Sienna and Umber, sequel to Firebird Fledgling (RWBY AU)

[Ember]

This Chapter: Next Steps


Next Chapter: Rest





Vale Times: Atlas military sources claim "elements" of White Fang aided in the takedown of "Grimm terrorists" responsible for the assault against Argus.





The New Atlesian: New sources in the military claim the White Fang "helped" in the retaking of Argus! Council offers General James Ironwood command of a new division of airships!





4 Kingdoms Today: The Argus crisis was resolved with limited city damage and low loss of life, or was it? Leaked Atlesian documents confirm White Fang reports of Atlas and White Fang forces fighting side by side against a third faction tentatively stated to be "Grimm affiliated terrorists" Documents further reveal the extreme estimated casualty counts of the White Fang forces involved, has Atlas been lying to the world?





Mistral Post: Argus local grown hero Pyrrha Nikos exclusive interview of the night of the attack on Argus, followup by interview with famed opposing duelist Clove Aramanthus!





Vacuo Tribune: White Fang Clade "Desert Rose" reports near total losses as final casualty counts become available from the defense of Argus.





Menagerie Gazette: Mourning continues for the Clades of Nightshade, Desert Rose, and Brilliant Sun, volunteers lost in the "aiding" of Atlas to retake their city against the forces of Nightingale, terrorist leader.





Next Steps: Blake Belladonna. Sienna Khan.





Blake





"No one cares-" Blake stuttered, her voice choking slightly as she stared at the spread of newspapers across the small kitchen table her family shared. Disbelief in her eyes, she looked to her mother and her father, and noted the disappointed expressions in their eyes, but also the hardness there too. Moms eyes were, like always, luminous pools of gold, something she'd given one of to her daughter, but here they were as unyielding and firm as stone as she sipped from her teacup. Dads seemed… tired, as he looked over at his daughter and tried for a smile.


"They are not denying our existence anymore, at the very least." He tried, and while Blake did not miss Mom giving him a look from over her teacup. Her mother promptly joined in , however, speaking after another sip of her tea.


"This is progress, as limited as it seems, Blake. They would have denied we helped at all even just 10 years ago. There is optimism and genuine goodness in some of these pieces. Vacuo and Four Kingdoms especially are paying full mind to the loss of life on both sides, not just Atlas' apparent casualties."


Blake had to marvel at how her mother could be simmering with rage and yet not show any of it on her face. She was completely composed, utterly implacable, and the very picture of politeness as she looked across it. Nearly half a year had passed since the Fang had fled Argus, splitting into their clades and travelling through secret routes, wilderness, and general evacuation paths. Reconvening at the sea and boarding the small navy and fleet of refurbished and black market purchased airships they used as a movement let them move back to Menagerie to lick wounds and recover.


The casualty reports had been staggering. Of the estimated nearly 5 full clades of White Fang, broken into roughly 40 members apiece, the Fang had lost almost a full half of the volunteers. Some due to Nightingale induced hallucination and mind control, others to Atlesian "police" actions, still more to the charnel house that was the theatre. She still grimaced thinking about it, how Sienna came back tight-lipped, shaking, and white in the face, how the survivors didn't speak, staring ahead blankly sometimes even now.


Blake sucked in a breath, and turned her gaze away from the New Atlesian's headlines, mentions of the ongoing "stabilizing" of Argus turned her stomach. The city was rebuilding, money flooding in from both Mistral and Atlas to strengthen it. Clearly they'd won a victory, but… Blake just wished it hadn't come at such a vicious cost.


They'd buried the leader of a seaborne sect of Fang yesterday. Or well, they'd buried what was left of her, little more than torn scraps of fabric, stained with blood, and a picture of a tough looking, scarred woman with an easy smile and a pair of rabbit ears atop her head. Blake had remembered helping her carry water to the camp, helping her fish. That woman had helped her at one point set up her first net trap for the purpose, and she remembered jokes made in easy company around a fire. Her name had been Veldt, but she'd always said it reminded her of her niece too much, and had told Blake to call her Bree, something she'd done happily. Bree had told her stories of the stars, of the gods and goddesses of her culture of seaborn Faunus, she'd whispered into Blake's ears when the girl was a child on long marches.


She'd been… there for so long.


Blake didn't know how she died, only that her death had been confirmed by survivors of the Fang clade she captained.


She's not sure how she remembered to breathe yesterday. Seeing the woman's sister standing and screaming into the air. The shrillness of the voice gave way to hoarseness as it failed her. She remembered the party, the celebration of her life, she'd remembered Adam pressing a goblet of something warm into her hands and helping her escape from the noise and the agony.


She remembered sobbing in Trifa's arms, surrounded by her friends on the roof of the building they'd celebrated long into the night in.


Someone like that, gone, washed away.


"Blake, dear?"


She startled, to see her mother's warm eyes looking at her, Dad's hand on hers on the table. It was only then that she noticed her claws protruding from the nail beds, the razor edged points digging into the wood. Her ears were flat against her skull.


"I- I should- I"


Dad didn't wait for her to continue, he swept her up into his arms and he hugged her tight.


"Little Belladonna… it's okay, she-"


Her mother stopped him, running her hand across Blake's head and just rubbing, letting the small faunus tear up and silently cry into her dad's shoulder. Mom looked to Dad, and slowly, Blake's breathing slowed, her hiccups stopped, and she blinked and looked around at her parents, saying.


"I'm sorry-"


Dad put her down, and knelt to her level, even then still having to hunch his back over to get down and look her in the eyes as Mom joined him. It was her mother who spoke first.


"You have nothing to apologize for, Blake, we all lost someone dear to us, Sienna is mourning herself, you do not have to be strong here. There are no enemies around us, it's just our apartment. Just the three of us, and I promise… it's okay to cry."


Blake leaned into her mother, and Mom crushes her against her body, and she holds her. She holds her as Blake feels her eyes prick and burn until she can't stop herself and she's sobbing. She holds the girl tightly, as she cries, and when Blake finally shudders her sobbing into hiccups, Dad is there to pat her back.


"It's a sad day but it is a good day, little Belladonna, there is a future and we can see it. Even Atlas was forced to recognize our presence and our aid. Ironwood knows we helped out there, and James seems to not be a terrible man. Perhaps this is a good omen for the future, would you like to hear more?"


Blake nods, and Mom and Dad sit back down at the table, initially they're just side by side. Until Blake drags the squeaky wooden chair that she's always sat in closer to her parents, pushing it into the middle as her ears slowly relax to a neutral up position. She sits in the chair, her parents scooting closer. Dad stirs after a moment, and says to the both of them.


"Let me get the map, Kali, would you like another pot of tea while I'm up?"


Blake's mom nods and smiles at her husband, eyes flicking to her empty teacup as he stands and takes both of them from the table.


Blake and her parents lived in a small apartment complex just off the newly established "government" district of Menagerie. The building was newly built, like much of the island, using wood from the forests and stone imported from the cliffs to the south and Vacuoan stone carvers who ferried their precious cargo across dangerous seas and skies. The small building was richly painted and furnished with beautiful examples of carved furniture, something donated to Dad by a carver he'd carried to safety years ago during a Grimm attack. And something that he'd only taken a few pieces of before leaving the rest for tenants moving into the building. For Blake, she was still getting used to having hardwood under her feet instead of loam and grass. The tents and camps she'd lived in with her parents as they moved around in her youth fighting for the rights of the fang felt… almost more like home to her than this place did.


"What are you thinking about, Blake?" Asked Mom, something slightly mischievous burning in her eyes as she asked.


Blake looked to the side, and said.


"I don't know if it really feels like home, yet. I sometimes think I'm back outside with you and dad, and then I wake up and you're not there in the tent with me, and then I realize I'm not in the tent, but in a room that I don't always recognize."


Mom smiled wistfully, before she said.


"We're just down the hall, you know that, right?"


Blake blushed, and Mom giggled while removing a brush from her sleeve, and waggling it in front of Blake's face. When she nodded, her mother began to run it through her hair.


"I know! Just… feels like you're so distant somehow, even though I know you're just down the hall. Feels like I'm having a permanent sleepover with Trifa and Ilia like when I was a kid but they're not here either."


Mom's brushing was slow and gentle, untangling Blake's long hair and letting it spill out of the ponytail she usually wore it in. Blake kicked her legs out from the chair as her mother hummed and paused, before eventually saying.


"There's nothing that says you can't invite them, if you want. I know we could get out the old mattresses for camping, you could always have them over and watch movies. I know your father has popcorn stowed somewhere-"


Dad's heavy footfalls, still deceptively light, but audible to Mom and Blake, alerted them to the presence of the big man as ears twitched in his direction.


"Found it, and here darling, more tea."


A fresh pot of tea gently clicked onto its coaster after pouring Mom a new cup of the strong fruit medley, before a thick scroll of parchment firmly bound with a belt landed on the table. The thick smell of parchment filled the air, and Blake's eyes widened at the sight of it.


Dad tried to pet her head, but Mom swatted his hand away.


"I don't care how much I love you, if you mess up her hair after I've finally gotten her to sit still I will smack you."


Dad chuckled, Blake giggling, the sounds interplaying in the small kitchen and bouncing around them.


She marvelled at her father sometimes, when Dad laughed it was a deep rumble that tended to shake things, and he never was shy about smiling or showing his happiness to her or her mother. So as he mimed "backing off" to Mom, now menacing him with a brush, Blake simply giggled and her mother's expression softened from mock anger, exaggerated, into a soft smirk as she returned to brushing out Blake's hair.


Dad sat down in his seat, the groaning of the chair sounding as he reclined and unfolded the thick roll of parchment. Scrawled across it were dozens of small lines of text, with pieces of paper embedded into the scroll.


"This is a sort of… anthology of significant events that have happened in the movement so far. Back at the bottom you can see the varying wars spread across this column in direct order of when they occurred. This line traces parts of the history of at the very least our family and where it intersects, for example, my father fought in the Faunus wars, as did Mom's own family, from what little we were able to find out about."


Dad's hand traced a long, purple line marked in clean, small script "Belladonna" across the length of the parchment, ending in Dad and Mom. Finally, a small line shot down to her own name, inscribed in Menagerie script and from there it ended.


"Now, the sheet's not complete yet, but I want you to pay special attention to this line."


A long finger ran across a single line in the center of the parchment, marking out significant events, the wars, the battles, the protests, the fight for equal rights. At the edge of the sheet was new ink, shining like gemstones and freshly applied.


"Faunus and Atlesian Soldiers fight side by side against Nightingale in Argus."


A small line extended out, inked in brilliant ruby red, ready for the next steps. Dad smiled at her, and said softly.


"Even just 5 years ago, I would never have believed I would ever fight with Atlesian soldiers against anyone. I'd thought Nightingale had died to the grimm. I also thought that we'd have to keep protesting and fighting in the ways we have been to try and affect meaningful change. I am used to the Atlesians, to be frank, to be more likely to beat one to the ground and hurt them, than fight with them. That we would get even this far was something I was surprised by. In the wake of the war, when I had just begun to found the White Fang as an organization. I found myself wandering to Faunus settlements far from the major Kingdoms and cities. Do you know what I encountered?"


Blake shook her head.


"I found people living side by side, people just being… people. Regardless of Faunus or human, there was no need or place for any of this pain and hurt out there, just… people living as people. They fought side by side because they were treating each other as real people. There is a future for our people, and well, it was supposed to be a secret-"


Mom's ears flattened and she sent a vicious glare at Dad, who paused and laughed before saying.


"Hey, hey, surely a little bit can't hurt her if she knows!"


He turned back to Blake as her mom huffed and resumed messing with her hair, now half done with the braiding process.


"-but, I am personally working with Sienna and your mother to draft a proposal that will hopefully transform Menagerie into something… more like the kingdoms themselves."


He smiled at her, and she felt her lips curving up. Mom speaking once more.


"Besides, you have that girlfriend you met, she's human right~?"


Her mother's voice had a dangerous teasing lilt in it, and Blake felt her face turn brilliant red as she protested.


"Cinder's different!"


Dad raised an eyebrow.


"Oh? How so?"


Blake shifted in her chair as her mother continued to brush out her hair, retorting at her father as she did so.


"She's just different! She's all cool and nice and gentle! She's not like the other humans are."


Dad and Mom nodded, before Dad said.


"Mhm, and because there's one in Cinder, there are others too. For example, the huntress, Raven Branwen."


"Isn't she a bandit?"


Mom coughed on her tea, and smirked at Dad. Her father blushed as he replied.


"Well, yes, technically she is a bandit. But she's also Cinder's mother, right?"


Blake frowned.


"I don't know… they don't really look like each other, but Raven definitely cares about her."


Mom's brushing slowed and eventually it stopped, her mother done with the upper back of Blake's hair. She spoke again, calmly, humming under her breath between words.


"I know that it can seem like we have to grind ourselves to dust for even the slightest bits of progress sometimes, but… there is progress being made, darling. There will be success in our cause and one day, Blake, I hope you have a future that is truly bright and wonderful. But, enough talk of sad things, don't you have a letter to write to your girlfriend?"


Blake turned bright red, and bolted, her hair, half done up in a long, elegant braid, spilling free of her mothers hands as she wriggled free and bolted from the room.


"She's not my girlfriend!"


Her father chuckled at her expense, his laughter chasing her from the room. But as she ran, she heard Mom say dejectedly.


"I wasn't done with her hair…"


Dad cackled, and said gently.


"Beloved, that is entirely your own fault."


Blake's door slammed shut, and the girl patted her cheeks gently to diffuse the heat from them, turning to the desk that looked out on Menagerie, a sheet of parchment addressed to Cinder on her desk.


The apartment her family lived in overlooked Menagerie, a sprawling, large cliff that the city was huddling under and above. At the very top was the large, stone building that represented Menagerie's seat of government. The city spread out at the base of the cliff and around it, with a large section of the inner walls already being built up. Menagerie was a new city but to Blake it felt… older than dust, the buildings shone brilliantly from the new paint and construction and yet, those same buildings often stretched out in an almost chaotic ramble. Running in tight streets and open spaces covered in greenery. Ivy and plants spread up and down them, growing up and on top of stonework and clean over the paint. It made Menagerie feel… beautiful and ancient, and Blake sometimes felt, looking out of her window, like she could take a walk down any alleyway and find herself in some ancient story or fantastical quest like in her books.


Flags of different clades of White Fang flew on rooftops, and the scent of the sea and the market filled the air from the open window. Regardless of how often the apartment felt claustrophobic to her, Blake still loved everything about Menagerie, in all of its myriad forms and all of its sweeping vistas. That they'd connected to the interkingdom postal service recently was something she'd been ecstatic about as well.


Remnant had a post service, but it had only been very recently that it had truly gone international. The kingdoms usually had some means of sending letters to the inner city and the outer settlements, alongside parcels. But the idea they'd go international was something that hadn't quite been standardized. There were professional messengers, usually hunters who could and would roam and carry small letters and messages for a fee. But that fee was expensive, with the advent of the CCT system, now those letters and messages could largely be broadcast to every different kingdom, except one.


Menagerie had been one that had funneled the hunters who were messengers and the idea of a postal system into a unified organization. They'd organized under a Clade of White Fang known as the Runners, and they carried both parcels and messages to Menagerie. The reluctance of Atlas to actually give them CCT technology, let alone the status as a kingdom which Menagerie so clearly was hurt. It stung to think that after everything that had happened in Argus, and everything that had happened before her time, with the Faunus revolutions, the color wars, the endless waves of protests in kingdoms, they still just… didn't see them as anything other than lesser if that. Most Atlesians just thought she was something more like an animal.


The Runners were Menagerie's attempt to stay at least somewhat connected to the world. They used boats and what airships Menagerie could spare, often tagging along on the frequent mercy missions carried out by roving clades of White Fang as they roamed across borders and towards settlements that were often as hidden as they were in need of help. Most Faunus Clades stuck to themselves, and it had only been very recently that they'd begun to group together on Menagerie, truly, the Clades that answered the call had really been the ones who believed the most in Dad's cause. The others dismissed him more than often as an idealistic fool who was going to get himself and his followers killed.


Blake's mother and father believed in a kingdom for the faunus, a kingdom where truly no one would be at odds or harmed by the laws. Where they could completely, utterly eradicate any semblance of racism or attacks from happening. Where safety wouldn't just be something they had to constantly fight for, but could provide outwards.


This dream meant Blake had spent more of her childhood on the road than anything else, and she was familiar at this point with the Runners. They would collect mail and messages from Menagerie, and she could reach someone in Patch, it likely wouldn't be too improbable to ask as well, given its proximity to a fairly safe city and ease of land routes.


Cinder's most recent letter had told her where she'd been taken, that she'd met a blonde haired man named Taiyang, and he was apparently Raven's ex husband. She'd been meaning to write a response but the mourning had caught up to her before she could, and she'd been too tired after getting home so early that dawn had not even broken.


She felt a slight twinge of guilt for not responding sooner, but how could she expect to tell Cinder everything that had occurred? Could she really even expect the other girl to understand what it had meant and what she'd gone through?


She sighed and sat down at the desk, hanging her head in slight shame. Cinder had faced hardship too; She wasn't exactly going to tell Blake about it, but the leanness of her body, the way she looked at shadows and categorized buildings by exits first said enough. The way she'd never really looked Blake in the eye and the faint marks that had poked out from just over the collar of the shirt she wore suggested another story, one Blake wasn't sure she liked the apparent similarities of.


Cinder had lived a hard life, Blake was sure of that. It just didn't make it easier to explain how the shunning hurt her, too. But, as Blake bit her lip and mumbled to herself, an idea began to form in her head. Maybe it would help her to just not mention it? If she didn't really bring it up, the other girl might not bring it up, either. That would mean that she could evade all the nasty questions that Cinder could ask, or the ones she wasn't ready to think about personally.


The name Veldt flashed into her head, and she had to sit and direct her thoughts elsewhere firmly to avoid remembering the coffin, to avoid thinking about how little they'd had left of her.


Blake's words spiralled out from her pen, she wrote of the beauty of Menagerie, resolving to include a sketch of the city. She was far from an artist of Adam's caliber, but she was at the very least decent with a pencil.





"Dear Cinder,





I hope this letter finds you well, the Runners are good, but the sea is deep and wide. How are you finding Patch? Are you finding yourself things to do? The two girls seem nice to me, but you mention being annoyed by the older one. I want to mention that you should, if possible, come and stay a bit with me on Menagerie. I'd love you to meet Trifa and see Adam and Ilia again. I know they wonder where you got off too and if you got out of the city.


Are you… okay? Argus wasn't… we lost people, getting out and in. I don't know if you ever met Veldt, the faunus who helped us over the walls at one point? But… she didn't make it out alive, at least, as far as we know right now. Did you and Vernal and Raven all get out okay? I know you're like some prodigy if Raven Branwen took you on as an actual huntress, and you're probably fine given that you're at least writing to me. But I felt I should ask about Vernal and Raven herself, unless Sienna's seen her recently, in which case I will feel rather silly after I send this letter off later.


Mom bullies me about you, and it's your fault for it. She calls you my "girlfriend", and gets this incredibly annoying smug look on her face when she does so. She laughed at me earlier when I got out of the kitchen.


Do you think you're going to stay with Raven's ex? Or are you going to split from there the moment you and Vernal get a travel pack together, assuming Raven wanders off like you've told me she's apparently really good at doing.


How is your training? You're keeping up with it, right? I want to spar the next time we see each other. I've been talking with my mom and Sienna, and Sienna thinks it's time I specialize into a single weapon. I just don't really know what to pick, how did you end up with yours? I've been using a sort of "long knife" according to Sienna, but it doesn't always feel right in my hand. Do you have ideas? Or are you going to tell me you're like some sort of chosen one protagonist in a book where you just picked up weapons until you found the one that felt "right" for you? On a similar note, if you know some sort of weapons nerd, I'd appreciate it if you asked them for advice similarly, I just never took you for the type to build them or care much about them beyond that they function. You mention in your letter a bit about how much Ruby seemed to like them, maybe she's a good fit?


I recognize the irony in asking you of all people if you know people, given that you travel with possibly the second most scary person on the planet after Sienna and Mom…


I don't want this to be super long, but I figured I'd ask if you were reading anything new recently. I've picked up a story about a girl with two souls in her body, fighting over her. It's… strange to read it, like she's one and not the other and then she's the other, but there's also parts of it where she ends up as a mix of the two. I like it so far, and I think you'd like it too.


In response to you asking me about how it's like to be "home" after so long… It's weird. Mom and Dad seem to almost be hoping I'll do something specific in this apartment, but I don't really get what they want from me. It's been so long on the road you kind of lose track of people and the things that are… "normal". Did I ever tell you that I've never really had a "home" before? My earliest memories are of mom and dad singing to me as we hiked over Mistral's midline mountain range, moving towards a town that had unfortunately been destroyed by the Grimm before we ever arrived. I remember never really staying in one place, and getting taught by the different clades of White Fang we stayed with at the time. I guess I'm supposed to feel safe and secure here, and I do feel those things… but I'm not sure I feel them in the way my parents are expecting me too? It's weird to wake up and not hear dad snoring and mom's sort of sleep talk, I know they're just down the hall but I just… I don't know, perhaps you can resonate with a similar feeling, you must have spent quite a bit of time on the road too, right?


That reminds me, I wanted to ask you about Amber, you mentioned her in your last letter as some sort of crazy powerful huntress you and Raven ran into in Atlas, but what was she like? Did she have any interesting stories to tell about where she'd been and what she'd done? Do you know if she was a faunus?


Sincerely,


Blake Belladonna





By the time she'd finished scratching out the letter on the paper provided, Blake's hand slightly ached and her stomach was unpleasantly rumbling in her belly. She turned to the side and yawned at the sun's position in the sky, likely trending towards the late afternoon and early evening, based on the position and the way the golden light cast shadows and patches across the boroughs and neighborhoods of her… home.


She stood up, flexing and stretching, relaxing in the way even her claws stretched out and the way her back arched. Ears twitching, she made her way towards the hallways, padding on silent feet as she approached the kitchen. She'd likely not find Dad there, he was often at the government building, but a part of her hoped her mom would be in the kitchen again. She'd caught a brief glimpse of herself in the mirror and the long braided hair was something she didn't hate. A part of her wanted to see what her mom would end up… well, doing with it.


So when she moved into the kitchen and saw her mom sipping from yet another cup of tea, with a portable laptop open just next to her, she was unsurprised, and felt more than comfortable approaching her mother and tugging gently on her sleeve.


Mom, on a radio call with reading glasses on her nose, held up a finger to indicate she needed a moment, but shot a smile at Blake nonetheless.


"I understand, Darling, are you sure about this course of action? It might paint an even larger target on your back, and I worry about more of Nightingale's stooges attacking specifically to hit you or I-"


She paused, reaching out and idly ruffling Blake's hair just a touch, before nodding, eyes focused on the distance.


"Sienna is correct that anyone trying to harm you would likely have to get through not only her shadows but herself and then myself as well, but I still worry that our defenses may not be enough. Atlas we are not here, and it is a… delicate time with the walls incomplete, and infrastructure under construction…"


She continued to ruffle Blake's hair, moving to her ears and smiling at her daughter before nodding.


"Very well… Would you like to speak with your daughter? She's returned from writing to her girlfriend~"


The smugness in Mom's tone was unmistakable, and Blake froze in horror, her mother's betrayal clear as day!


She nodded and passed the receiver to Blake, and the girl held it up.


"So, how did the letter go?" Her father's rumbling voice, and Blake blushed and shifted her feet.


"It went fine, dad… what are you planning on doing?"


Her father paused for a moment, before saying gently.


"Atlas has sent official couriers that arrived earlier today, they carried invitations to a peace conference Atlas is offering between the White Fang and themselves, it is meant to celebrate the actions the Clades of White Fang undertook to aid Argus. I intend to ask James Ironwood to officially lend his support to the weight of the other three kingdoms on a petition for the recognition of Menagerie as a full kingdom."


Blake paused for a moment, before saying.


"Do you think he's going to say yes?"
She could hear her father's smile as he replied.


"Yes, little Belladonna, I think he will be quite amenable to the idea of my proposal. I have to run, but I love you, and tell your mother the same, okay?"


Blake nodded and passed the receiver back to Mom as she heard the telltale "click" as it cut off.


Radio had been something Menagerie had stolen from Atlas, it was comparatively primitive next to Scrolls, but Menagerie had no CCT tower and needed to communicate. So local networks of radio had sprung up, cleverly painted and distinct, both to help flying faunus avoid them, and to blend into the city. Dad and Mom had a radio that linked to Dad's office in the government building, and Sienna's own radio linked to theirs. Sienna herself headed up a post with the hunters of Menagerie, a position she was apparently barely even there for, instead out and fighting to clear the wall zones from encroaching grimm every day. Something that Blake wanted to at the very least participate in.


"What's wrong, little one?" Her mother's question had her sitting next to her, Blake asked gently.


"Could you finish braiding my hair, please?"


Mom smiled and laughed lightly, standing up and fetching her brush a moment later before saying.


"I'd be happy to finish the braid. Are you going to be here for dinner tonight or roaming with Ilia, Trifa, and Adam?"


Blake shrugged.


"I was going to go hang out with them, I think Adam might need some friends to take his mind off things… especially if he saw the papers from today. I also don't really want to think about how it could all go wrong, either."


Her mother's lips pursed at a knot in her hair she brushed out and detangled, before continuing.


"I suspect many share similar attitudes. Not all of us are satisfied with the actions of Atlas in the wake of the disaster. Especially with so little acknowledgement so late after the event has occurred. I suspect that… well, nevermind."


Blake hummed, before trailing off into space and looking out the window of their kitchen, towards the wall sites, where the occasional bright flash of detonating Dust cast a brilliant glow over the black stone walls being built at a rapid pace via the covering fire of huntresses and hunters.


"You're quiet today, little Belladonna, anything on your mind?"


Her mother's voice quiet, the slight tugging of Blake's hair towards her braid happening slowly but firmly.


"I… was wondering if I could help with the frontlines, help with Sienna's job."


Mom flinched, slightly wrenching Blake's hair, provoking a hiss of pain from the young girl.


"Ow, moooomm!"


"Sorry… sorry little Belladonna…"


Her mother slowly worked the area she'd injured, and lapsed into a silence for a moment.


"I do not believe you are ready for that, Blake. I know you want to help, but, here… if you ace your training and are able to fight myself or Aunt Sienna into a standstill by the time you hit 17, I will let you help on the frontlines, okay? If not, there's always hunter academies. But… Blake, are you sure this is the right choice?"


"Yes, mom! I want to help! Adam took hits for me at protests, and Trifa's caught rocks for both of us before, he's said he wants to train me personally in his style of fighting! You're letting me work with Sienna and with you guys but I… haven't found what my weapon is, and Adam thinks I might prefer something more like his style."


Mom hummed noncommittally, continuing to braid,before she responded calmly.


"Haven't you tried a similar style of sword to Adam, with his style already? I know Sienna was looking at the next bout of proposals for a weapon for you from your father and I. Are you sure he's right?"


Blake tried to glare at her mom, but the position they were in didn't allow that, instead her mother finished the braid and gently patted her on the head, letting her response be clear and calm even as Blake wriggled, attempting to escape the headpats.


"There, all done. I know you want to help, but those frontlines are not an area ready for you yet. We're not on Patch or Vale or any of the safer areas. And I personally don't think your weapon is something you've already discovered."


"Okay… fineee… but I don't believe you about Adam! He found his weapon after ages, and he says he's certain he can teach me and make the discomfort go away!"


As she pulled open the curtain to the living room, Mom called from the small kitchen.


"You know, one day you're going to have to braid your hair yourself, Blake! And be back by 9:30 PM, do you hear me young lady!?"


Blake rolled her eyes and answered.


"Yes, moooooooooooooom."


A hand palmed the sheath of a long knife into her belt, which slid up and into place, tightening with a flick of her wrist. Menagerie had come far in the years since it was little more than an armored, fortified camp, but even with the advantage of that time, most of the citizens still carried weapons. The Menagerie Guard patrolled most streets, and with practically all of them armed Blake generally felt safe around them, but better safe than sorry and Blake was not about to become Grimm bait.


Adam would laugh at her.


"Blake?"


Her mother called to her as she exited into the living room, and Blake looked up to meet her eyes gently.


"Yes?"


"Don't forget-"


"To take the gun, I know, was grabbing it."


She moved towards the rack along the back wall. Hanging from a hook was her gunbelt and the large, heavy pistol Sienna had lent her mother first, and then Kali had given it down to her, what felt like years ago. Blake calmly pulled it out, checked over the safety, action and the magazines, and then locked one of them into the well of the weapon. Double-checking the safety Blake placed it into the holster, which went around her waist and tightened.


Kali smiled at her, a gentleness and kindness shining out of her demeanor, the announcement wouldn't break for a few days, but her Dad and Mom must have relaxed as soon as they'd heard the possibility of the conference going ahead,albeit still tinged with nervous excitement because of everything that could happen.


Blake rolled her eyes, even as a smirk just barely curved the corner of her lips at her mother's antics. Kali was genuinely happy, and like a cat with a new toy, she felt the need to make that her entire family's problem.


"Mom, isn't your face going to freeze like that?"


Kali smirked, sticking her tongue out at her daughter's expression of bemusement as she replied.


"Come now, let me have some happiness. It's not like we've worked for this for the past years, especially with our actions in Argus. But I suppose you have to be all stoic and reserved like your cruuuuush~"


Her mother's smugness was distinct, but Blake could see the faint embers of what could be a prelude to a more dire emotional state boiling behind her eyes ever so gently. Kali was still not entirely telling the truth, the Runners and couriers had expanded over the years, becoming more and more based in Menagerie as they continued, and Menagerie boasted arguably the highest concentration of them, but they weren't immune to the dangers of the path. They died with startling regularity, especially in the areas around Atlas or Mistral.


"Adam's not my crush! I just want to say hi to my friends today, and talk to them about it a bit."


Kali smiled and nodded, waving Blake off and saying.


"Then enjoy your time with your friends, and find solace in them. On another note, who mentioned anything about Adam~?"


Blake ran out the door, her face a flaming scarlet. She'd never hear the end of it now, but how could anyone blame her? Adam was cool. He'd finished his outfit and his preferred weapon was a dark black and red blade that was clean and razor sharp. When he combined it with his own natural skill in combat? It was so, so cool. So yeah, maybe she had a bit of a crush! What about it?


She slid down the bannister, the opening in the middle of the staircase letting Blake slide evenly at speed. Her body was thin enough to easily fit between the gap in the stairwells and maximize her speed as she leaned back and balanced on the gap. Sure, her mom had said she didn't want Blake fighting on the frontlines, but she'd never said she couldn't watch how Sienna trained and then learned and then train herself to emulate that same style.


That led to a hyper movement focused ability that Blake used to great effect and Adam found irritating. He often compared her to a stinging insect grimm, slicing thousands of times to achieve the same effect he could with a single slash. He'd chided her for the intensive energy costs of the way she fought, and well… he wasn't wrong. But… Blake also liked the way it let her move, it felt right, felt like something she wanted to learn.


She also had a suspicion that Adam was reliant on his strength or his conditioning, possibly even his semblance for how effective his style was. Not that she knew, telling someone what your semblance was… wasn't something most people did. Not when it could lead to weaknesses and exploitation of the like. She had to assume Kali and Sienna and Dad knew each other's semblances, if they had them. But typically it was something you'd… really only share with a lover or a friend. Blake had heard that huntress teams on the mainland sometimes shared what their semblances did but… it just didn't compute to her.


How could you trust someone you were only expected to do a job with? After all, hunters were contracted mercenaries, that they specialized in Grimm was well known, but she knew many hunters who came to aid Menagerie in the initial beachhead had separated from their teams, some more amicably than others.


Why would you ever give someone the ability to take you down if you couldn't rely on them when it mattered most?


How could you ever trust someone like that?


She shook her head, moving out into the sun and the warmth.


Ahead of her was one of the many squares that interspersed within Menagerie, and she could already see Adam. He stuck out, eyes slightly unfocused and staring off into the distance, at his side stood Trifa, leather jacket on and idly tapping drumsticks against her legs. Ilia flanked them, her face already wearing a smile as she saw Blake.


"Blake~!"


"Ilia!"


Adam and Trifa turn to face her, and Adam smiles, a genial, easy thing that has her stomach turning into knots as she says.


"Hey Adam…"


His eyes track to the gunbelt and knife, and he nods once. Before raising an eyebrow and saying.


"So, you've read the papers today, right?"


"Eughhh, don't-"


"What? I'm only curious, Trifa."


"Ghira and Kali are her parents, with Sienna not far behind Adam, of course she's seen the papers."


Blake feels her cheeks heating up, before saying simply.


"Yes. I've seen them, I'm just… I don't know."


Adam nodded at her, followed by a sympathetic expression on Ilia's face.


"It's hard to look at, right? To see the humans just ignoring us even now?"


Blake nodded and moved to sit by the small benches, sitting next to Adam.


She was sitting next to Adam!


"I don't get it. How can they… say these things?"


"It's normal for them, Blake. You have to remember that they don't see us as anything other than animals. Hell, are you even sure your friend is different from them?"


Why was he bringing up Cinder? Was something wrong with her being friends with Cinder? She… didn't think Cinder was all that bad, she'd said Blake's ears were cute, right?


"No… she's not that bad at all, she saved me, remember?"


Adam shrugged his shoulders before continuing.


"I just don't know if it's a good idea to be cavalier with them, Blake. Trifa's not sure either, right?"


Trifa nodded, albeit stiffly, before she tried a smile and grabbed Blake's hand.


"Look, whatever your friend turns out to be, you've still got us, right? You're always gonna have Ilia and me in your corner, if you're not snogging Adam, that is."


Blake yanked her hand back and snarled.


"I would not be snogging Adam!"


Ilia smirked.


"Yeah she's got better taste than that!"


Adam pressed a hand over his chest, and in a voice as dry as the desert said,


"Oh, my heart, how will I ever recover from this. Blake, please, you'd not be so callous as to say I am bad taste would you?"


Blake frowned at him for a moment, before she looked away and shyly muttered.


"No…"


Trifa interrupted her before she could continue.


"Alright, enough teasing the poor catgirl. Blake, what do your parents think about all of the stuff going on? What do they think of Atlas?"


Blake shivered, feeling the gaze of all three of her friends on her.


"I'm… happy about it. I think my dad's right, it's another step forward and I think one day it'll just be a part of history that we look back on with respect. I'm just… I want to believe this is the "big break" that my dad and mom have been fighting for their entire lives. I just… I wish it didn't mean that Veldt and the others were dead because of it."


As she finished, Blake felt the air seem to change and shift around her, but as she tried to pinpoint why she couldn't. Until her gaze landed on Adam, his eyes, one blue, one scarred, broken red, flashed slightly. He was angry, visibly angry, it coiled about in the way he moved and she could feel it. He huffed slightly and turned away, and seemed to be ready to say something, before slowly stopping.


"Adam?" Blake hesitantly asked, biting her lips slightly, before she met his eyes and tried again.


"Adam, are you okay?"


He looked up at her, and forced a smile, his lips curving up and making it clear he was trying but he just couldn't quite nail it. He brushed a hand off one shoulder, and, voice trembling slightly, said.


"I'm fine Blake just… remembering the Clades that died fighting against Nightingale for Atlas. I feel like we bled far more than Atlas did for their civilians, and that they didn't do anything to justify that sacrifice yet. I just don't get why they're being allowed to get away with this. What use is a peace conference to the dead and the families of the Clades who died fighting? So many of us died, Blake, victims or fighters, and I just don't feel like Atlas is actually working to see us here. I worry that we're not really going to get anything that's actually valuable out of this."


Trifa cut in.


"You think they're going to give us platitudes and move on?"


Adam nodded.


"I think they're going to fly Ghira out and pat him on the back, tell him they're "working on it" and then dismiss him. I don't think they're going to do anything, but just by showing Ghira off, showing that he's supporting them via his presence on stage? They're going to win again, and I just… I don't think it's fair. They're going to trot this out as some great, tremendous win for Faunus rights across Remnant and then they're going to just go back to business as normal, and we're going to be the ones left holding the bill!"


Incensed, he finished breathing heavily, stomping in a circle, hand on the hilt of his blade in his scabbard.


Blake reached out and took his hand, and he visibly seemed to calm down, breathing slowly as he looked at her carefully, his eyes appraising and wondering at her action.


"At least we're still together Adam, at least all of us at least we made it out. At least Trifa and Ilia are okay, and we made it out alive. Maybe this is our chance to… make the world a better place, right? You were in the thick of it, right? Why not use that to send out your voice?"


Trifa smirked at him, running a drumstick out of her pocket and tapping it on his forehead briefly.


"She's not wrong, silly boy, you could write a great book with words like that. And it might even sell really well, before the humans pat themselves individually on the back and move forwards with it."


Trifa turned her grey eyes to Blake and smiled gently.


"It's not a bad idea, Blakey, but it's not going to work in the long run, most people aren't really that altruistic, especially humans. I'm with Adam, I'd like to see them honor every Fang member who died during the attack. And the ones who've died from more "Atlas Policing" in the wake of them."


Blake nodded, before saying, each word feeling like a betrayal of her parents.


"I… agree, I buried Veldt yesterday, with her sister. It makes me want to hit something, it makes me think of the terrible Atlesians, their actions, everything. It makes me want to hurt people who hurt me. It makes me want to find the person who did that to Adam-"


Adam flinched, a hand tracing the scar on his face.


"And it makes me want to hurt them."


It was Ilia who pushed in, literally shoving Adam and Blake slightly apart before poking her tongue out at them and saying.


"Alright, whatever, ignoring the sad shit, we're here to celebrate, this is a good day, and besides since we mentioned her earlier…"


Her gaze turned feral and mischievous, leveling on Blake.


"Our dear little cat has someone she likes back in Patch, and I think it's time to celebrate that by mercilessly teasing her silly butt~"


Adam leaned forward, interest in his eyes, as did Trifa.


"Oh~? Do tell Blake~"


Trifa's voice was dangerous, and Blake couldn't help herself, her face igniting into a flaming blaze.


"I do not like her!"


Ilia rolled her eyes.


"Oh sure she's just all suave and cool and into fashion and dresses and fighting for the faunus cause in Vale and Patch, and she's definitely not cool for having talked about how strong she intends to be by the next time she sees you~"


Adam smirked, and Blake missed the coolness in the gaze as he said.


"Oh really? Strong huh?"


Trifa smacked him.


"Not you too, Pyrrha Nikos is allowed to be the fight crazy weirdo, not you!"


Conversation stopped and three faunus heads turned to look at one goth spider faunus.


"Now whatever could you mean by bringing up Pyrrha Nikos, Trifa~?"


Adam's teasing was sarcastic and flat , but when he chose to engage with it, well, he was genuinely funny.


"Surely it's not because someone in this group has bought all her merchandise, and continues to watch her tournaments every time she gets a chance to do so…"


Trifa blushed a deep purple color, before she stated flatly.


"Shut up, idiot. You're too busy being over the moon for Raven Branwen, we're all allowed to like the good fighters. Especially when they're as cool as Pyrrha fucking Nikos is."


Blake purred out, getting in on the ribbing as soon as she could.


"But Trifa~! What if she's like the Schnees in private? And all that demureness is completely lost on her the moment she's in a private setting?"


"I'm allowed to like how utterly awesome she is on the fie-"


Trifa paused mid-sentence, and then blushed brilliantly and stopped functioning.


Ilia was the first to break the silence.


"Well, she's useless. Moving on, Blake I know we missed your birthday in all the chaos butttttt, Adam got you something and I've got a gift I'm almost done with."


Adam coughed and looked away.


"It's nothing special-"


"Shush, Adam! It's lovely, now go and give her the gift."


He grumbled in his throat, before taking the bag off his shoulder and unzipping it.


"It's not much, and I don't have much to offer, but I figured you'd like something to remember all your travels by, now that your parents seem committed to keeping you locked away in that tower of theirs."


Blake wanted to fight against that judgement, wanted to defend her parents, but before she could get a word in, Adam unrolled a long sheet of canvas and she gasped.


Adam Taurus was a fantastic fighter, and a wonderful speaker, at least in her opinion, but something she knew he did from time to time was… draw and paint.


The canvas was slightly damaged from the traveling he must have been doing, but it's a portrait of her, hand on an open book, sitting in the ruined window of an old building the Fang had found in Mistral, her eyes are looking out at the sunset, a strangely wistful expression on her face, and her eyes, both a sparkling amber color that Blake immediately knew had to be dust paints.


"Adam how did you-"


He doesn't let her finish.


"Don't worry about it, it's fine, I didn't suffer for them, and frankly just got lucky with finding them."


"But-"


"Blake, it's fine." He hissed, ears slightly red, face staged away from her.


Her fingers run across the canvas with a featherlight touch. She's terrified she'll destroy it if she touches it, the rustling so quiet and calm. Adam is quiet, and Ilia seems to have dragged Trifa to the side to whisper to her. They're giggling slightly at her, she knows this, but she isn't sure where or when it's happened.


"How did you get a photo of me here… I thought you weren't much of a photographer?"


Adam smiles at her, she can hear it in his voice as he says.


"Who says I took a photo of you? Good memory, remember? Especially for people and faces."


She slowly picks up the canvas, seeing the corner flip over, wherein the title is emblazoned.


The title scrawled there, in Adam's heavy hand, reads out.


Blake's Daily Brooding


She felt her cheeks turn bright red, as she punched Adam in the shoulder, her voice bursting forth.


"I do NOT brood!"


Trifa and Ilia burst out laughing behind her, with the chameleon faunus spluttering out.


"Bahahhahaha! Adam, I told you to take it off!"


He grumbled in response.


"It's fitting. Shut up."





Sienna





Sienna's feet padded across the grass. To a normal person, it might have slipped their ears, but to Sienna, with her senses as they were, she'd never miss something like that. Sharp as the claws hidden in her fingers, was what she'd been said to be. A part of her wondered if that was ever really the case, these days.


The day was over, the sun having set completely, and Sienna had been removed from the frontlines near the walls by the decisions of her seconds, and by Kali. Dinner and wine with the Belladonnas normally helped her de-stress and calm down, but tonight it hadn't worked.


With nothing to do, and nowhere but her small bunk to return to, she found herself wandering amidst the smooth stones that made up Menagerie's memorials. The expanse of smooth stones, cylindrical in shape and engraved deeply lay out the dire costs of the expansion to Menagerie in the wake of the last great war.


Hundreds of huntresses and huntsmen, thousands of volunteers, over a dozen Clades of White Fang, even a division from Vale's navy and a trio of air frigates from Vacuo had given their lives to establish the beachhead that led to Menagerie formation. Sienna knelt near the smooth stones, running her hand across them. Like many of the rocks on Menagerie, it was deep black, flecked with gold and silver streaks, some kind of mineral. It made for wonderful building material, and served to help immortalize the memorial. In the lightless expanse, the single hill, isolated near the center of Menagerie's cityscape was remarkable to her. Menagerie itself was a stark departure from the busyness of the cities the humans frequently occupied. Faunus all innately had nearly perfect night vision. Night and day were different, but not by much to a Faunus. In comparison to the often fully illuminated cityscapes of Vale, Atlas, and Mistral, Menagerie had very few lights during the night, the entire city cast in a few warm, almost candlelight glows. Part of this was simply lack of power, not all infrastructure was fully stable, and while Sienna fully expected that to shift and change as more people arrived and home grown industries began to blossom, it was not the case at the moment. Right now at night, Menagerie was peaceful and gorgeous.


It was here that Sienna sat down in the grass and thought back to Argus. She was tipsy, her cheeks flushed from the wine Ghira and Kali had shared with her, but as she sat there, alone save for the fleeting, slight shifting of her shadows near the entrance of the memorial.


"I have to wonder, was any of it worth it?"


She paused, and spoke once more to herself.


"So many died, so much blood, I remember it falling like rain on my skin in the streets and the theater. I wonder why I ever thought it was worth it, to be honest. I wonder what I ever wanted from it."


Her voice lapses, and she looks to the tombstone, remembering the soldiers, the fighters, the volunteers, and the civilians.


"I have to wonder if any of it was worth it because… so many of us died and now Atlas is going to parade my ex-lover around, and they are going to show him to the world as if this "joining of forces" represents some great victory. But at the end of the evening, as he returns to his wife, as he returns to us, I wonder if he will feel as conflicted as I do. I wonder if the rich CEO's of the Schnee Dust Company will feel even a kindling of shame for the people they enslave through debt and company money in the mines. I wonder if the casual passerby on the streets of Atlas would even mourn the mines and the dead. I wonder if I will see another faunus rights war in my lifetime, and I wonder if it will shed as much blood as I fear it will."


She stroked a finger over her tattoos, tracking the marks of welcomed pain that hid the scars. Lapsing into silent monologue, she continued in her head, looking at the silent graves of those who came before her.


She wonders what her parents would think of her, here and now, knowing she has ordered the assassination of CEO's, knowing she has waged a shadow war with the help of ex lovers against the foundational company that oversees and governs the economy of the world. Perhaps they would be terrified, perhaps they would hate more that she felt forced to take this action. Perhaps they would feel something else entirely. She would never know, because Atlas took them from her when they'd sold her to Mistral. She would never know her parents, and can only hope that her actions do not cause Blake to lose hers.


Sienna stood, and bowed gently, before speaking quietly.


"Thank you, to the lost, to the ones who gave everything to us so we could build a home here. Thank you because this means everything to me."


Her head inclined, she stared calmly at the other stones, and calmly stated.


"Thank you to the faunus who gave their lives for this cause. Thank you to the Faunus who continue to die for this cause. Thank you to the humans who have given their lives for this cause. I do not know if I can advocate for the full bloodshed I once would have, now that I have seen what I have seen. I do not know if I will ever feel my hands to be anything other than dyed red from the blood that stains them."


She slumped to the side, leaning against one of her shadows. Perhaps she was a touch more than tipsy, staggering up and to one side and away from the stones, before she began another thought.


The worst part of combat was what it felt like to take a life, was what people said. But Sienna didn't think that was the case for her. For her, it was the feel, and the smell. No one died quietly or cleanly, especially not in a combat situation. Sienna still had nightmares of the blood and the smell even now, months later. The way it coated her hands, the way the smell lingered, and the way she felt that no matter how long she spent swimming in the cove hidden from anyone else it would never let her feel clean. Sometimes she woke up sweating, other times screaming, comrades, captain Veldt… the dead and dying. When someone died to the grimm at least it was because the grimm were evil, pure and distilled.


When someone died to humans there was some sense of injustice and anger that boiled in Sienna, that made her wish to enact bloody, horrific vengeance on everyone. When someone died to humans who hated her people completely and utterly, just for the crime of existence? That made Sienna wonder if she should be more aggressive, if she should move from the very occasional targeted assassination to something more akin to open warfare, at the very least against the SDC. And yet every time she thought about enacting such a policy, of commanding her shadows and her guard to become more active, every time that happened she was back in that alleyway outside the theatre in Argus, with bullets ripping through the walls and the blood of her people spattering and staining her hands. Every single time that happened it made her sweat, made her realize what she had ordered once before, and it made her resolve and her feelings twist and coil in her gut. Objectively she should be ordering it, but… a part of her wrenched at the thought of throwing her people further into harm's way. Especially given what had happened with Argus, and as she stood up, Sienna bared her teeth once.


The worst insult was that the bitch wasn't even dead.


She did not wish to send her people into danger, but perhaps it would be better to say that she would rather fight herself.


She whispered to herself.


"I wonder what the General is thinking with this gambit, what is his angle? He is no champion of our cause, he does not care for us. I cannot help but feel at a loss with his actions. I fear for Ghira, and I fear for Kali. I am aware cruelty is often necessary. Humanity must be made uncomfortable if any meaningful change is to be made. Those that believe in our cause are useful allies, but they are not able to alter the course of the rest on their own."


She stood up, and her voice spoke once more.


"I hope, James, for your sake, that you make the right choice, because if you do not…"






A/N: This has been months in the making. I am proud to announce and proud to be writing the sequel to Firebird Fledgling, this explicit part will not be as focused on Cinder and Raven, but instead on Sienna Khan and Blake Belladonna, serving to explore more of the AU changes and the worldbuilding I wish to add to the world of Remnant. I am eager to be giving it a voice at long last, and I hope it lives up to the excitement and keeps people as riveted as Firebird did. I consider this to be a sort of 1.5quel, wherein the years of Cinder "catching" up are less focused on, but the world is far from quiet.





To new readers, you will absolutely want to read Firebird Fledgling first, or you may be confused by the dramatic, and sometimes drastic changes to the world of RWBY. I will preface this by saying that a great deal of Sienna's personality is theoretical, she barely exists as a character beyond a few definable traits in canon, so I will be building my own interpretation of who she is heavily into this story.





I hope this is welcomed, and I am eager to give you this story. Until next time, fair winds, following seas, and thank you, as always, to my patrons.


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