough to make her weep with frustration the tears that the old queen or Atlas anthropomorphised could not.

"Blake," Fluttershy said gently. "Are you okay?"

"I," Blake began, pausing for a moment. "I was just thinking about how much has been lost, you know?"

Fluttershy nodded understandingly. "Would you mind if we left now? This place … it always makes me so sad."

If that was true, then Blake could well understand why, because it was making her sad too; if it was a lie, then it was gently meant, to be sure. "Okay," Blake said. "Let's keep moving."

"You're welcome to join us, if you want to," Fluttershy said to Applejack. "We were just about to show Blake the Park of Serenity. That is, if you don't mind, Blake."

Blake was about to say that no, she didn't mind, but before she could speak, Applejack had already done so. "Nah, you two go ahead. I … I think I'm going to be here a little while longer. There's still one or two things I have to say."

One or two … and one, at least, is very close. Not the jerk in school who made something of himself. Her brother? Her parents?

Blake couldn't help but wonder, even as she knew that it was not her place to know. Applejack remained, lingering under the shadow of the statue, looking up at the woman on the pedestal as Fluttershy and Rarity led Blake away.

She hadn't realised what an oppressive mood had prevailed about that statue until they were away from it; although the mood of melancholy that oppressed her soul did not abate by a long shot, it did ease off just a little, once they were out of sight of the memorial and all it represented to her.

And so they led her to the Park of Serenity, the only green space that Blake had seen thus far in the entire city that was at ground level and not raised up on a roof somewhere tantalisingly out of reach. It was encased within a transparent biodome that kept the worst of the elements at bay and which, Blake could see, would be necessary when the winter came and the weather made these mild temperatures seem tropical by comparison. Within the dome, inside the park itself, a hundred different kinds of flowers bloomed in carefully-tended flower beds — tended to by actual gardeners, what was more: grey-haired faunus in straw hats and waistcoats who moved amongst the visitors with rakes and hoes and buckets — blooming with chrysanthemums, lavenders of blue and green, iris and rosemary and rue, roses red and white and pink, daffodils and tulips. Apple trees spread out their boughs as succulent-looking green fruit bloomed upon their branches. Cherry trees blossomed radiant pink. And in the trees sang hundreds of birds in as many colours or more than there were different kinds of flowers in the garden.

It was like a different world, one wholly removed from the technological marvel outside the glass — or glass-seeming — world from which they had just come; it was like the fairy stories in the battered old book that Blake's mother had used to read to her and which she had given to Penny: the ones in which the protagonist entered into a fairy world, lingering there a day or two, only to find that ten or twenty or a hundred years had passed in the real world when they returned.

That … that might even be comforting, Blake thought. To spend an age in here and come out to find that Sienna Khan and all those whom I knew in the White Fang had died, and perhaps even the White Fang died with them. Then I could see what the world had become in my absence.

A world without Rainbow or Sunset or Sun. A world where anyone who ever cared about me had passed on long ago.

No. It's for the best that this isn't that kind of story.

For her part, Fluttershy too looked as though she had stepped into another world, a better world, one that better suited her temperament. She looked relaxed here as she had never quite looked outside, and as a bluebird flew out of its tree to land upon her outstretched finger, she looked as enchanted by the chirruping creature as Ilia had ever sounded by the wonders of the city of dreams.

As Fluttershy stood, murmuring softly to the little bird which sat upon her hands, Blake and Rarity sat down upon a bench, an uneven bench made of a solid plate of metal that was torn and frayed around the edges and pock-marked upon the surface as though something had been beating on it.

It was so strange, to see such shoddy workmanship in Atlas, that Blake could not help but stare at it for a moment.

Rarity noticed her confusion. "It's all recycled, dear. Everything — the chair and the benches and the like — in this garden has been made from the fragments of … the Superb, I think the name was. After she went to the breakers' yard, her metal was repurposed. I find it rather… well, I don't know if it's appropriate, but I appreciate the meaning behind it."

Blake's brow furrowed. "What is the meaning?"

"That even the most hideous things can become part of something beautiful," Rarity explained.

Blake nodded. "Do you … do you really believe that?"

"Of course I do, darling," Rarity replied. "I am a fashionista, after all."

"And what about people?" Blake asked.

"'People'?" Fluttershy repeated, turning away from her bird to face Blake and Rarity.

"If horrible things can become part of something beautiful, then what about horrible people?" Blake asked, stating it baldly. "Can they ever become part of something beautiful as well?"

Fluttershy stared at her for a moment. "You're not a horrible person, Blake."

"No offence, Fluttershy, but you don't know me," Blake said. "Neither of you know me, and you don't know what I was."

"'Was'?" Fluttershy said. "Not 'is'?"

Blake looked away for a moment. "I'd like to think so," she muttered.

"Then does it matter?"

Blake stared at her, golden eyes wide. "You don't think it does?"

Now it was Fluttershy's turn to look away. "Nobody's perfect," she said. "Sometimes, even your best friend can hurt you without meaning to. If I held on to grudges because of the things that they'd done, or if they held onto grudges because of the things that I'd done, I wouldn't have any friends at all."

"What I've done is a lot worse than just hurting my friends," Blake said. Calling my father a coward isn't even in the top fifty worst things I've done.

"Maybe," Fluttershy acknowledged. "But do you regret it?"

"Every day."

"Then you aren't the person who did those things, are you?" Rarity asked.

Blake blinked. "And … that's it?"

"What else is there, but change?" Fluttershy asked. "And doing better next time?"

"Redemption?" Blake asked. "Penance?"

Fluttershy was silent for a moment. "Rainbow and Twilight tried to get me into video games once. I didn't really enjoy them. I remember one game, you could do all kinds of horrible things and get negative points that would make everybody hate you … but then you could just buy them cookies or rescue stray kittens, and they'd forget all about the terrible things that you'd done because your positive points would cancel them out. Until you did something bad again, anyway. That didn't seem right to me."

Blake nodded, understanding what Fluttershy was saying: that expecting that you could or should do a set of arbitrary good things until you hit an equally arbitrary point at which you had cancelled out all of your prior bad acts was just as facile — if not more so — than the idea of a blank cheque of forgiveness. "But … how do I know if I deserve to be forgiven?"

"I'd ask if you were certain you'd forgiven yourself," Rarity said. "But the answer, I'm afraid to say, is becoming more obvious by the moment."

"So what?" Blake asked. "What does that matter?"

"It's the only thing that matters," Fluttershy said. "Even if the whole rest of Remnant forgave you personally, none of that would matter if you couldn't forgive yourself. You'd still be trapped by what you'd done, unable to move forward."

Blake let out a dispirited sigh. "That … that explains a great deal about how I feel," she admitted. "I've been running and running to do something, anything, that will make up for what I did, but … but none of it made me feel any better."

"I don't know, for certain," Fluttershy admitted. "But perhaps…"

"Perhaps we can find out together, darling?" Rarity said.

Blake glanced from Fluttershy to Rarity and then back again. "I … I'd like that," she said. "Yes, I'd like that a lot."

XxXxX
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Author's Note: Major Leaf was created on tumblr and is used by permission of IronwoodProtectionSquad.