Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As far as team leaders went, Blake figures Yang Xiao Long is one of the better ones. 

There had been drama when Ozpin put her in charge; the Schnee, unsurprisingly, thought Yang wasn't qualified and the honour should go to her. Yang, to her credit, only agreed with the former, and had tried to convince headmaster Ozpin to name Blake or Ilia instead.

Nothing came of it, of course, and thus Blake is left to unravel the mystery of her partner and leader of team YIBW. (Pronounced rainbow, somehow.)

She’s loud, usually, boisterous and excitable, but it often feels… not faked, exactly, but forced. Like it’s the only way she knew how to exist, even when it perhaps wasn’t entirely honest.

Some days, Yang goes quiet, quieter than even Blake, and all attempts to ascertain why are met with silence and a tired stare. She's always back to normal the very next day.

The first time Blake gleans anything about her partner's past, she has much bigger things to worry about.

Ilia, who only really left the White Fang to follow Blake, hears they're working with Torchwick, with a human, and when she runs Blake hesitates too long to follow. She wishes she had, to make sure Ilia was safe and to see for herself what the Fang were doing, but also because you don't have to deal with Weiss Schnee while investigating a civil rights group gone violent.

"Unbelievable!" Weiss screeches, like any of this is about her. She’s pacing around the room, and Blake can practically see the steam rising from her ears.

"We're gonna go look for her," Yang says, and normally she's the kind of leader who makes sure to get her team's opinion but this time she's grabbing a coat before she's finished speaking.

"Seriously? You expect us to go start a search party for that, that terrorist?" Weiss's eyes flicker to Blake, or more accurately to her ears. "Look, Blake, I don't know how involved you were with Ilia before Beacon, but surely—"

Whatever it is Weiss was going to say, Yang cuts her off. "We're not abandoning her out there. I don't know the White Fang very well, but I don't trust them to play nice with her. We can't abandon her to fight alone, not like... We can't abandon her."

"You can't really—"

Yang's voice is the roar of a lion, something primal and angry and so goddamn loud. "I said we're not fucking abandoning her!"

Weiss flinches back like she's been struck and Blake expects a similarly furious response, but instead Weiss says nothing. She grabs a jacket, and when she puts it on she looks twice as small, like she's folded into herself.

(They do find Ilia, just in the nick of time. Afterwards, Weiss apologizes to Blake and Ilia, and Yang apologizes to Weiss, and Ilia apologizes to everyone, and Blake can’t help but wonder what exactly set Yang off so badly.)

Yang's always had her quiet days, days when she retreats into herself and refuses to come out, but Blake doesn't think she's ever seen her partner this bad before.

"Yang," she pleads, "Class starts in five minutes. You're going to be late, and you know how fast Oobleck goes through class material."

Her only response is a grunt from the lump under Yang's covers, which does little besides confirm she's still alive. "Yang, please, if you get dressed quickly we can get there on time, just please get out of bed."

"Go without me," Yang says, quieter than Blake's ever heard her say a single word. "Don't worry about me. Just go to class." Blake worries her lip, takes a glance at the clock, and weighs her options. She doesn't want to abandon Yang, obviously, but she's been here for half an hour and her partner hasn't moved an inch, and Oobleck does speed through class material...

“You’re sure?” Blake asks, and when Yang nods she promises, “If you're not feeling better by lunch, I'll get you something from the cafeteria."

If Yang hears her, she certainly doesn't say anything.

Weiss and Ilia are concerned, obviously, and only slightly appeased by her promise to bring Yang lunch. Yang isn't feeling any better by then, given that she's still in bed, but she must have had enough energy to get up and close the curtains.

"I brought you a sandwich," Blake says. This, it seems, is what finally convinces Yang to arise from her sheets.

She looks like shit.

She's been crying, obviously, her eyes more red than when she's using her semblance. Her hair, the hair she treasures more than anything else, is a mess of knots and tangles.

Often, Blake finds their dorm feels cramped, the four beds leaving little in the way of walking space, but now it feels far too empty. They eat in silence, for a while, sat on Yang’s bed as Blake tries to figure out how to question her partner about what's got her too depressed to go to class.

Yang, beautiful and smart and better with people than Blake has ever been, answers before Blake can humiliate herself by asking.

“It’s an anniversary,” Yang says. “It’s been a year since my little sister died, now.”

"Oh, Yang, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. You didn't do anything."

They sit in silence after that, Blake’s awkward energy splashing helplessly against the rocks of Yang’s grief. She wants to help, to say something, but doesn’t know what she could possibly do to make this better.

“What was her name?” Blake finally asks, with a “If you don’t mind me asking, I mean,” hastily thrown in.

Yang stays silent, for long enough that Blake’s not sure if she’s upset with her or just didn’t hear. Eventually, Yang whispers, “Ruby. Ruby Rose. She was just a kid.” Yang swallows, shoulders shaking, and Blake doesn’t need to be a genius to tell she’s fighting back tears. “We had a fight. A stupid fight. I’d been going out to Vale, looking for trouble. She thought it was reckless, said I was gonna get hurt or arrested. I yelled at her. Stormed off. Came back that night ready to apologize, but Dad was the only one there and he was asking where she was. He would have gone out to look for her, but he thought she was with me... She went to visit Mom, we think. Mom’s grave. She’d been there dozens, hundreds of times, and we assumed she could take care of herself. It was only Beowolves, out in that forest.”

Yang’s voice shakes. Stray tears fall from her lilac eyes. “She was tough, real tough. Best freshman Signal had ever seen.” There’s a hint of pride in Yang’s voice, there, but it fades as she continues, “But Patch is a pretty small place, Grimm can sense negative emotion from across the island and I had just— I said I’d protect her, promised I’d always keep her safe, but now she’s dead and it’s all my—”

Slowly, Blake lays a comforting hand on Yang’s shoulder. Yang freezes at the contact, for a second, and before Blake can wonder if she’s messed up Yang’s got her arms wrapped around her in a vice grip, her shaking head pressed into Blake’s chest.

She sobs hard enough to make Blake’s whole body shake.

They stay like that for a while, Blake giving Yang a shoulder to cry on, before reality sets back in. “Classes are going to start soon,” Blake says. “Do you think you’re good enough to go?”

Yang shakes her head, and so Blake gingerly makes her way out of their dorm.

Weiss and Ilia corner her when she returns to the cafeteria, and she tries to deflect but they won't have it.

“Her little sister passed away a year ago,” Blake eventually admits, and regrets the words as they’re leaving her tongue. “Today’s the anniversary.”

They both understand. Ilia, who remembers how the grief of her parents death had consumed her, winces and sucks air in through her teeth, while Weiss, who rarely talked about her family but always said mother or father as cold as ice but sister with warmth and a smile, freezes with her mouth in an ‘O’ shape.

“Fuck, that’s rough,” Ilia says. “Is... do you think there’s anything we can do to help?”

Blake shakes her head. “Just give her space, I think.”

Yang’s feeling better when they get back from classes, good enough to do some studying with them in the library. Immediately, Blake abandons any hope that Yang won’t realize she told the others; Weiss and Ilia are walking on eggshells, and Yang catches most of the worried glances Blake throws her way.

She expects Yang to be angry with her, furious even, for spilling something so personal. But instead, when she corners Blake it's to give a hint of a smile and wrap her arms around her.

It's confounding at first, but after some thought Blake feels like she understands her partner just a bit more. She gets what it's like, having things you would kill to have people understand but rather die than explain.

As thanks for organizing the Vytal dance in their stead, team CFVY surreptitiously gifts team YIBW a bottle of Vacuan wine. Yang, ever the responsible leader, announces they’ll be downing the thing that night as a little private afterparty. 

Weiss, after some uncomfortable shuffling, announces she has to help clean up the dance hall, and flees the dorm before they can question her.

Ilia takes a swig of wine, grimaces, and ambles out after her partner.

“Guess someone didn’t want to be a third wheel,” Yang says with a wink. “All the more for the rest of us.” She takes a sip, straight from the bottle, and gags. “Oooh, yeah, this stuff is strong.”

Blake motions for her to pass it over, and has a taste. It’s certainly strong, fruity with an aftertaste that's vaguely spicy. Blake's no expert, but she's pretty sure there's a reason only Vacuo makes wine like this.

They sit on Yang’s bed and talk, passing the bottle between them. Often, Blake finds their dorm feels cramped, the four beds leaving little in the way of walking space, but now it feels cozy.

Conversation meanders from the past, (“Did I ever tell you how Ilia and I met?”) through the present, (“If we killed Cardin, you think we could get away with it?”) and into the future, (“Any chance Jaune ever realizes Pyrrha's into him?”) an activity that eventually, in the pleasant buzz of being not quite drunk, turns into swapping secrets.

“Your turn,” Yang says, holding the bottle out to her. Their fingers brush when Blake takes it, and she feels sparks run up her arm and down her spine.

“It’s way lighter than it used to be,” Blake says, hoping to distract Yang.

Yang snorts. “Yeah, that’s what happens when you, when you drink it.”

Blake giggles, and absentmindedly wonders if they should maybe leave some for their teammates instead of finishing it off by themselves. The wine flicks the thought from her head. 

“My turn, then?” She pauses to think for a moment. She has an idea. She reconsiders. She takes a long sip of wine and reconsiders her reconsideration.

“I mish my parents,” she says, words slurred, “but I’m afraid to go back to them. Dunno what I could posi— pozi— possimb— what I could say. Guess I’m just scared.”

Yang puts her hands behind her head and leans back before responding. “Whoof, that sucks. They know you’re like... alive, right?” Her lilac eyes are clearer than they’ve been all night when she asks, and Blake stares just a moment too long.

But she brings herself to nod. “Yeah. They think I’m still with the Fang, I’m pretty sure.”

Yang furrows her brow. Blake stares, in an effort to distract herself from her eyes. She’s never noticed Yang’s eyebrows before, but they’re so... eyebrowy. After several seconds, Yang says, “Could you maybe, like, send them a letter or something? So you won’t have to see them, but they’ll know you’re safe and not doing... terroristy stuff.”

That’s... not a bad idea, actually. A coward’s compromise, sure, but if it means not having to look them in the eyes when they ask why she thought running off with Adam was a good idea...

“I’ll think about it,” she says, and it’s not even a lie. She stifles a yawn, badly, her failure dragging one out of Yang as well. 

“How about you? Anything else you wanna share before we fall asleep?” She offers Yang the bottle.

Yang grabs it, a pensive expression on her face. She takes a swig, and sways as she pulls the bottle from her lips. “Sorry if this is too fucked up,” she says, pauses, takes another, longer gulp of wine, and continues, “I’m— a part of me’s pissed off that Ruby died. Not even sad, really, just angry.”

Blake tilts her head. “I don’t think it’s that weird, to be mad someone you love died. If you were just mad, maybe, but I’ve seen you, you know... I know you cared about her.”

It’s a good response to a heavy topic, Blake thinks, but Yang’s shaking her head before she’s finished.

“No, not like that,” Yang says. “I mean more like... I spent so much of my life looking out for her, you know? After Mom died, Dad wasn't all there, mentally, and Uncle Qrow only came home when he was too drunk or hurt or both to go on missions, so it was my job to look after Ruby. And I did! I studied hard so I could answer every question she had about homework. I walked her to school every day, even when I started going to Signal. Mom was always the one who packed us lunches and after she died Dad could never remember to, so I’d stay up late every night making sure Ruby had something to eat. I’m not even sure she knew it was me. She always went to bed before me, and I never wanted to tell her that Dad... I wasn’t sure how she’d take it.

“And after all of that, every night I stayed up late and every morning I got up early, everything I did to make sure she didn’t grow up alone in some fucked up home with no one to look after her, I look away for one evening and that’s it. She’s gone. And I’m sad, obviously, I’m so fucking sad, but after a while I’m just sitting there and I‘ve got this sick fucking feeling in my gut that I’ve been cheated. That all that effort was for nothing. That everything I did for her, every night I read her to sleep and every bully I beat up, was all just a waste of time. That I spent my life looking after her and all I have to show for it is a grave. That I shouldn’t have bothered.”

Blake opens her mouth to express sympathy, reassurance, something like that, but the half-bottle of wine in her stomach speaks for her and it says, “That’s dumb.”

Yang gawks at her, and Blake takes the seconds before her notoriously temperamental partner comes to her senses to explain herself. “I mean, just because she’s gone doesn’t mean what you did was meaningless. It doesn’t do much now, obviously, but you didn’t waste your time. Everything you did made her happier, made her life better. It may be in the past, to you, but to Ruby it was her entire life. Even if she’s gone now, she lived every single day knowing she was loved, knowing you cared for her. Every single day, for fourteen years! You made sure she lived a good life, from beginning to end, and, I don’t know. I think that’s worth it. Sometimes that’s all you can do.”

Yang sniffles. There’s tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Her voice shakes as she says, “That’s— thanks, Blake.”

Blake moves to hug her, but the movement makes the whole room spin nastily. She succeeds in clinging onto Yang, dragging her partner down with her, and she thinks Yang starts crying for real then; thinks being the important word here. If she’s being honest, she doesn’t remember much after that. She can’t have done much, though, because when she wakes up the next morning they're in the same position, her wrapped around Yang and Yang wrapped around her, the two of them laying in Yang’s bed.

They still have their clothes on, she notes with silent thanks. Not out of a fear of violation, or anything, but because Ilia and Weiss returned while they were sleeping and Blake does have some sense of decency.

(They finished the wine, at some point in the night. Weiss certainly doesn’t mind, but poor Ilia does.)

Far too soon, their first semester is over and the time has come for their practical exam. Normally, all the first-year teams would be going on supervised missions over the course of the exam week, but due to the shortage of professors in Vale (Blake wasn’t entirely clear why, but it apparently had to do with much of Signal’s teaching core all retiring last year) Ozpin had elected to extend the exam period to two weeks and rotate the professors they had.

For team YIBW, this means they have a week off before their mission. With no classes and half the student body gone, most students used the opportunity to go back home and visit their families for a relaxing week before their first missions as Huntresses in training.

“I’m staying here,” Ilia says, and no one bothers asking why. Weiss winces a little, small enough that Blake only notices because she’s already looking at Weiss tap her feet and drum her fingers against her leg.

“I’m staying as well,” Blake says. “I doubt I could make the trip home and get back in time for the exam.”

Ilia raises an eyebrow, judgement in her eyes, and Blake can’t help but wilt a little. Yeah, like that’s the only reason she’s avoiding going back to Menagerie.

Weiss lets out a deep breath, and Blake can’t help but notice her slender shoulders relax a fraction. “If we’re all staying,” Weiss says, “I suppose I have no choice but to remain here as well. It wouldn’t do for a Schnee to abandon her teammates right before their first mission.”

“I’m going back to Patch,” Yang says, casually wrecking any hope of team YIBW enjoying a week off together. “I’ll miss you guys, but I’ve gotta take the opportunity to see my dad.”

Blake understands; Yang loves her dad, loves him like she takes the love she should have for Raven and Summer and Ruby and gives it to him. She loves him like she loves her family and he’s all the family she has left, him and her uncle Qrow.

“I’ll miss you too,” Blake says, laying her hand on Yang’s arm. “Promise me you won’t get into trouble without us?”

“Of course,” Yang says, a grin making its way to her face. “I, Yang Xiao Long, hereby solemnly swear that I won’t get into any fights, adventures, or even hijinks without you.”

Blake snorts, and takes the time to bask; in the moment, in Yang’s smile, in the audible gagging sounds Ilia is making only a few feet away from them. Okay, so maybe she isn’t basking in that last one so much as she is doing her very best to try and ignore it, but the point stands. At least she isn't literally turning green any more.

Weiss, already back to fidgeting, says, “Then it seems I’ll have to stay here to make sure these two don’t get themselves wrapped up in any more criminal conspiracies.”

It’s a paper-thin excuse, but no one feels like calling her out on it. Aside from the fact that none of them actually want her to leave for the week, they find themselves in the unfortunate situation of caring about her too much to want her back in Atlas with her father.

“What she means to say,” Ilia says, “is we’ll miss you too. Make sure you’re back in time, alright?"

Yang pauses, tilting her head as if to consider something, before saying, “Actually... what if you guys came to Patch with me?”

That would be... that would be nice, Blake thinks. Certainly better than the three of them staying in a desolate Beacon for the week. On the other hand...

“I don’t want to impose on your father,” Blake says. “Wouldn’t he mind a bunch of teenagers showing up out of the blue?”

Yang shakes her head without a second thought, much less a first one. “Are you kidding? He’d love to meet my team!” Her smile turns downwards just a fraction, and her voice loses some of its enthusiasm as she says, “And I think he’d appreciate having people in the house again. He’s never been the only one living in it before.”

Well, that’s enough for Blake. “If he isn’t bothered, then I’d love to. Ilia, Weiss?”

Ilia shrugs, and says, “It probably beats lazing around Beacon by ourselves, so why not? Should at least be interesting.”

Weiss’ shoulders drop, tension flowing out of them, and she doesn’t even bother hemming or hawing before she says, “I’ll be happy to accompany you all.”

Then it’s settled; before their mission, team YIBW will spend the week at Patch.

Blake can only hope Mr. Xiao Long likes them.

The Xiao Long household is covered in dust.

Some parts aren’t, of course; yesterday’s newspaper is laying on the coffee table, a bowl is sitting in the sink, there’s a pizza box stuffed into a garbage can that can’t fit it. It’s not like the house is devoid of life, but whole rooms are dusty, like no one’s stepped foot in them for months.

It’s not like she meant to explore; but after introductions and conversation had been made, while Yang and Mr. Xiao Long (or Tai, as he insisted they call him,) spoke in hushed tones of things not meant for her ears, she had no choice but to go elsewhere.

Which is how she found herself in the basement, dank and musty and so full of dust that every step makes her choke.

It’s full of boxes, mostly cardboard, that Blake won’t open, out of some sort of respect for her hosts’ privacy, but some things they didn’t bother to pack. Mostly pictures— some of four adults, or four adults and a baby, or three adults and two kids, or two teens and two men, and if Blake put them in order she swears she could see the smiles fading— but there’s no pictures of just Yang and her dad and her uncle. Blake figures those pictures are upstairs, on drawers and walls, having replaced all the ones down here.

It feels voyeuristic to stare, but a part of Blake appreciates having faces to put to the names Qrow, Summer, Raven, and Ruby.

Maybe, if life had been kinder to their family, she wouldn’t have been able to figure out who’s who based on when they disappeared from the family photos. (Or, in Qrow's case, when he started holding his flask in family photos.)

Putting down a picture of Yang, Ruby, and their father, Blake can’t help but wonder if her parents have removed the pictures with her in them, if keeping them around hurts too much. She’s not sure which she prefers. Once they're done with their mission, Blake decides, she's going to write that letter Yang had suggested.

Aside from pictures, there’s a few knickknacks laying about, chairs pushed into corners, as well as something hanging from the wall. It’s sharp, jagged, and gleams like metal, and it takes Blake a few seconds to realize she’s looking at a scythe, painted red and covered with dust.

Blake reaches out, but catches herself before she can run her hand over it. The craftsmanship is impeccable, sure but if looking at old family pictures was voyeuristic, touching Ruby’s weapon— and it had to be Ruby’s weapon— would be downright disrespectful.

Shame washing over her, Blake retreats back upstairs, where everyone else is discussing where they’ll all be sleeping.

“So who wants to sleep on the floor?” Mr. Xiao Long says. “Yang and I have bedrooms, obviously, but we’ve only got the one couch...”

Blake can think of a solution, though just imagining it sends a wave of heat up through her face and makes her ears burn. Maybe if it were just the four of them, she’d suggest it, but in front of Yang’s dad? Never.

“Dibs is a barbaric concept and I will not engage in it,” Weiss says from her seat on the sofa. “But I believe ‘first come first served’ is a common philosophy?” 

Ilia rolls her eyes, and opens her mouth to complain but Yang speaks up before she gets the chance. “Actually... What about my old room? It’s got room for two.”

Mr. Xiao Long purses his lips. “You’re sure?”

Yang nods. “It’s got... memories, yeah, but I’m a big girl. Besides, what kind of leader would I be if I made my teammates sleep on the floor?”

“Guess Blake and I will be in your old room then,” Ilia says. “Y’know, since Weiss already called dibs on the couch.”

Weiss squawks indignantly, and they all laugh as she tries in vain to rescind her claim now that actual beds are available.

A part of Blake is disappointed she’ll have no excuse to share a bed with Yang, as she had earlier dared imagine. The rest of her knows it’s for the best. As... enticing as the prospect of cuddling up to Yang for the night is, the knowledge that her father and their teammates would be separated from them by only a few inches of wood serves as a bucket of ice-cold water.

Instead, she’ll be spending the night in Yang’s childhood bed, which is a whole different kind of awkward.

By the time they all tuck in for the night, it’s at least an hour past when Blake usually falls asleep, and that’s accounting for whatever book she finds herself reading that night. Poor Weiss, who has the sleep schedule of an elementary schooler, or perhaps an elderly woman, is dead on her feet by the time they finish eating, talking, and playing what feels like every single board game in the house. She had spent the latter half of their games “on a team” with Ilia, which was really just an excuse to doze off on her teammate’s shoulder, much to Tai’s amusement.

If Blake ever had any questions about how Yang turned out the way she did, meeting her father would answer every last one of them.

“This is where you two will be sleeping,” Yang says to Blake and Ilia, keeping her voice quiet in respect to the pervasive silence of night and also her teammate passed out on the couch. “It’s my old room, but I haven’t slept there since... I haven’t slept there in a while.”

She opens the door, and Blake can see why. Even with the lights dim, she can make out the nicks and scratches covering what little furniture there is. The decorations, sparse, only covering a single side of the room.

The two beds, one ever so slightly smaller than the other.

Blake can’t help but wonder why Yang insisted on coming back here, when the entire house is one big monument to all she’s lost. A game console she's never played by herself. The yard where she and her sister ran around and sparred. All the spots they used for hide and seek— the table, the cupboard, and somehow the chimney. Blake doesn’t even have to think about what she would do, were she in Yang’s shoes.

“Guess that’s it for tonight,” Yang says, leaning against the doorway. “See you in the morning?”

Before Blake can decide against it, she leans in and presses her lips against Yang’s cheek for just a moment. “See you in the morning,” she says, and gently closes the door before Ilia (whose grimace could be conveying exasperation or disgust but who is likely feeling both) can slam it in Yang’s face.

“I’d tell you two to get a room,” Ilia says, “Except I don’t actually want that. Especially not when I’m gonna be stuck in the house with you. My eyes are already traumatized beyond help, no need to do the same to my ears.”

Blake wishes she could empathize with her childhood friend, especially given their... complicated history, but, well, “That’s as chaste as it gets, Ilia. If this is too much for your poor maiden heart, I regret to inform you it’s only going to get worse.”

Ilia protests, of course, but it’s playful banter between two old friends, much unlike when they had first had that conversation. As painful and awkward as that situation had been, Blake couldn’t help but be glad it had happened. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her easy friendship with Ilia until she had it back.

As Blake lays in the bed she’s pretty sure Yang grew up in, she can’t help but marvel at how well their stay at the Xiao Long house is going. Ilia warmed up to Taiyang quicker than she warmed up to most people, much less humans. Weiss’s attempts to impress her leader’s father (not to mention a strong and respected Huntsman in his own right) seemed to amuse him rather than annoy, and he had hardly cast more than a raised eyebrow Blake’s way.

That had been more due to the grip Yang had on her hand at the time, Blake was pretty sure.

She had expected Yang’s childhood home to be imposing, full of grief and history best left uncovered, but (with exception of the basement) she had found it to be warm and welcoming. A part of her had been worried her team would leave the building cramped, with not enough space for anyone to be comfortable, least of all their host. Instead, it’s the opposite. Having seen it, Blake isn't surprised. It’s a big house, far too big for just Yang and her dad, much less Mr. Xiao Long on his own.

It’s the perfect size for five people.

The day before their flight back to Beacon and subsequent mission, Yang takes the team to visit her family’s personal graveyard.

It doesn’t feel right to call the place a graveyard— there’s only two graves, and not a single body is buried— but Blake doesn’t know what else to call it.

Summer Rose's grave is beautiful, a small little thing on the edge of a cliff. Perilously close to danger, but forever enjoying the view. A line is engraved beneath her emblem and name, and Blake remembers reading it in an old book of poetry; thus kindly I scatter. 

Ruby Rose’s grave is nearly identical to her mothers, a stump of stone with her name and emblem, but there’s no quote. Only the words gone too soon. It makes sense, Blake thinks. Summer would have gone into hundreds of missions knowing each one would be her last, but what kind of kid makes plans for if they die? What kind of parent plans to bury their child?

Summer’s grave is in the middle of the cliff, perfectly symmetrical, but Ruby’s is tucked to the side like a child hiding behind their parent's legs. It doesn’t fit. Looking at it, it’s all Blake can do not to cry, thinking over and over goddammit Belladonna, not now, you can't start crying before Yang does, not at her own family’s grave.

"Summer always loved the view," Yang said, voice cracking, like she could either hold back tears or speak and yet had accepted the incredible task of doing both at once. "I remember her taking us here when we were little. But Ruby didn't care for it. Thought it was dumb. She'd come here at sunset, with a sight some people would kill for, and she'd never once look at the forest below. Just spend the whole time looking at— looking at mom, and talking."

The dams break, finally, and Blake has never been more grateful for anything in her life. Yang’s already got an arm around her shoulder,both of them heaving up and down, and she doesn’t react as Blake wraps her arms around and presses her face into Yang’s side.

“When she, when she died,” Yang wheezes out through tears, “I wanted to put the grave somewhere else. Said she only went there to visit Mom, she wouldn’t want to, to rest here.” She pauses to take in a shaky half-breath and continues, “Dad and Uncle Qrow said she would want to be next to Mom, and they— I think they were right. I hope they were. Gods, I hope they were.”

Weiss and Ilia, who had previously been leaning against each other, step forward to join Blake in holding Yang close. Yang responds by wrapping her free arm around them and pulling them in for a crushing embrace.

Yang tries to keep talking, but she’s made unintelligible by the sobs racking her body. It doesn’t take long for her to give up. They stay there like that for a while, the four of them united by arms and tears, before Yang lifts her head from Weiss’s shoulder to say one last thing before they leave.

“I hope you’ve learned to love the view, Rubes,” Yang says. “I’m sorry for everything.”

By the time they reach Mountain Glenn, team YIBW has recovered from their emotional stay at the Xiao Long household and are prepared for their exam. It’s a simple search-and-destroy mission, Dr. Oobleck explains. Hunt down any Grimm they can find, and explore the area to the best of their abilities. As simple as anything is with the Grimm, of course; he makes it crystal clear they should expect the unexpected.

That they would find Roman Torchwick there was not outside the realm of possibility. But none of them could have expected the thing he brought with him.

Chapter Text

Yang Xiao Long expects her first mission as a Huntress-in-training to be exciting, full of violence and intrigue and astronomically high stakes.

To her credit, she’s one-third right.

“The pack to the north-west is heading our way,” Ilia shouts down from her post at the top of an abandoned apartment building. “Seems like someone got too loud and drew their attention.”

“Yeah yeah,” Yang shouts back, extracting her arm from the hole it had made in some poor Beowolf’s chest. “You try fighting these things with guns instead of that fancy whip of yours and see how loud you are.”

Still, she makes a mental note to cut back even further on firing Ember Celica. As much as her entire fighting style kind of relies on enhancing her strikes with their shots, Dad had always said that two of the easiest ways for Huntsman to get themselves killed were drawing in more Grimm than they could handle and running out of ammo.

The easiest, she remembers with a strum of pain in her chest, is to fight alone.

She notices movement out of the corner of her eye, a Borbatusk charging at her, and just like that she’s out of her head and back in the real world. 

She could face it head on, pit its strength against her own and undoubtedly come out on top, but Oobleck had chided her for wasting energy the last time she’d tried that, and reminded her she had to keep this up for the rest of the day. 

Now, well into the afternoon, as her muscles ache and each breath gets harder and harder, she can appreciate that wisdom.

So instead she gives Blake a heads up (“Boarbatusk on my left!”) and lets her handle it.

Weiss is even kind enough to give her a glyph to push off of as she jumps over the charging Boarbatusk, whose momentum takes it straight into the snaring ribbon of Gambol Shroud. Blake even lets Yang finish off the immobilized creature.

Yang could kiss her. Yang would kiss her, if not for the fact that everyone had looked at her weird all the other times she’d done so today, like a Grimm hunt wasn’t the right time for PDA.

Oh, and also their history professor was standing a few feet away.

“Another pack so soon?” Oobleck says. “This is, hmm, rather unusual. The reports of high activity indicate something is drawing them here, yes, but then why are they so attracted to us instead of whatever induced them to come here? Yes, very unusual.”

By the time he’s finished talking, the pack has rounded the block, and look at that it’s Beowolves again! She’d almost forgotten what it’s like to pummel them into the earth, in the minute or so since she last fought a pack of them.

The saying among professional Huntresses was that you should always hope for a boring mission; but Yang is not yet a pro, and so feels no guilt in wishing for just a little bit of excitement.

Just a little bit.

As the day goes on and afternoon turns to evening, they start ramping down their pursuit of Grimm. They still shadow Grimm in search of whatever drew them here, but they take their time and stay as far behind as they can.

The lack of action somehow makes Dr. Oobleck even more talkative.

"Why do you want to be a Huntress?" Oobleck asks Weiss. To show the world I am better than my father.

"Why do you want to be a Huntress?" Oobleck asks Ilia. To fight injustice whenever I see it, not just when someone else says I should.

"Why do you want to be a Huntress?" Oobleck asks Blake. To help the people no one else will.

Oobleck, being an emotionally intelligent adult and— once upon a time— a family friend, doesn’t ask Yang why she wants to be a Huntress. He knows. Instead, he asks "Why not run away? Why throw yourself into the same danger?” Because someone has to, and it might as well be me. He likes that answer significantly less than her teammates’, so Yang corrects it to because I can’t save Summer or Ruby, but I can at least make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

That seems to abate his curiosity, and not long later he announces they’re going to make camp for the night in one of Mountain Glenn’s many (so, so many) abandoned buildings.

They draw sticks to decide night watch shifts, and Yang’s unlucky enough to draw last. Unlike the others, she won’t get to nap after her shift.

For all the excitement beforehand, this was shaping up to be a real wet fart of a mission. At least it would be over soon.

The words, “Yang, wake up,” are an affront to her sleeping mind, the hand shaking her shoulder even more. It takes a while to remember where she is, why she isn’t in her bed at Beacon, why someone’s waking her up in the middle of the night.

It passes far too quickly, and before she knows it she’s sitting on the edge of the roof and staring out into the ruins.

She wishes she could say the minutes pass swiftly, but that would be a lie. They pass agonizingly slow, leaving her with nothing to do but sit and think and ignore the call of nature.

Maybe she doesn’t do that last one for very long, but who could blame her? It’s not like there’s much to distract herself with.

Still, that means making her way all the way down the building and finding something resembling a bush. It’s not that much more interesting, but down here she can at least smell the smells and hear the sounds. Sounds of grass rustling in the wind, of faraway Grimm howling at the moon, of low sounds she could just barely make out as words—

Now that’s not normal. Quickly finishing her business, Yang creeps towards the source of the noise. 

Theoretically, it could be someone totally innocent. Maybe some explorer took a wrong turn, or an airship crashed in the area, but in all likelihood an innocent civilian would be dead within a few hours of arriving here.

They were here in the first place because there’d been reports of increased Grimm activity for the past week, and if someone was hanging around here for that long they would have to be able to hold their own.

All of this meant that, as Yang got closer to whoever was talking, she didn’t call out or ask who was there.

Rather, she hid behind the ruins of someone’s home and listened as closely as she could.

The voice is deep and rough, like a broadsword being dragged across a stone floor. “Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises. Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises. Patrol—”

So there were bad guys up to something! 

A part of Yang wants to rush in guns blazing and drag whoever this was back to her team, but she squashes it. Better to get everyone together than to start a fight by herself.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to get a look at whoever’s talking, check if they’re White Fang or not. They probably are, but Blake and Ilia will appreciate the certainty.

Peering around the edge of her cover, Yang glances at the street before her and sees— shit, a Grimm. 

It’s about the size of a Beowolf, maybe a bit bigger, but something about the way it moves... Yang’s pretty sure it’s because it’s the dead of night and she has only sparse moonlight to illuminate it, but its skin looks to be flowing all around its body, like oil.

It must have snuck up on whoever the Fang have on night patrol, she decides. If it starts chewing on him, does she intervene? The smart thing would be staying incognito, but White Fang or not she didn’t become a Huntress to let someone get mauled to death right in front of her. Unless the guy hid, because she still can’t find him—

And then the Grimm opens its mouth.

“Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises.”

That can’t be right.

“Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises.”

Grimm can’t talk.

“Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises.”

Grimm can’t fucking talk. Even the oldest and most intelligent of them are only as smart as some animals, they can’t approach anything like speech.

“Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises.”

And yet, only a few feet away from her, a creature of Grimm is opening its mouth and reciting— what exactly? They sound like orders to Yang, but that would mean a whole bunch of things she really isn’t ready to consider.

“Patrol the perimeter. Kill intruders. Return when sun rises. Watch out for; nosy huntresses.”

She can think about this later. Right now she needs to retreat, get back to her team and alert them to the sentient fucking Grimm patrolling the area. If it can talk, who knows what else it can do?

“Nosy huntresses are; Ice queen, and; Kitty cat, and; Lizard girl, and...”

Slowly, knowing full well the wrong step may spell disaster, Yang turns around and gingerly places one foot in front of the other, hyper-aware of every noise she makes, from the soft scratch of her boots on pavement to the slightest creak of her bones.

“Yang.”

Yang can’t help herself. She stumbles, muscles reflexively clenching as she puts all her weight on a stick she’d otherwise been prepared to avoid. 

It knows her name. How? 

Before she has time to consider that, a new problem presents itself; the Grimm, previously content to wander aimlessly, has ceased its aimless pacing and its footsteps are now heading in her direction.

It hasn’t seen her, Yang’s pretty sure, but it must have heard her. It’s also, she notices, stopped talking.

It’s difficult, walking the fine line between making haste and not alerting it further, but Yang’s always had a good sense of balance; she ducks around the corner just as she hears the Grimm’s claws scrape against the concrete street.

She doesn’t dare move, back pressed against the wall, heart pounding its way out of her chest. 

It’s just a Grimm, she tells herself. There’s no reason to be afraid, you’ve killed dozens, hundreds of things just like it.

Except, of course, that none of the Grimm she’s faced before had been this.

It steps closer to her, sniffing something, and Yang can feel the slightest brush of warm air against her arm.

“Yaaaang,” It... whines feels like a word that should not be associated with creatures of Grimm, but she can’t think of anything else to describe the way its gravelly voice rises. “Remember how Yang smells; here! Hiding from me. Playing hide and seek again, Yang?”

Yang wants to say something, wants to scream and shout, but there’s something in her throat. She can’t breathe.

“Are you under the table?”

It’s so close now, close enough she can feel every breath, but she can barely find it in herself to be scared of the Grimm. What it’s saying is so much worse.

“Are you in the cupboard?

This can’t be real. It can’t be happening, she must have dozed off while on night watch. It’s just a dream, something her sleep-addled mind came up with because visiting home not two days ago reminded her of when she and Ruby were kids. That has to be it.

“Or are you in the chimney?”

Bone-white armor over ink-black flesh peers around the corner. From this close, she can see its flesh looks more like mud than skin, bubbling and shifting in ways nothing living should. Bright silver eyes meet purple, and deep inside Yang can’t help but think those eyes are familiar.

“Found you,” It says, sing-song voice still far too deep, and Yang has half a second to cling onto her delusion of dreaming before it pounces.

Jaws aimed for her head close around her arm instead, aura coming up just in time to keep her limb intact, and the Grimm responds by yanking it so hard she goes flying.

“Yang! Intruder! Yang! Kill intruders!” Yang’s slow to get to her feet, knees shaking and head swimming. The things it was saying don’t make sense, can’t make sense; remembering her scent, playing hide and seek, it’s crazy talk. Babble. It has to be, or else...

She first realizes it’s attacking again when it stops talking, and shortly therafter sends her crashing through a house. She only realizes her chest hurts when drawing breath nearly sends her into a coughing fit, ribs aching with every wheeze.

She has to get her team, she realizes. She can’t focus, can’t do this on her own. She scrambles to her feet, every gasp of breath bringing a new wave of pain, but she only makes it a few steps before an enormous weight crashes onto her back

“Sorry Yang. Have to. Orders. Why intruder? Why nosy huntress?”

Its paw closes around her torso, lifting her up, and Yang’s moving before it can do whatever it’s planning, legs frantically kicking against its face while she fires her gauntlets.

It breaks the Grimm’s grip on her, and Yang’s scrambling away too quickly to stand, up firing shots in its general direction as she does.

Only one of them hits the Grimm, but it seems to rattle the creature. “Meanie!” It screeches, paw flying to where it was hit. “Daaad, Yang hurt me!”

“Shut up!’ Yang screams, voice hoarse. “Shut up shut up shut up!”

She keeps firing, shot after shot, but she can’t aim for shit. Her chest feels like it’s on fire and her vision’s blurry; she’s crying, she realizes.

The Grimm has no such problem, advancing at a languid pace. “No cry Yang. All okay. See?”

Its liquidy skin bubbles and shifts, and shards of metal fall out of it. Bullets from Ember Celica. The bullets aren’t the only thing that fall out; flakes of flesh come off as well, floating to the ground. They look like—

They look like...

On her hands and knees, Yang crawls over, uncaring of the monster above her. Tears still dripping down, she closes a shaking hand around a group of flakes. She has to get a better look at them, to make sure they’re what she thinks they are, because if she’s right then—

She doesn’t dare think about if she’s right, or even about what she’s considering. She can’t afford to jinx it.

“Good as new,” says the Grimm. “Okay? Won’t tell dad. Won’t tell uncle—”

“Get away from her!”

There’s gunshots from somewhere far away, and the sound of blades tearing through flesh, and the Grimm retreats. There’s more voices afterwards, and more gunshots and sounds of fighting, but Yang can’t bring herself to care.

It’s an exertion of will, prying her fingers open, like her body’s rebelling. She understands, because once her hand is open she sees, clear as day—

Petals.

Rose petals.

Black as night, but Yang knows those rose petals. She can barely feel her fingers, but she knows how they feel rubbing against her skin. 

Ruby had shed those petals since the day she unlocked her semblance.

“Oh.” Yang says to herself. “Fuck.”

Because if that thing is shedding them, it means that thing is Ruby. Her little sister. 

Ruby’s alive.

Ruby’s a Grimm.

Suddenly, everything makes sense; or rather, nothing makes sense anymore. How did this happen? Who did this to her? On the other hand, everything about the Grimm— it knowing her name, knowing where Ruby hid every time they played hide and seek, the fact that it could talk at all— made sense now. 

Because somewhere in that monster is her little sister.

Yang has to— Yang doesn’t know what she has to do. But she has to do something. She has to—

“Yang!”

Someone calls her names, and Yang feels something crash into her side, and then the world is nothing but noise and movement and pain.

When she opens her eyes, she’s laying on her side. Her team is fighting the Grimm (not Ruby, not when she’s still a monster) with everything they’ve got.

They look haggard, hair loose and skin slick with sweat, but the Grimm doesn’t look much better. It’s hunched over, a paw held over an area on its stomach, and it moves with a noticeable limp.

At first, Yang thinks Dr. Oobleck is nowhere to be found; until she glances beside her and sees him unconscious on the ground. Something’s wrong with his leg, though her gaze doesn’t linger long enough to figure out what.

“Intruders. Kill intruders. Nosy huntresses? Too many.” The Grimm’s not speaking like Ruby anymore, thankfully. Yang isn’t sure she could handle it if it did.

Yang rises to her feet. Everyone turns to look at her.

“Yang,” Blake says. “You’re okay?”

Yang’s halfway through nodding when she pauses, reconsiders, and shakes her head. “No, I’m— look, this is going to sound insane but—”

Abruptly, there’s a sickening crunch from the Grimm. Yang whips her head over, expecting to see it doing something to her teammates, but instead it’s hunched over, and—

Wings, wings, erupt from its back, a shade of red that makes Yang sick to her stomach, Grimm goop and dead petals scattering all around it.

Before Yang can say anything, it’s moving. Up into the air, away from her.

It takes Yang a second to understand that it’s running away.

In an instant, every thought is replaced with panic. That thing is Ruby, her little sister, and if it gets away from her she may never see it again. She cannot let it escape.

It starts flying away, and Yang sprints after it. Every thud of her boots on concrete sends a shudder up through her legs, but she can’t let it bother her. She has to follow the Grimm.

“Yang, wait!” Blake’s chasing after her, she realizes. “What are you doing?”

“It’s my sister!” Yang shouts, panting. “She’s alive! That Grimm, it’s her!”

Her muscles burn and her lungs feel like they’re going to explode, but she can’t stop, can’t slow down, has to keep going.

The Grimm is barely visible, blending perfectly into the night sky with the exception of its rose-red wings. Ever so slowly, it’s getting further and further away.

“Yang, please!” Blake is falling behind, still exhausted from the fight, but Yang doesn’t slow down. Can’t slow down. “This is insane!”

“I know,” Yang shouts back. “You just have to trust me.”

There’s a pause before Blake says, “Okay. Okay. I trust you.”

They chase it in silence for what feels like hours but is probably minutes and finally, finally, the Grimm begins to descend. It lands across the block, in front of what looks like any other building if not for the sign at the top marking it as Mountain Glenn Subway Station.

The Grimm yanks the door open and steps inside, not bothering to close the door behind it. Yang’s halfway to the building when Blake grabs her arm, skids to a stop, and hisses, “Someone’s in there!”

Yang doesn’t know what she’s talking about, can’t understand how Blake could possibly know— until a flick of her cat ears reminds her.

Gingerly, they approach the open door, and Yang presses her face as close to the opening as she dares. Straining, she can faintly hear a familiar voice.

“What the fuck happened to you?” says the unmistakable voice of Roman Torchwick. That he's involved in this should come as no surprise to Yang, given that he’s involved in just about everything bad. If he’s the one who did this to Ruby...

“Intruders,” says the Grimm. “Nosy huntresses, and; Beacon Huntsman. Too many.”

Torchwick is silent for a moment before simply saying, “Shit.” After a moment, he continues. “Those kids keep messing everything up. They didn’t follow you, did they?”

Blake’s grip on her arm intensifies, and before Yang can quite comprehend why, she’s being dragged away across the corner, pressed against the side of the building.

Blake’s instincts prove sound a moment later, when the door is shoved open, making an incredible clang as it collides with the wall.

“...It at least did that right,” Torchwick eventually says, voice retreating back into the station. “For being such a creepy bastard, you’d think it could at least kill some huntresses-in-training. Why’d she even stick us with it, anyways?”

After a few seconds have passed, Blake leads her back to the entrance, door now hanging off its hinges.

“Orders?” The Grimm says.

Torchwick ignores it, instead responding to someone unheard. “Yes Neo, obviously it’s a threat! She’s not just going to lend us the Hound out of the goodness of her heart. Not even sure she has one.”

“Orders?” The Grimm (the Hound, Torchwick called it) (Ruby) repeats. 

Blake’s giving her an odd look that Yang can’t quite place, somewhere between pity and confusion.

“Your orders are to stay in the tunnels,” Torchwick says. “And don’t go too far. We'll have to accelerate the time table, so be ready to leave in a few hours.” The conversation continues after that, but it’s faint enough that Yang can’t make it out.

She moves to go through the doorway, to continue after them, but Blake stops her. Her hand still hasn’t left Yang’s arm.

“What are you doing?” Yang hisses. “We have to go after them!”

Blake shakes her head. “Yang, please. I know you think that thing, the Hound, is, is Ruby, but—”

“We have to go after them,” Yang repeats. If she sounds desperate, that’s not her fault. She is. “Please. I swear to God, that thing’s my baby sister.”

Blake purses her lips. “Even if I... even if you’re right, and it is, going in there after them, it’s suicide. Torchwick, Neapolitan, and that thing? The Hound? It took on our team by itself, they’ll kill us! We have to regroup with the team, make sure Oobleck’s okay.”

“I don’t care about—” Yang stops herself before she can finish. Even here, with her sister getting further and further away by the second, Yang can’t bring herself to say she doesn’t care about her team. “I need to go after it. I know that thing is my sister, and I love you but there’s nothing you can say to make me abandon her. Not again.”

“I’m not asking you to, Yang. We’ll come back here; Torchwick said they were leaving in a few hours, right?”

Slowly, Yang nods her head.

“Then we’ll return as soon as we can, well before they leave. Whatever happens, I’m with you, but we need to regroup with Ilia and Weiss first, and check on Dr. Oobleck.”

“He’s a grown up, he can handle himself.”

“His leg’s snapped in half, Yang.”

That gives Yang pause. She takes in a deep, shaky breath. “...Okay. But I’m, I’m not abandoning Ruby, okay? I’m getting the team, we’ll see what we can do, and then I’m coming back here and saving my little sister. I’m not abandoning her.”

Blake smiles, and even in this hellish situation, even in the dead of night, it’s as bright as sunshine. “You’re not abandoning her, Yang. You’re just... not making us abandon you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Yang says.

Blake holds her hand the entire walk back to their team.

If Yang’s shaking the entire time, Blake doesn’t comment on it.

“There you are!”

There’s emotion in Weiss’s voice, plenty of it, but Yang can’t tell which wins out between irritation and relief.

Weiss and Ilia are camped out in one of the many abandoned buildings, this one with a suspiciously Grimm-shaped hole in it. They've gotten their hair done back up, Yang notices.

Dr. Oobleck is lying unconscious further back in the building, one of his pant legs cut off to reveal—

Yang’s first thought is that he has two knees. It’s only upon a second look that she sees, no, that second bend in his leg isn’t natural. It’s got a bloody bone sticking out of it.

“We’re here,” Blake says. “How’s everyone doing?”

“I’ve seen better days,” says Weiss. “But I’ll live. Ilia?”

Ilia shakes her hand in the universal gesture for meh. “Nothing major.”

“That’s good.” Blake tilts her head towards their professor’s unconscious form. “And Oobleck?”

“Well his leg exploded,” Ilia says. “That’s bad, I think.”

“Not as bad as it could be,” Weiss says. When everyone stares at her, speechless, she continues, “It is! A broken tibia is bad, but with aura and proper medical care it should heal up with few long-term effects. If he’d gotten hit just a bit higher, and that happened to his knee...”

Yang winces. That’s not a pretty picture.

“Well, silver linings and everything,” Ilia says. “Now, what the hell’s wrong with you two? Specifically you, Yang.”

“Ilia—”

Whatever Blake was going to say, Ilia ignores it. “You were out of it when we fought that Grimm— and I mean like seriously out of it— and then the second it retreats, you freak out and chase after it? What the fuck is going on with you?”

“Ilia, it’s—”

“That Grimm is Ruby. It’s my little sister.”

Silence reigns.

Blake has a pained expression on her face, like she knew this was coming. Ilia and Weiss are staring at her like she’s lost her mind.

“...Okay,” Ilia eventually says, voice carefully flat, slowly enunciating every word. “Want to explain how you came to that conclusion, Yang?”

“It—” Yang doesn’t know where to begin. She paces around, everyone’s eyes following her, before she eventually sits down across from Ilia and Weiss.

“It’s with Torchwick, first off. The Grimm. We heard him giving it orders, Blake and I.”

She turns to Blake for support, who nods. “Yeah, we heard him. Neapolitan’s here as well.”

Yang continues. “When I first came across it, it was— it had orders, I guess, to watch out for us. But they were Torchwick’s orders, so it was saying to watch out for, you know, Ice queen, and Kitty cat, and Lizard girl.”

Ilia and Weiss nod. “Yeah,” Weiss says, “And that criminal calls you... Blondie, right?”

“Right!” Yang says. “Except it didn't. It called me Yang. And at first I thought it was... honestly super weird, but no big deal. I was trying to get back to you guys at that point, wake you up and tell you there’s a talking Grimm out there, but I guess it heard me.

“I tried to hide, avoid a fight, but it— it knew my scent. Said it remembered how I smell. It took one sniff and knew I was there. Not just anyone, but me specifically, Yang Xiao Long. And then it— you guys ever play hide and seek, when you were kids?”

Blake and Ilia nod, and after a pause so does Weiss.

“I used to when I was little, with— with Ruby. Dad and Uncle Qrow and Mom sometimes as well, but mostly just Ruby and I. Our house wasn’t super big, though, so after a while we ran out of places to hide. Until one time, Ruby used her semblance to, to get up in the chimney. I looked and looked and looked, and I only found her when she started laughing, and she was covered in soot but she thought it was the funniest thing in the world and she’d do it every time we played hide and seek and—”

Yang can feel tears coming up, and squeezes her eyes shut in a desperate bid to keep them in. It doesn’t work.

“Everyone plays hide and seek,” she says, voice cracking. “But no one ever hides in the chimney, right? There’s been millions of kids, but Ruby’s got to be the only one who ever hid in the chimney and it knew! It said I was— every time we played hide and seek, after that, I’d check under the table, and then in the cupboard, and then in the chimney and it even knew the fucking order!”

She presses her palms against her eyes. Blake, who must have come to her side without Yang noticing, runs her hand down Yang’s back.

They stay like that for a while, Blake rubbing circles while Yang gets herself under control.

It’s okay. Ruby’s alive. Yang can save her.

When she finally opens her eyes, Weiss and Ilia aren’t looking at her. They’re staring into the distance, looking at nothing, lost in their own heads.

“What really confirmed it,” Yang says, bringing them all back to reality, “Is those bits of flesh that come off it.”

“The flakes?” Weiss says.

Abruptly, Yang stands up. She paces over to the biggest pile of petals, where the Hound had grown wings, and picks up a handful of them. Once she’s back, she hands some to everyone.

“What do these look like?” She asks.

Blake, Weiss, and Ilia all study the petals, feel them, try to look at them in better light.

“They’re flower petals,” Ilia says.

“Rose petals, technically,” Weiss says. “Though I’ve certainly never seen one in black.”

“Exactly!” Yang says. “Rose petals! Which, I get that may not seem like much to you, but my little sister dropped these exact petals every single time she used her semblance! I spent half my life cleaning these things up, I’d recognize them anywhere. It has to be her!”

“So it would certainly seem,” Oobleck says.

All eyes turn to him. He must have woken up while they were talking.

“Professor!” Weiss says, hurrying over to his side. “How are you feeling?”

“Doctor, Miss Schnee. I did not earn my PhD simply for the fun of it!”

His voice is tight with pain, but it seems he's not feeling that bad.

“How much of that did you hear?” Blake asks.

Doctor Oobleck grimaces. “Enough of it to convince me. A person becoming a Grimm is rather unheard of, yes, but so is a talking Grimm, not to mention your evidence, while circumstantial, is rather overwhelming, so yes, I do believe that specific Grimm—”

“Torchwick called it the Hound,” Blake interjects.

“The Hound, yes, I do believe it is your younger sister. Which leads to the question of what exactly we do now.”

That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it?

“Blake and I listened in on Torchwick, he said they’re gonna leave in a few hours. If that happens, I may never get another chance. I’m going after them.”

Blake nods. “I’m going with her.”

Weiss and Ilia share a look, before Weiss says “And we’re going with you as well, obviously, but that does leave a rather significant problem unaccounted for.” As she says that, she turns to look at Doctor Oobleck, who has taken to examining the part of his leg that is no longer inside his leg.

After a few seconds of silence, he realizes everyone is looking at him. “Ah yes, I suppose my, shall we say, lack of mobility would present something of a problem. You will not agree to stay here rather than chase after your sister, I take it?”

Yang shakes her head.

“Miss Belladonna, Miss Schnee, Miss Amitola; I take it you do not wish for your leader to approach this situation by herself?”

They all shake their heads.

“And you can’t come with us,” Yang says. “If we leave you out here by yourself  while we go after Torchwick, Grimm will get you. Someone will have to stay to look after you.”

She expects someone to volunteer. Whatever Grimm find their way to Oobleck, they’ll be less dangerous than fighting Torchwick, Neapolitan, and the Hound.

No one does.

Yang can’t help but feel proud of her team, her stupid, suicidal team that is about to follow her into the belly of the beast.

“If I were to call for a transportation ship,” Oobleck slowly says, “I would likely be evacuated within a few hours. Leg or no leg, I am a trained Huntsman. I believe I can survive that length of time on my own.”

Team YIBW shares a look. “It’s risky.” Blake says.

“Riskier than sending you girls to fight two trained criminals and a remarkably difficult Grimm while missing a teammate? You must understand, Miss Belladonna, it is my sworn duty to keep you children safe. I will not jeopardize that.”

It’s not a great solution, sure. But if Oobleck is pushing for it...

“Alright,” Yang says, meeting his eyes. “Call a transport ship. We’ll get you set up someplace safer, and once you’re good and it’s on the way...”

Oobleck nods and, visibly fighting what must be considerable pain, faintly smiles. “Whatever happens after that is up to me. Do have some faith, Miss Xiao Long; I did not become a Huntsman by accident.”

Explaining to Goodwitch that the evacuation is only for Oobleck was, to put it simply, not a fun time.

But as she stands outside the Mountain Glenn Subway Station, the door still broken, Yang can’t find it inside herself to care; not about the chewing out they’ll receive when they get back, if they get back. Not the threats of expulsion. Not even Roman and his partner in crime, ready and willing to kill them all.

For the past year, every minute of every day has been spent wishing she had acted differently, wishing she hadn’t gotten her little sister killed. But.

Ruby is not dead.

Ruby is not buried beside her mother in Patch, or digested by a pack of Beowolves.

Ruby is alive, Ruby is here, and Yang Xiao Long is going to save her little sister.

As one, Team YIBW step inside Mountain Glenn’s subway system.

Chapter Text

Team YIBW descend into Mountain Glenn’s subway system in silence, speaking only when necessary, knowing full well their enemies could be around any corner.

The air is thick with dust and soot, which mixes with the stench of death to make every breath difficult; not the acrid perfume of new death, of blood spilled and corpses rotting, but of old death, of bones long-since picked clean, of sweat and blood and bowels staining the floor, never to be washed away by rain, trapped in this repugnant catacomb.

Blake and Ilia in particular have worn tight grimaces since the moment they stepped foot in the tunnels. Despite everything, Yang can at least take solace in the fact that she lacks their enhanced faunus senses.

Thankfully, they find some relief once they reach the main cavern, high-ceilinged and wide enough to contain several collapsed buildings around the train tracks in the center with plenty of room to spare.

They also find Torchwick. Or his voice, at least; Blake pulls them into some ruins before Yang can catch sight of him. She and the rest of her team all lean against different spots on the wall, Blake’s being right beside what used to be a window.

Yang can’t make out a word he says, despite how hard she concentrates. Once his voice fades away, they all turn to Blake. Even Ilia, she notes.

“I couldn’t understand all of what he was saying,” Blake says, not whispering, exactly, but keeping her voice low. “But he mentioned explosives. I think he’s loading them onto a train?”

Yang frowns. “A train? That doesn’t make any sense, the tracks here don’t lead anywhere. They just run below the city, you couldn’t use them to transport anything.”

“They don’t just run below Glenn,” Ilia says, pointing to a sign near the train tracks, chipped and just beginning to rust. If she squints, Yang thinks she can see the word ‘Vale’ prominently displayed. “A train ran from here to Vale, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but it’s sealed up,” Yang says. “Once Mountain Glenn was overrun, Vale sealed everything off to protect the main city. It’s a dead end.”

Blake stills. “They sealed it off. But with what?”

Yang shrugs. “I don’t know, concrete? I was just a kid when it happened, I wasn’t paying much attention.”

Blake flicks an ear, but that’s all. “Whatever they used, it’s meant to keep Grimm out, so it has to be pretty strong: but how strong? Strong enough that it will stay standing if a train crashes into it at full speed? If that train’s packed to the brim with explosives?”

Ah. Yang isn’t exactly a physicist, but just picturing it in her head, even the strongest of Grimm wouldn’t be capable of exerting as much force as a speeding train, much less one primed to blow.

“Then there would be a hole in the middle of the city’s defences,” Yang says, “and all the Grimm here would have an open path to a bunch of terrified civilians.”

“It might not be that bad,” Weiss interjects, voice unnaturally cheery. “Maybe the council went above and beyond when funding the city’s infrastructure, out of care for the lives of citizens years after their terms were up?”

They all stare at her. Ilia snorts.

“Weiss,” Yang begins, but Weiss barrels on.

“What? I’m just trying to inject some levity into the situation.” 

Yang rolls her eyes. “Still, that means there’s two things we have to deal with, this and the Hound.”

“So what’s the plan?” Ilia asks.

Yang takes a moment to think before saying, “We try to get the drop on Torchwick. We take him out, he can’t give the Hound any orders and his sidekick’s not as tough on her own. That sound good?”

Everyone nods, though Blake’s attention is focused elsewhere. 

“And what about—” Whatever Weiss was about to say gets cut off when Blake turns around and shushes her, finger pressed tightly against her lip.

This time, Torchwick ambles close enough that Yang can just barely tell what he’s saying. “She’s going to be pissed, yeah, but we can’t risk those kids finding us and fucking everything up.”

The response he gets is a grunt so low that it jumbles her insides. 

Yang can feel her blood chill, at the realization of who (or rather, what ) he’s talking to, but also because it knows her scent and she can’t afford to be found out, not now. She hopes, nearly prays, that the stench of death pervading the tunnels overwhelms her own.

She can almost hear the Hound, if she strains her ears; so she does.

“Understand,” it says. “Orders?”

“Patrol the entrances,” Torchwick says. “Stay in the tunnels. Don’t let anyone see you. Kill intruders, if you can, retreat and warn us if you can’t.”

From the corner of her eye, she sees Blake gesturing to her weapon, inclining her head towards the voices. Asking if they should attack? Yang shakes her head. Not now. They’re not close enough.

Torchwick’s voice grows further and further away and Yang lets the air slip from her lungs, tension leaking out of her shoulders. “Let’s get inside the train while he’s distracted,” she says, “ambush him in there.”

She moves to do just that, sneak across the gap between their cover and the train, but a hand on her shoulder stops her.

“Before we do that,” Weiss says, “I have a question. What exactly is our plan for dealing with the Hound?”

“Just leave it to me,” Yang shrugs her off. “I’ll handle it.”

Ilia scoffs. “Really? Cause, no offense, but the last time you tried that we had to save your ass.”

“That won’t happen again,” Yang says more confidently than she feels. “I wasn’t ready, then. I didn’t know what I was dealing with, didn’t know who I was dealing with. I’m not going to just shut down, this time. I can handle it.”

“That’s all well and good,” Weiss says, “but please tell me your plan is somewhat more extensive than merely fighting it.”

Yang cocks her head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” Weiss sighs. “I mean, let’s say you’re able to beat it in a fight. Then what? If that thing is your little sister, and you want to save her— how?”

Yang can feel the blood rushing through her veins, but she isn’t sure if it’s frozen or burning. “What do you mean, how?”

“I mean how exactly are you going to save her? I hope as much as you do that you can just punch the Hound until it spits your sister out alive and well, but I don’t see that being the case. So please, tell me you have an idea.”

Yang struggles to answer. “We can— we can tie it up and bring it back to Beacon! The professors are smart, they’ve seen just about everything. They’ll be able to do something, right?”

Yang affixes a desperate smile to her face. 

Weiss doesn’t match it.“That’s it?”

Yang’s smile, already delicate, fractures. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Because, even if we can restrain something that strong, something that, let me remind you, can grow limbs, and even if we can fly it back to Beacon, and even if the faculty believe that this apparently sentient and clearly highly dangerous Grimm is actually your little sister; all that leaves us with is the hope that they know something we don’t. Even if everything goes right for us, the closest thing we have to a plan is praying someone else can solve the problem for us.”

Yang can feel shame welling inside her, disgust with her own stupidity; but also anger, frustration at Weiss. “Yeah, that’s all I have. A hope and a fucking prayer. You got anything better?”

A desperate part of her hopes Weiss will say she does, but the pissed off, vindictive part of her is happy when Weiss shakes her head. “Well, no, not really,” she says, “If I had a way to save your sister I would have suggested it already. I just think that, in lieu of any concrete plans to save her, it would behoove us to consider drastic actions that, well,—”

“Just get it out, Weiss.”

Weiss takes a deep breath. She looks Yang square in the eyes as she says, “I think you may have to kill it.”

It takes everything Yang has not to erupt then and there. Only the knowledge that Weiss wouldn’t say something like that unless she had thought it over (and that Torchwick and Neo are somewhere in the caves with them) prevents Yang from yelling at the top of her lungs.

Instead she hisses “What did you say?” with enough venom to kill a small Grimm.

Weiss, to her credit, holds Yang’s gaze without backing down. “If there is no clear path to saving your sister— and, barring a miracle, there is none to speak of— then we should at least consider other ways to help her.”

“Like killing her.”

“As opposed to letting her return to whoever did this to her? Whoever made her a Grimm? Yes, Yang, if those are the options, I think it would be best to put her out of her misery. It would be a mercy.”

Yang shakes her head frantically, like if she tries hard enough she can stop Weiss’s word’s from reaching her. “No! I can’t! How can I look Dad in the eyes, how could I look at myself in the mirror if I let Ruby die again? How can I tell Dad, tell Uncle Qrow that Ruby was alive this entire time and all I could do was kill her? "

Weiss counters, “How could you tell them she’d turned into a monster, and you let her go back to whoever did this to her?”

Again, Yang shakes her head. “She’s not going back to whoever did this to her! I’m going to save her! I have to save her!”

“I understand, but we don’t have a plan, don’t even have an idea how to—”

“I have to!"

Yang had meant it as a scream, a roar; instead it comes out as a wail, wheezing, like she’s begging. In a way, she is.

“You don’t understand,” she continues. “This happened to her because of me, it’s my fault they did this to her. If I can save her, get her back to normal, maybe I can make it up to her. Get her out of the hole I dug. But if I can’t? If she goes back to whoever did this to her and I never see her again, or if I kill her? I’m not sure how I could live with myself. I don’t think I could.”

Weiss doesn’t say anything. Blake puts a hand on Yang’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Weiss,” Yang croaks out. “You’re right. Killing her would be a mercy, better than letting her go back. But neither is an option. Either we save Ruby, and everything’s great, or we don’t, and nothing matters. I can’t let that happen. I just can‘t.”

“It’s okay,” Weiss says. “Given the subject, I expected it. I would be surprised if you hadn’t.”

Yang smiles, just a little bit, and turns to look at Blake. She isn’t sure what she’s looking for, but she finds support and comfort in Blake’s golden eyes and gentle smile.

A flash of colour reminds her that, if Blake’s looking at them, she isn’t keeping watch over the rest of the cave, making sure Torchwick or Neo or the Hound aren’t anywhere nearby.

Neapolitan, silent as a corpse, is standing not a foot behind Blake, parasol discarded in favour of a wickedly sharp blade, tip reaching through the empty window for Blake’s neck. 

Neo thrusts.

“Aura!” Yang screams. Not the quiet, whispery scream she’s tried to limit herself to earlier, but a throaty scream that echoes across the entire cave system. For a moment that feels like an eternity, Yang thinks she wasn’t quick enough, as Neo’s blade draws closer and closer to Blake’s bare skin.

But a purple sheen covers Blake’s skin just before the blade sinks into her neck, and while it knocks her to the ground it does not penetrate flesh.

Yang wants to breathe a sigh of relief; instead, she springs to her feet and lunges at Neopolitan. Her fist smashes into her, through her, and the image shatters into shards of glass.

“They found us!” Yang says. “We have to move. Blake, are you okay?”

“I’m good,” Blake says, voice raspy as she rubs her neck.

Yang leaps through the window, and can see Neo running towards the driver’s cab of the train. She looks around, in case it's another illusion and Neo's preparing to ambush them again, and it’s only thanks to a faint whistling sound that she gets her aura up in time to protect her from the explosive flare that detonates at her feet, throwing her back against the old building.

“Bullseye!” Torchwick says from somewhere behind the train. “Neo! I’d say it’s about time we blow this scene!”

Yang shakes the dizziness out of her head as she rises to her feet, a process made much easier when Blake gives her a hand up.

Standing between them and the train is the Hound. Yang is shocked, for a moment; it's supposed to be out patrolling the tunnels, not here. 

Except she only knows it’s supposed to be elsewhere because she overheard Torchwick saying so only a minute before he ambushed them. Whether he was purposefully leading them on or called it back once he found them, it doesn't matter. She should have expected this.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The Hound tenses as the train starts to move, just barely, and so do Yang and her teammates. Yang cocks her gauntlets, Blake grips her blade, and the Hound...

Turns around and walks away.

Yang can do nothing but stare dumbly at its retreating form. So she does. And so do her teammates. Torchwick, it seems, does not have this problem. “What the hell are you doing?” He shouts from the front of the train. “Your job is to protect us!”

“Orders are; oversee mission, and; ensure train is prepared and sent to Vale, and; return to safehouse,” it says, voice echoing through the cavern. “Mission is overseen. Train is prepared and moving. Returning to safehouse.”

The Hound is leaving. It’s going back to whoever made it a monster, Torchwick is leading an attack into Vale, and Yang can only go after one. Either she chases the Hound, and lets Torchwick get countless innocent people killed, or she boards the train, where she can watch her worst nightmare unfold as the Hound returns to its master.

Where she might never see it again.

Ruby would want her to go after Torchwick. To save the people who can't save themselves. Ruby, who had always wanted to be a hero, always put others above herself, wouldn't think twice about it.

Yang is not her little sister.

She's opening her mouth to speak when Torchwick, stupid, beautiful coward that he is, says, "Don't you dare run away, Houndy! If you leave now, the kids will mess everything up! The mission will fail because of you! Get over here and keep them busy!"

And it does.

The Hound grumbles as it jumps onto the train, metal creaking under its weight, but it does.

Yang can’t keep herself from smiling as she turns to Ilia, Blake, and Weiss and says, “You heard the man! Let’s go mess everything up!”

The next few minutes are a blur, a whir of things she can’t quite find it in herself to care about as much as she should. They board the train, the car they’re on is rigged to blow, Torchwick disconnects it before they can. Then every car is rigged to blow and every explosion creates new openings and attracts more Grimm.

Eventually, they encounter resistance. Yang hops over a hatch leading to the car below, just as she’s done the past dozen times, except this time a clawed paw barrels through the hatch like it isn’t even there, producing a horrible noise as it scrapes against her aura.

She lands on her side, and watches as the Hound claws its way out through the hatch. It barely fits.

“Guess it’s time,” Blake says beside her, weapon drawn. “You ready, Yang?”

The Hound stares at them. Or rather, it stares at her. 

They’re standing between it and the car where Torchwick and Neo are driving the train, Yang realizes.

“You guys go on ahead,” Yang says. “You need to stop this train before it hits Vale. I’ll deal with the Hound myself.”

Her team shoots her a look of concern. “You’re sure?” Blake says.

Yang nods, but doesn’t take her eyes off the Hound. “I can handle this. I’m ready.”

Blake pauses for a few moments before pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Stay safe, okay? I trust you... but I don’t like this.”

“I’ll be fine,” Yang says. She risks a peek at Blake. She’s frowning, so Yang continues, “I swear! Besides, I’ve spent my whole life training for this.”

She hears one sigh, unmistakably Weiss, and is pretty sure Blake and Ilia roll their eyes with differing levels of affection. They leave, headed towards Torchwick and Neo in the front of the train, and Yang lets the whole of her attention fall to the Hound.

She takes a deep breath. In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. Stay focused. Stay calm. She’s got this.

The Hound prowls forward, body carefully loose, and then in a burst of speed it’s right in front of her, claw aimed at her leg.

That was Ruby’s favourite opening. 

Yang knows it like the back of her hand.

She leaps forward, rather than up, and instead of crashing into her midair the second paw goes behind her. She grabs the Hound’s arm as it thumps against her side, holds onto it for leverage as she smashes her fist into the Hound’s face, impact augmented by a blast from Ember Celica.

It retreats for just a moment before it rushes her again, claw scything diagonally across her chest and she ducks down and to the side, letting it pass by her, rolling to avoid the followup blow, and then the Hound is too overextended to avoid her fist hammering into its chest.

It takes a few steps back and Yang follows, keeping it on the back foot. The Hound blocks a jab but leaves itself open to a hook, falls for a feint and takes a roundhouse kick to the jaw, moves to bite her head off and eats a stiff uppercut.

It rises up on two feet, brings its arms up and slams them down into her guard. She can feel the steel beneath her feet bend from the impact. The Hound roars and raises its hands to try again, but she grabs its wrists, kicks at its knee, steps forward to leverage it against her hip and, with a flex of her muscles, sends it flying up, over her, and then crashing back down onto the train.

“You fight like Ruby,” Yang says as it scrambles back. “Thing is, you’re not fast enough to fight like Ruby. You’re as strong as me, sure, stronger even, but I trained my entire life to take advantage of that and I know for a fact you haven’t.”

“Quiet,” the Hound hisses. “Wrong. Kill you. Was going to kill you. Earlier. Why different?”

“Because I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but now? I know what you are. I’m going to save you, Ruby.”

The Hound turns its head, considering her. “Ready? No. Hurt you. With claws? No. With fangs? No. With words; yes, spoke and you did not fight me. Do again. Kill you. Complete mission. Must complete mission.”

Yang doesn’t let herself grimace. Can’t show weakness, not to it. “There’s nothing you can say to hurt me.”

The Hound laughs, laughs, and it sounds like boulders shattering their way down a mountainside. “No hurt you? Stupid. Of course can hurt you. Of course! Remember now. Easy.”

Yang steps forward, intent on shutting it up before it can get going, but the Hound opens its mouth and Ruby’s voice comes out, high-pitched and nasally and terrified, rough like she’s been crying and wet like she still is, wailing, “Dad? Yang? …Mom? Please, anyone! Help me, please, please, I don’t want to die!”

Yang stops in her tracks. 

Her fist is clenched tight. Blood trickles down her palm.

“What is this,” she hisses. Her eyes are flaming red, her gaze is hatred, but the Hound meets it, silver eyes undaunted.

“Last words,” it says. “As person. Before She made me Hound. Yang like?”

Yang hands are trembling. With rage, she wants to think. With determination to strike down this monster and save her little sister.

She knows it’s a lie.

Yang knows it’s just saying that to get her off her game, but— Gods, that’s Ruby. It’s her voice. She hasn’t heard that voice for a year, but she’d know it anywhere. Yang lets her head drop.

She’d sounded so afraid. 

How long had Ruby spent, waiting for help that would never arrive? Had she accepted, at the very end, that they were never going to rescue her? Or had she clung to hope until it was too late?

“I’m sorry,” Yang says, voice carefully flat. “I’m sorry for not keeping you safe, for abandoning you, for everything. I know I’ve been a horrible sister to you, Ruby, but I’m going to save you now. I promise.”

“Save me?” The Hound lunges, and Yang’s not quick enough to dodge. It slams her bodily into the train, wraps its paws around her leg with enough strength that her bones would be dust if not for her aura, then swings her over its head. She slams back down with a colossal thud.  “How?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? She knows she has to save Ruby, will do it no matter the cost, but how?

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know how to save you. But I’ll find a way. I promise.”

“Stupid!” The Hound roars as its paw hammers into her chest, driving the air out of her lungs, only her aura sparing her ribs. While Yang gasps, it says, “Promised Yang would protect me! Promised Yang would keep me safe! Lied! Liar! Hate you!”

“That’s okay,” Yang says, voice barely a whisper. “You should. I’m the worst sister in Remnant. Everything that happened to you is my fault, and I’ll never forgive myself for getting you killed, for letting them do this to you. You can hate me until the day you die and I’ll be happy, so long as you’re you again.”

She fires her gauntlets to propel her away from the Hound, then again to rush into it. “But I don’t care if I have to rip you out of this thing, I’m going to save you!” There’s a flurry of blows, jabs and hooks and swipes and feints and kicks and in between them she says, “I swear on Mom’s grave! I swear on your grave! I don’t care how, I’m going to save you if it’s the last thing I do!”

She focuses on fighting, after that, on staying two steps ahead of the thing that used to be Ruby, that still is her somewhere deep down, focusing on the shifting muscles and the way its oily flesh tenses before an attack instead of her aching lungs and throbbing leg and pounding skull, much less the thoughts worming their way around her brain; that her aura’s getting low, and her team has been fighting Torchwick and Neo for a real long time now, and the train’s still no closer to stopping, and they’ll have to run out of track sooner or later.

And then, out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Blake pop out of the next car’s hatch. “Took you long enough,” Yang says, “Everyone holding up—”

“We can’t stop it!” Blake screams, and Yang’s blood runs cold. “We’re going to crash! Grab onto something!”

Distantly, she can see the end of the tunnel, growing closer at breakneck speed, Blake’s holding a hand out and she dashes as quick as she can but she’s not fast enough and then—

And then everything goes white, and the world is pain.

Chapter Text

The first thing Yang hears is screaming. The first thing she sees is rubble. The first thing she smells is smoke. The first thing she feels is pain, overwhelming and consuming all else.

The sun rises on a city in chaos.

A hand on her shoulder shakes her back and forth. Dimly, she’s aware that someone’s saying her name.

“Yang!” Blake says. She looks concerned, to say the least. “Yang, are you okay?”

On reflex, Yang nods and says, “I’m fine.” She tries to stand up, but stumbles into Blake and nearly drags her to the ground. Her aura's not shattered, not yet, but it's faint enough that contact with the ground makes Yang hiss. “Okay, maybe not fine, but I’ll live.”

A few feet away, Weiss and Ilia are collecting themselves, looking just a bit better off than Yang and Blake. They stare at the scene in front of them in horror, watching as Grimm begin to rampage through the city. “We need to help,” Weiss says. “We need to do something.”

Yang’s about to agree, before a stray thought hits her. “What happened to Torchwick and Neo?” she asks. Wordlessly, Blake gestures to an area behind them where the two criminals, knocked out cold, are trapped under a pile of rubble, thin enough that Yang isn’t worried about them being crushed but definitely enough to hold them.

Yang breathes a sigh of relief. At least they won’t have to worry about that duo any time soon.

Except, wait, that shouldn’t be her main concern. Where is the—

From the twisted metal of the train’s remains behind Blake rises the Hound, muscles tensing against its oily skin. Blake notices Yang’s expression shift, or else must hear the Hound panting behind her, because she dashes back and draws her blade in one smooth motion.

But the Hound doesn’t try to attack her. 

Instead, it surveys the city around it; the fleeing civilians, the roaming Grimm, even the sounds of Huntsmen and soldiers in the distance. 

It smiles.

“Mission; complete,” it says. “Done here. Return.”

Yang’s blood runs cold. “No, no, you want to get revenge on me, right? You hate me! Here’s your shot!”

She expects the Hound to laugh, to call her stupid, to say its orders are to return to its master. 

It says nothing as it turns away. Yang isn’t even sure it heard her.

When it leaps on top of a nearby house, Yang’s ready to follow. She barely makes it, boots slipping against tiles knocked loose by the Hound, and she can feel something pop inside her thigh, but she makes it all the same.

An instant later, her team is by her side. She’s already moving, boots pounding against the roof as she keeps her gaze fixed on the ever-retreating form of the Hound, leg on fire and getting worse with every step she takes, and they require no explanation as they run with her.

Except, maybe they shouldn’t. They need to prevent the Hound from retreating, keep an eye on it and beat it down if at all possible, but they’re hurt and exhausted from the events of the past few hours and if there’s one thing Yang’s sure about, it’s that all of Beacon is about to descend on this part of Vale. Every student capable of fighting, not to mention all of their professors.

What had been her plan, again? Hope the professors would be able to save Ruby? And, come to think of it, hadn’t Weiss picked it apart for being unrealistic, as it would require them to get the Hound all the way to Vale without crashing a bullhead?

Suddenly, it’s become much more viable.

They’ll need Weiss’s glyphs, if they want to keep up with and restrict the Hound, and Ilia’s whip is better suited for immobilizing than Gambol Shroud but it needs dust to do so while Blake doesn’t so that means—

“Ilia!” Yang says as she kicks off a Griffon, “I need you to go find one of the professors! Glynda, or Ozpin if you can, but any of them work! Tell them what’s going on and bring them back to us!”

Ilia stumbles. “You’re sure?”

Yang nods, then, remembering there’s a good chance Ilia’s not looking at her, says, “Yeah. We need help, and they might know a way to save her that we don’t. Go.”

Ilia gives one last “Good luck,” before breaking away from the chase, headed towards where the fighting is.

Yang can only hope she’s made the right choice, sending Ilia away.

But there’s no time to dwell on that. Now, all she can do is keep chasing the Hound, leaping from house to street to glyph to statue, always moving forward, never faltering, occasionally firing Ember Celica to give herself a boost.

A single thought repeats in Yang’s mind. Can’t let it escape.

(A single thought repeats in Ilia’s mind as she runs and leaps across the city, going over and around and through Grimm rather than fight them. Find a professor. Someone else can deal with the Grimm, like Atlas airships or robot soldiers or Beacon students no older than her. But no professors. No Goodwitch and no Ozpin.

Where are they?

It feels like hours before she finds a familiar face, team JNPR cleaning up a pack of Ursa. Jaune startles when she lands in front of them, before saying, “Ilia! Where’s your team?”

“They’re fine. No time to explain,” she says, barely able to stay still, hyper-aware that every second she wastes could be a second the Hound uses to escape. Yang may not be her favourite person in the world, but she’s her leader and her teammate and her goddamn friend and Ilia can’t afford to fail her. “Glynda, Ozpin, where are they?”

“Uhm, I,” Jaune stumbles over his words, and it’s only the knowledge that yelling at him won’t make them come any faster that keeps Ilia’s mouth shut. “I’m not sure. Wait, no I saw what I think was Glynda’s semblance to the West, when we were on our way over—”

“Got it!” Ilia says, taking off before he can finish. Everything aches, as she sprints in the direction he pointed, and she’s hit with the sudden realization that she’s spent significantly more of the past twenty-four hours fighting Grimm than she has sleeping.

She wants nothing more than to lie down, but she can’t. The others aren’t, Blake and Yang and Weiss, chasing after the Hound instead of looking for help. She can’t let them down.

After what feels like an eternity, she turns a corner and sees the distinct purple blur of Glynda Goodwitch’s semblance. 

She screeches to a halt right in front of Goodwitch, who nearly blasts her across the block before her mind catches up with her reflexes. “Ilia? What are you doing here? And where’s the rest of your team?”

“Long... story...” Ilia pants, hands on her knees. Glynda stalks toward the nearest sounds of fighting and gestures for Ilia to follow, not even breaking stride. 

She would curse under her breath, if she had any. “Need... help... quick! There's...” She swallows, and even that momentary pause is enough to make her feel lightheaded. “This sounds insane but... there’s a, a talking Grimm, it’s Yang’s sister. Someone turned her into a Grimm. You have to believe me, we don’t know how to help her!”

Glynda stops walking. 

When she turns to look at Ilia again, her eyes are wide and her jaw is tight. “A person turned into a Grimm? You’re sure?”

Ilia nods as hard as she can. “We’re sure! I don’t know how, but whoever orchestrated this—” she gestures all around her, at the Grimm invading the city— “made her a Grimm and has her working with Torchwick."

Ilia’s professor purses her lips. When she turns to the side, it’s only Ilia’s practice listening for when Blake curses under her breath that lets her hear the “Fuck,” that slips out. 

When she turns back, her face is steeled into her usual picture of a stern teacher. “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she says, and Ilia’s heart drops into her gut. “Half the city’s about to collapse and many of these buildings have people inside, they need me to stabilize things. I can’t do anything for you. 

“But—” she pulls out her scroll and places it in Ilia’s shaking hands. “Ozpin should be able to. Call and find him, and tell him exactly what you told me, alright?”

Ilia nods. Her tongue tastes like ash in her mouth, but she at least has direction.

“Good luck,” Glynda says, and then she’s off to keep the city standing. Single-handedly, of course.

Ilia gives herself a moment to breathe, before opening Goodwitch’s scroll and searching for Ozpin’s number.

Already, this is taking too long. She has to hurry.)

She has to hurry.

The Hound is growing further and further away with every passing second, bounding down the empty street at a speed they just can’t keep up with. With no obstacles in its way, they can’t make use of their maneuverability to catch up with it.

So Weiss makes some obstacles, snow-white glyphs flickering into existence just a few feet from the Hound, which is big and fast and strong enough that it crashes through them.

But they slow it down.

Yang fires her gauntlets, careens through one of Weiss’s speed glyphs, and crashes into the Hound with enough force to knock them both to the ground. 

It’s a mistake. 

Exhausted and hurt and with tattered remains of her aura focused on forcing her leg to work right, she lingers on the ground while the Hound does not.

(Pick up, pick up, pick up!)

When Blake and Weiss fall upon it, it rises to meet them with all of its strength, far less than when it fought at Mountain Glenn or on the train but still enough to backhand Weiss into a nearby bakery and flail a paw at Blake, using her own speed to clothesline her as she passes it.

There’s only a few seconds before one or two or all of them are back on the attack, blades bared and fists clenched, but it's the most time it's had since the train crashed and it uses that time to do something it hasn’t had the chance to.

It trembles, presses itself against the ground, and sprouts rose-red wings from its back.

Yang dives for it, but she can’t possibly make it. A flap of its wings is enough to send it out of reach, another to propel it forward, and then it’s flying away from her. It’s going to escape. Yang drags herself to her feet, smiling grimly when her leg trembles— but does not buckle— beneath her weight. 

She can’t keep this up much longer.

She goes to leap to the roof of a nearby building, hoping desperately her leg will be able to handle the strain, when a glyph appears in front of her, halfway between Yang and her destination. She hops up with silent thanks sent Weiss’s way and resumes the chase on the rooftop, where she can see the Hound is flying towards a park, where it can fly without impediment and they will have no rooftops on which to chase it.

Yang pushes herself as far as she can, every step powering her across the length of a rooftop, and the Hound is big and strong and normally that makes it fast, muscles allowing it to reach a speed none of them can match, but not when it’s relying on wings.

Yang’s getting closer every second, but every second takes her closer to the edge of the park, where she’ll fall into the trees below, she’s running out of rooftop. Blake is behind her, firing shots from Gambol Shroud, trying to hit its wings but only sometimes hitting its body. Where before, shots would have bounced off the Hound, or sunk mere centimetres into its skin, now every bullet that connects passes through its body like nothing is there. At very least, Yang knows the Hound is just as worn out as they are.

(Ozpin’s supposed to be here by now, where is he where is he where is he?)

Finally, she reaches the end of the rooftops and she leaps with all her might, firing Ember Celica again and again and again until she can’t fire it anymore, every blast pushing her closer and closer to the flying Hound, close enough that she can stretch out as far as she can and brush the tips of her fingers against its leg.

She begins to fall.

Time slows to a crawl as Yang can only watch the Hound grow farther and farther away. As it rises higher and higher into the sky. 

As Blake, glowing the bright gold of Weiss’s time dilation glyph, flies past Yang at an impossible speed and throws Gambol Shroud at a perfect arc to wrap around the Hound’s torso.

Yang barely realizes when she hits the ground, too busy staring at the Hound as the ribbon wrapped around it begins to tighten. Blake lands beside her and immediately begins pulling on the ribbon.

Blake’s strong, but she’s not that strong, and when the Hound beats its wings it begins to pull her with it.

So Yang adds her own strength, gripping the ribbon as tight as possible and pulling down with all her weight. The Hound falters, but still it’s not enough, Yang can feel it beginning to pull her off the ground; and then a glyph springs to existence around their feet, and Blake and Yang are glued to the ground.

Weiss may be rude, and cold, and stuck-up, and bitchy and demanding and prickly and however many other things, but Gods does Yang love her right now.

With the glyph locking them on the ground, Blake and Yang are able to pull the Hound to the ground, crashing back to the very edge of the park, where buildings give way to greenery and concrete turns to grass.

Where the Hound lands, it stays, and Yang is worried for a second before noticing the black glyph below it, keeping it trapped there.

Yang spares a glance at Myrtenaster. Gravity dust, the kind currently being used to keep the Hound immobile, is the only kind she has left. Ice, Wind, Fire, Lightning; all gone, and for that matter the Gravity dust is nearly gone already.

She sways, and Blake catches her but isn’t able to support her weight. They both end up falling to the ground as the golden glow of Weiss’s time dilation fades from Blake’s aura. The impact, slight as it is, is the straw that breaks this camel’s back; Yang hits the ground and it does her the indignity of shattering the last remnants of her aura. It’s so faint that she barely notices.

“How long can you hold it?” Yang asks. 

Weiss grunts. Her whole body is tense, like she needs to keep every single muscle taut to keep her glyph going. “I don’t know,” she gasps out. “Not long.”

“Fuck.”

Once the glyph breaks they have nothing. They’re exhausted, out of dust, and can do nothing to keep the Hound from flying away.

But she needs to do something.

She tries to stand up, emphasis on tries. Her leg gives out halfway up. So instead, she resorts to dragging herself closer to the Hound, using her arms and one good leg. “How about you, Blake? You got anything?”

Blake hasn’t moved from where she collapsed. “No,” she wheezes. “Time dilation... took too much out of me... can’t get up...”

Yang, unable to walk, is their most potent threat now. She pauses her crawling to reload Ember Celica. Only a few rounds left.

All she can do is crawl closer to the Hound and pray that any moment now, Ilia will come along with the miracle they need.

She crawls. And she waits. And she prays.

And she crawls.

And she waits.

And she prays.

And she crawls.

And she waits.

And she hears Weiss whisper “I’m sorry,” and it’s over. Her glyph shatters, and just like that the Hound is free to move, free to beat its wings with everything it’s got.

Yang is barely conscious of the “No!” that rips its way from her mouth. All she knows is she can’t let it escape, can’t let it fly back to whoever did this to it, to her. The Hound’s mission is complete. Its orders are to fly back to base and report what happened, and if that comes to pass Yang knows she’ll never see it again. 

She can’t abandon her little sister to that. 

Not again.

Yang finally figures out what’s wrong with her leg, when she throws herself onto the Hound’s back before it can take off; she wasn’t sure before, but this time she can feel her tendon tearing off the bone, can feel as her thigh and knee become just a little less connected.

That’s okay, though, because she makes the jump. She lands on the Hound’s back, between the wings, and for a split second it looks like she’s going to bounce off but she grabs on before it’s too late.

An instant later, the Hound takes off. Again, she nearly falls. exhausted muscles barely able to keep their grip, but she wraps her arms around its neck.

Her position is secure. What now?

She can’t hold on forever. Her arms, locked as they are around its neck, will grow too tired sooner or later. Even if she could hold on, even if the Hound lets her ride it all the way back to its base: then what? Her aura’s gone, and she's long since ran out of fumes to run on. It’s all she can do to hang on. If anyone is there waiting for the Hound, they’ll kill her. 

Which means doing nothing isn’t an option.

She can’t let the Hound escape, obviously. If Ruby returns to whoever made her like this, that’s the end. Yang’s avoided thinking about what exactly will happen if that comes to pass, but in all likelihood it will be just as it was before she and her team went to Mountain Glenn; the Hound working for bad guys, attacking whoever got in their way.

Killing people. Killing innocent people, killing Huntsmen and Huntresses.

Maybe even killing more students.

Ruby wouldn’t want that. 

Yang feels sick. She’s not sure if it’s the motion, flying through the air on the back of something not meant for passengers, or the thoughts in her head.

It’s an ugly thought. Horrible. She can’t do it, can’t let it come to that. 

But what other choice does she have? Help isn’t coming. 

It's all Yang can do to stay attached to her little sister. Her only other option is to fall from the Hound’s back and let it go, and that’s no option at all. She would rather die than let whatever monster did this to her little sister continue on.

Dying won’t do anything, though. So she has to do the unthinkable. She owes Weiss another apology.

Yang steadies herself. Looks at the horizon.

It’s a beautiful morning. The sun has just begun to peek over the trees visible outside the city, giving life to a scene of forest turning into urban jungle. The wind rustling through her hair is crisp, but lacks the bite carried by the worst days of winter. On any other day, people would just be waking up, making coffee and cooking breakfast and looking forward to the day ahead. 

When a tear falls down her face, the wind carries it away.

“You’d want this, wouldn’t you Rubes?” Breathing in sends a flare of pain through her chest, but Yang can’t stop. Somewhere inside that thing, Ruby can hear her, Yang’s sure of it. She deserves an explanation for what’s to come.

“You were always a good kid. Better than me. I just wanted to get into fights and have fun, but you were going to be a hero! You just wanted to save people, so— so you wouldn’t want to be this monster for the rest of your life. Right?”

Her voice cracks. She checks her gauntlets, anything to put it off, but they’re full of ammo.

Yang thinks of how weak the Hound had been, in their chase across Vale. How shots from Gambrol Shroud, infinitely lower calibre than Ember Celica, had passed through it with ease. 

One shot should be enough. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to manage another.

“When we thought you were dead, I— well, I cried myself to sleep for a while, but after that— I’d lay awake wondering what would have changed if I’d been there for you. If I hadn’t abandoned you to look for Raven. Guess I’ve got my answer now. Nothing would have changed. I’d flail and yell and do everything but save you.”

Yang checks the chamber, one last time. It’s still loaded.

“I’m sorry Rubes. I’m the worst big sister ever, in the whole wide world. I wasn’t there for you the first time, and then I get a second chance and everything’s the same. I’m sorry, okay! I’m so fucking sorry.”

She places her fist against the back of the Hound's... 

Who is she fooling?

She places her fist against the back of Ruby’s head.

“We dug a grave for you in Patch, right next to Mom’s. We’ll bury you there, for real this time okay? You can rest there. Next to her. I know you never cared for the view, but you’ll get used to it. You can watch the sunset every single day and you’ll love it. One last promise from your big sis. Okay?”

She can’t keep stalling.

She presses her finger against the trigger, and...

She lets up.

Her head falls against its back. 

“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I know it’s what you’d want, but I’m not strong enough.”

The Hound shifts underneath her. She expects it to attack her, or even to throw her off, but instead it speaks.

“No,” it says. “Yang... strong. Strongest I know. Strongest ever.”

“I’m not!” Yang wails. “I wasn’t strong enough to save you, and I’m not strong enough to kill you! I can’t do anything for you!”

“Yes you can,” it rumbles. “Please. Don’t want this. Please. I love you.”

Yang’s heart stops. “No,” she murmurs. “No. I can’t. Don’t make me.”

“Yes you can. Yang always strong. I love you.”

Yang shakes her head. “No! You shouldn't. I yelled at you and ran away and let them turn you into this, and even now I can’t save you! You were right, back on the train. You should hate me!”

Ruby turns her head, keeps turning even as bones crunch and rearrange themselves. “I love you, Yang,” she says, silver eyes locked onto Yang’s. “Could never hate Yang. Yang read me books when Mom died and made me lunch when Dad forgot and helped me drag Uncle Qrow back home when he passed out. Yang helped me study and taught me to fight and slipped me cookies and hugged me when I cried and walked me to school and let me beat her when we played games and a million other things! Yang always there for me. Every day of my life. Yang best big sister ever, in the whole wide world. Yang can save me. Please.”

A thick black ink drips from Ruby’s eyes. “Not always here, in head, all me. Been in nightmare for so long. Want to wake up. Don’t want to be this. Please. While Yang still can.”

Yang takes a deep breath. In through the nose, hold, out through the mouth. Then another. Stop crying, Yang. Be strong. For Ruby.

Her hand shakes, but it was always going to. She can at least make sure her aim is true.

She presses the barrel of Ember Celica into Ruby’s forehead.

“Thank you,” Ruby cries. “I love you, Yang. Always have and always will. Thank you for everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang says. “I love you. I love you so, so much.”

She pulls the trigger.

She misses.

Ruby jerks out of the way and nearly throws Yang off her. Her head snaps back into place with a sickening series of crunches, tilting down to look at her leg, to the iron whip wrapped around it, leading all the way down to...

“Get down here, you bitch!” Ilia shouts from the top of a school building, Headmaster Ozpin right behind her, and Yang’s first thought, torn from sorrow right into a giddy sort of hope, is you can’t call my little sister a bitch! 

Ilia’s worn out, but compared to Yang and Ruby she’s fresh as a dewdrop. Ruby, the Hound, whatever it is now tries to fly away, but with Yang weighing it down Ilia has no problem dragging it back to the ground.

They crash against the wall of an apartment building, and Yang’s thrown off before they land on the concrete floor of an alleyway. She lies there, in frankly horrible pain, only a few feet away from the Hound, with a goofy smile on her face.

Somewhere deep inside, she likes to think Ruby is doing the same.

Ozpin drops into the alley. “My apologies for our tardiness, Miss Xiao Long,” he says, coming to stand above the collapsed Hound. “Though it seems we arrived just in time.” He spares Yang a small smile, but his hands fold together atop his ever-present cane.

Yang stares up at him. “You’re— you’re here! You can save her, right? That’s my little sister, Ruby, someone did something to her—”

“I am aware. Miss Amitola explained the situation in great detail,” Ozpin says, adjusting his glasses before turning his gaze to the Hound. “You would be the famous Miss Rose, then?”

The Hound tries to scramble away, but the blink of an eye Ozpin is on top of it, cane pinning it to the ground back-first. “No!” It screeches. “Ozma! Run! Danger! Ozma! Retreat! Danger!”

Ozpin’s brow furrows. “Ah. Kind of you to confirm that for me,” he says.

Then, casual as anything, he looks aside to Yang. “Miss Xiao Long, if I might trouble you to humour an old man’s question; what colour are your sister’s eyes?”

Ruby’s eyes? As if she could ever forget. “They’re silver. Like Mom’s.” 

Out of the corner of her eyes, she can see Weiss and Blake, leaning on Ilia as they make their way closer.

“Like Summer’s,” he muses. “I had thought that might be the case.” He seems to come to some conclusion, and while the headmaster’s age has always been hard to pin down, for a moment the weight of age is unmistakable in his eyes. 

Then it’s gone, and his voice is resolute as he instructs, “In that case, students, I would recommend averting your gaze. This will be bright.”

The rest of her team does so. Yang does not. Ozpin sighs, but doesn’t seem surprised.

Ozpin presses his cane into the Hound’s chest, the weapon sinking a few inches with no resistance. And then he does... something, Yang can’t tell what, but just looking at it makes her head pound and vision blur, and then two beams of light erupt from the Hound’s eyes.

Her eyes burn, but Yang doesn’t turn away. She can’t. Not from this.

Because the dark, oily flesh of the Hound is burning away as well. It bellows wordlessly, then starts to scream as it comes apart.

First the bone mask cracks, spiderweb-like fractures forming around the eyes, then the ridges of bone fall from sizzling, dissolving flesh.

The Hound howls in agony and its mask shatters, revealing skin, pale skin, stretched tight across a sickly, malnourished face. 

Ruby’s face.

As Grimm flesh burns to ash in the cleansing light emanating from Ruby’s eyes, the howls of pain subside, only to be replaced with different, higher-pitched screaming. Yang can’t tell what exactly is causing it, unable to see much through the blinding light— until it dims, one of the beams fading away. 

One of Ruby’s eyes, Yang can see, has melted, gone like a snowman in spring, cornea bubbling and bursting, spraying steaming specks of tissue and liquid across the ground.

Abruptly, the screaming stops and the light fades from Ruby’s remaining eye. She falls weightlessly to the street, encased by the Hound’s still-dissolving skeleton. Professor Ozpin hops down, and with careful, practised motions, pulls her clear. He steps out of Yang’s way.

Her sister looks different from how Yang remembers— hair grown out past her shoulders, skinnier than Yang’s ever seen her and no longer fitting her old clothes— and yet she’s exactly the same. 

For the first time in a year, Yang’s little sister is in front of her.

Yang tries to stand up, but collapses halfway to her feet when her leg refuses to straighten. She crawls over instead, dragging herself over to where Ruby lays. 

For just a moment, Yang panics, worried whatever Ozpin did was too much for her to handle, that more than just Ruby’s eye had given out, before the near-imperceptible rise and fall of her chest assuages Yang’s fears.

“Ruby?” She says, shaking her sister by the shoulders. “Ruby, wake up!”

And she does.

Her silver eye flutters open, blinking away sleep, and the first words Ruby Rose says to her in over a year are; “Come on, Yang, five more minutes? You wouldn't believe the dream I had.”

Ruby stretches, yawns, and tries to rub the sleep out of her eyes, and it’s only then she realizes something’s wrong. Whether it’s because she looks around and sees where she is, surrounded by strangers in the middle of Vale, or because she’s looking with just one eye, Yang can’t tell. “Y—Yang? Where are we? Who are these people? What happened to my— what happened to me?”

If Yang were a better sister, she thinks, she would be calm and strong and explain what happened to Ruby. Give her a shoulder to cry on. Act as her rock.

Instead, she grabs Ruby and holds her tight, so tight she fears she may hurt her, and breaks down crying.

“You’re okay,” she sobs into her sister’s shoulder, as much to herself as to Ruby. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

In her arms, Ruby tenses. “Yang, this isn’t funny.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang continues, voice shaking. “I’m sorry I took so long, we— I thought you were dead! I’m so sorry. Gods, Ruby, I missed you so much.”

Yang pulls herself away, and finds Ruby staring— not at her, really, but through her. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Oh,” she says. “That’s— oh. That, um, that wasn’t a dream, was it. I was really a, a Grimm?”

Yang nods.

“It was all real, then?”

Yang nods again.

“All of it?” Ruby’s voice breaks.

“Yeah. I’m so sorry.”

Ruby takes a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. Okay, that’s, um... how long has it been? Since I, you know...”

“A year,” Yang says. “And a few months.”

Ruby swallows. “Oh. And, Dad and Uncle Qrow, they’re—”

“They’re okay. They didn’t take it well, when you— when we thought you died. But they’ll be happy to see you again.”

“That’s good.”

Ruby’s trembling. In the corner of her eye, tears begin to form.

“Yang,” she says. “Could you, um—”

“Of course.”

Yang hugs Ruby again, this time pressing her sister’s face into her shoulder. Ruby wraps shaking arms around her and wails, a long, muffled keening sound.

“It’s okay,” Yang whispers into her hair. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Shuddering, Ruby squeezes her even tighter.

They stay like that until Ruby passes out, erratic gasps for air becoming steady breaths, too regular to come from someone conscious. Yang finally lets herself rest as well, once she knows her sister’s asleep. It’s been years since they’ve slept like this, Ruby held safe in her sister’s arms.

They’ve both missed it.

Chapter Text

Yang Xiao Long wakes with a start in a small bed surrounded by curtains. 

She’s alone.

“Ruby?” she says, torn between keeping her voice low and shouting at the top of her lungs. “Ruby?”

There’s no response.

She hangs her head.

Gods, what an idiot she is. It’s not the first time she’s dreamt of holding Ruby in her arms again only to wake up with her little sister nowhere to be found, but she’d thought she had grown out of it. Sure, this dream had been weirder and far more intricate than the others, but still. She should know better by now.

Tears are just beginning to fall from her eyes when a voice calls out from just behind the curtain, “Yang?”

She nearly falls from her bed as she tears the curtain aside to find Ruby, her little sister, sitting in the cot next to her. Her ruined eye is covered with a bleach-white eyepatch. It’s too big for her.

“Ruby!” She actually falls in her haste to get across the tile, the pain when she lands reminding her that there is a reason they’re sharing a hospital room, and has some trouble dragging herself up to Ruby’s level. “You’re okay! You’re— Gods, I thought I’d imagined it again, but you’re here. You’re back.”

Ruby smiles, a small, gentle thing. “Yeah. I’m here. I’m okay.”

They hug again, and Yang’s content to not let her sister go for the rest of their lives. Reality sets in when Ruby’s curtain opens, far more gently than Yang had done.

“You’re awake!” Blake says with a smile, Weiss and Ilia behind her. “How are you two feeling?”

Yang breaks away and makes to sit back on her own bed; this time, she expects her leg to give out, and so gracefully lowers herself down instead of collapsing in a heap.

“Not that well, then,” Ilia says. There’s a hint of a smile on her face.

Blake helps Yang to her feet, and half-leads half-carries her to her bed. “The doctor said your leg will take a week or so to heal, once your aura’s back up. In the meantime, there’s some crutches in the hall with your name on them.”

“Those might come in handy,” Yang says. “How about you, Rubes? Feeling good?” She receives no response. She looks off to see Ruby staring off into space, eye blank. “Ruby?”

Weiss waves a hand in front of her face, and that finally snaps Ruby out of her funk.

“Oh, sorry,” Ruby says. “I’ve been, um, trying to remember stuff from when I was... you know...”

Yang frowns. “Trying to remember?” She doesn't need to ask why.

“I, I guess it sounds weird like that,” Ruby stammers. “But when I was the Hound, it was like... have you guys ever had weird dreams? Like, really weird dreams?”

Slowly, everyone nods.

“And when you’re in those dreams, you’re not really all there. Like, things happen, and you remember them, but you weren’t really aware when it happened. If I got up and fought a Grimm, I wouldn’t have to try to remember that, it would just kind of be there in my brain. But if I dreamt doing something like that, I’d wake up and have to try remembering lots of it.”

Yang nods. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“It was like that for all of it,” Ruby says. “Like a really weird dream. And when you have those dreams, you never look around and think something’s weird because your dad’s an alien and your classmates are vampires. You just go along with it.” Ruby has started staring at nothing in particular again. “I was like that. Most of the time I just wasn’t there, mentally, and I didn’t question anything that happened because I couldn't question it. I wasn’t able to wonder why there was a Grimm queen and I was her, her dog, I just was.”

There was a what now? Yang shoots a nervous glance to Blake, and gets one in return from the rest of her team.

She wants to say something, but Ruby continues unblinking. “There were bits when I was aware, just a little. When the fog cleared. Maybe... once or twice a month, looking back? I figured I was dreaming, then, because what else could I do, but after a while I started thinking hey this is a really weird dream, it’s been going on for a while now. It’s going to stop soon, right? I can wake up? When am I going to wake up?”

Coming back to herself, noticing that she’s started breathing heavily, Ruby swallows. 

“I’m not sure when I realized it wasn’t a dream, but it was a while before I ran into you.”

Yang doesn’t say anything. She can’t. It sounds hellish, trapped in a nightmare for months on end, barely able to realize you were suffering; what words could possibly help?

She’s saved from failing to help when someone knocks on the door. Immediately, her head whips to look at the door, and she’s halfway through the motion of cocking her gauntlets before she realizes she’s unarmed. Ruby stares at the door in horror, before scrambling to raise the bedsheets to cover her face.

Blake gets up. “Who’s there?” she calls. 

She puts her hand on the doorknob; not to turn it, but to keep it from moving.

Her body is tense.

“Just a headmaster concerned for his students.”

Blake opens the door to reveal Ozpin, one hand holding a mug, and the other carrying a pair of crutches. His ever-present cane is currently just a handle, clipped to his waist.

Just like that, the tension leaves their bodies. Even Ruby’s, Yang notes, who despite being saved by him has never actually met the man. Yang can’t think too much of it. If she were able to walk, she’d be out of bed and kissing his boots. He had done what she couldn’t.

He’d saved her little sister.

Ozpin enters and leans the crutches against Yang’s bed. She grabs his hand before he can retract it. “Thank you,” she says as he meets her gaze, “for saving Ruby. I owe you my life. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay you, but if there’s ever anything you need me to do I promise, swear on my life, I’ll—”

“Please, stop, Miss Xiao Long,” Ozpin interrupts. “Your life is a valuable thing. You should not be giving it away so easily.”

She contests his gaze for a few seconds, but eventually relents. “Fine. But still, if you need anything from me...”

“If you insist, I shall keep you in mind.”

She releases her grip on his hand, and Ozpin grabs a chair. 

“Professor...” Blake says. “Is there any news on Oobleck? Is he...”

“Doctor Oobleck?” Headmaster Ozpin sips from his mug, then sets it on the counter. “Yes, I believe he returned with team CFVY not that long ago. He was quite relieved to hear you were all okay.”

Yang lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Oobleck’s okay. They hadn’t abandoned him to die in Mountain Glenn. Her sigh of relief is matched by her teammates, though Ruby grows weirdly still.

For a while, Ozpin is silent. When no one asks him anything else, he gets to the point.

“I am here to speak with Miss Rose about some details of her experience,” Ozpin says. Alone, he doesn’t. He tilts his head towards Ruby. “If that’s alright with you.”

Yang’s first instinct is to say no, but she’s not the one he asked. It’s Ruby’s choice, and she looks genuinely conflicted, eyes flicking between Yang and Ozpin. What could she possibly want to discuss with the headmaster, who she just met, that Yang can’t be around for?

Unless it’s about...

Yang knows she shouldn’t say anything, knows she should let Ruby decide if she should be present for this conversation. But if it’s about what she thinks it is, she can’t. So even at the risk of looking stupid or worse, Yang asks Ruby, “This wouldn’t happen to be about that Grimm queen you mentioned, would it?”

The room goes so quiet she could hear a pin drop. Ruby freezes where she’s sitting, eye going wide, and Ozpin’s face is so perfectly blank that it has to be purposeful.

“Did— did I?” Ruby stutters.

“You did,” Blake confirms.

“Glossed over it, more like,” Weiss says.

Ilia nods, face tight.

Ruby looks between them, panicked, before she turns to Ozpin. Like she’s looking for help.“Would you like me to explain it?” he offers.

Ruby nods, and much of the tension escapes her body in a deep sigh. “Please. I don’t know the full story, I was just there.”

“That’s more than most anyone else can claim,” Ozpin says. “Least of all your uncle and father.”

“Dad and Uncle Qrow know about her?” Ruby says, echoing Yang’s own thoughts.

Ozpin nods, bringing his cane out and resting both hands on it before speaking. “They do. Should you want reassurances from someone you trust, feel free to ask them.” That part’s directed at Yang more than Ruby, as the turning of his head makes clear.

Then headmaster Ozpin lets a smile flicker across his face and, like it’s perfectly normal, asks, “What’s your favourite fairy tale?”

Yang can hardly believe Ozpin’s story. If not for Ruby nodding along the entire time, Yang may have dismissed it entirely. But it’s real.

On the plus side, the mysterious mastermind who took her sister is mysterious no longer; her name is Salem, she’s older than the kingdoms, and every Grimm in existence answers to her.

Yang’s going to kill her, one day.

“That just about covers it,” Ozpin says. “Did I miss anything?”

Ruby shakes her head. “No. I didn’t know half of that, honestly; no one with Salem ever mentioned the Gods, any talk of Relics went over my head, and all those times they talked about eyes make a lot more sense now.”

“I see,” Ozpin says. “Any questions?”

The room is silent. Ruby fidgets.

“I have one,” Weiss eventually says. “Why does Salem want the relics so badly? I know they’re powerful, but that seems a bit much for...” She gestures at the window, and the damaged city outside it.

“I can’t say,” Ozpin says, lips pressed thin. “I can guess, certainly, but Salem and I are not exactly on speaking terms, and in any case I have never been able to prove her motives in this one way or another. I can only fear what her bringing the relics together would accomplish.”

Weiss nods. No one speaks up.

“I understand that this is all rather a lot to process,” Ozpin says. He inclines his head to Ruby, just a bit, so they know he means more than just Salem. “I’ll take my leave now, but should any of you wish to discuss this further, my office doors will be open to you all.”

He’s halfway to the door before he stops, turns on his heel, and says, “Just one last thing, Miss Rose. This may sound odd, but; to your recollection, were any of Salem’s underlings ever referred to as a maiden?”

“A maiden?” Ruby cocks her head. 

Yang says nothing, but privately admits that is an odd question. 

“Maybe... yeah, yeah! Cinder, the one who, um...” she pauses, swallows, and continues, “the one who took me to Salem in the first place.” 

If her aura weren’t still shot all to hell, Yang’s sure she would feel her eyes going red.

“I didn’t think much of it, but sometimes Salem or her minions would call her ‘our dear maiden’ and stuff like that. She took me back to Vale, too. Does that, um, help?”

Ozpin, who had been grimacing at the mention that this ‘Cinder’ had taken Ruby to Salem, is now smiling. Just a little, though Yang can’t imagine why.

Whoever this Cinder person is, Yang’s going to make her pay. The rage boiling inside her, the desire to hurt whoever hurt her little sister, would be overwhelming if not for the niggling bit of recognition in her brain.

She’s not the only one. “Cinder?” Ilia says. “I’m not sure where, but I feel like I’ve heard that name before.”

“I recognize it as well,” Blake says. “It’s not a common name, is it?”

Ruby grips her bed sheets so hard Yang worries they may rip, hands trembling. “You do?” she breathes, and the warble in her voice is fear, as plain as it is in her expression as she looks from face to face.

“Yeah, I remember it, too,” Yang says. “But I can’t think of a face or anything... Maybe someone mentioned her?”

Ruby worries her lip. “She isn’t the only one in Vale. There are two others, her helpers. Young, about your age. The guy’s pale, and has grey... everything, kind of. The girl’s got dark skin, green hair, and red eyes, I think their names are—”

“Mercury,” Yang says, voice barely a whisper, “and Emerald.” She remembers where she heard the name Cinder, now. Their team leader.

Ruby stills. “You know them?”

“Know them? Ruby, they’re at Beacon for the tournament. They’re here.”

The reaction is instant. Ruby shakes and shivers, eye darting from side to side as she practically hides under her covers. She’s muttering to herself, though Yang can’t make out what.

Before any of her teammates can say anything, Yang grabs her crutches, hops out of bed, and limps towards the door.

“Yang?” Blake calls with clear befuddlement. “Yang, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to kill them,” Yang hisses through clenched teeth. “This entire time, they were sitting right under our noses and I didn’t even—” Yang takes a slow, shaky breath, doing her best to ignore the pain. “I’m going to go take them down. Now. Before they can find Ruby and take her back.”

She expects Blake or Weiss or Ilia to try talking her down, to tell her she’s too hurt to fight. Instead, it’s Ozpin’s cane that casually falls between her and the door.

He’s smiling wider than she’s ever seen him smile, but all things considered that doesn’t say much.

“Now, there’s no need for you to do anything quite so drastic, Miss Xiao Long,” he says. She opens her mouth to yell, to scream, to tear his throat out, but he continues before she has the chance. “I already have pieces in position to take care of this problem.”

Yang blinks. Her rage against her sister’s torturers (and her frustration with Ozpin for getting between her and them) takes a backseat to confusion. “You literally just learned about them, how— what are you talking about?”

“That our adversaries are among us is news to me, yes,” Ozpin says with a nod. “But, in a stroke of good luck, I took the liberty of contacting your uncle and father the moment you and your sister were safe. Something tells me they will be just as interested as you are in a... polite chat with our infiltrators; and, unless Qrow’s luck has been much worse than usual in the time since I called, I do believe each of them presently have full auras and two working legs.”

Dad and Uncle Qrow? Of course they’d be on their way, it would have been the first thing he did. 

Whatever hell she would visit upon the people who took her little sister, Taiyang Xiao Long and Qrow Branwen would make it look like child’s play.

“In the meantime,” Ozpin says. “If any of you were to encounter this Emerald and Mercury, would you be able to act as though you knew nothing?”

Blake, Weiss, and Ilia share a glance. Blake and Ilia are clenching their fists, while Weiss is not-so-idly cycling through Myrtenaster’s chambers. “No,” Blake says. “I don’t think we could.”

“Then might I suggest that it would be for the best if all of you stayed in the infirmary for the time being?” Ozpin says. He receives no argument.

As he opens the door, he turns and says, “And just to reiterate, Miss Rose; if you do remember anything more that you wish to tell me, or have questions you think I may be able to answer, do not hesitate to visit my office. My doors are always open.”

Hungry. Waiting. No orders. Bored... Noise. Walking? Grimm. Not Grimm. Hound. Like me. Approach. Speak. Hello. You are like me.

Hound screaming. Hound thrashing. Attack? No. Other Hound not hurt me. Hound... Why Hound screaming? Thrashing? Why?

Ask. Why? It look at me. Crying? Why? Ask. Why? Cry more. Wail. Scream. 

Sit beside it. Lean against flank. Trust it. Why? Houd familiar. Older Hound. Smell familiar.

Smell like...

Ruby wakes up and yawns. She goes to rub her eyes, before one hand touches the fabric patch on her ruined eye and she hisses at the flash of pain.

Right.

It’s evening, if the clock’s to be believed. She can’t have napped for long, then. It’s only been an hour since she got some time to herself.  She’s missed Yang, missed her so much even though a part of her remembers arguing with her just a few days ago, but everything’s happening so fast and so much and Ruby needs time to recharge.

Yang’s team is nice, at least. They smile at her and listen to every word she says and back off when she’s uncomfortable. She hopes she didn’t do anything too bad to them. She’s been avoiding her last memories of being the Hound ever since mention of Oobleck.

The professor who had been supervising Yang’s mission. 

The one she had... hurt. 

Whose leg she made crunch and crack and snap as her paw forced bone through his flesh—

Ruby shakes her head hard enough that she swears she can feel her brain bouncing back and forth. She has to stay out of those memories. Maybe when she’s stronger, when she’s had some time, she can come back to them. 

But not now.

She’s pulled out of her thoughts by a tapping noise to her side. From the window. 

She whips her head over, terror taking over pretty much instinctively, but it’s just a blackbird pecking at the window latch. 

Then the window opens, the bird flies in, and Uncle Qrow is standing in front of her. He's staring at her.

He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

Wow, Uncle Qrow’s gotten skinnier, she thinks. 

It’s not a happy thought. She’s seen her uncle when he’s taking care of himself and when he’s not, knows that if he’s put on a few pounds it means he’s eating three full meals a day and taking time to relax, and if he’s skinnier than normal it means he's been eating little, drinking lots, and working himself into the ground out of desperation to keep moving.

He looks practically skeletal.

“Hey, Uncle Qrow,” she says. He jumps a little, like he’s forgotten she’s there; or rather, like he’s forgotten she’s real. “Did you miss me?”

“Yeah,” he croaks out. “I missed you, kid. I missed you a lot.”

He steps forwards and hugs her, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, and she leans into his embrace. Like always, his hug engulfs her in a way that would make her feel trapped if it weren’t from her family. Instead, she feels safe.

“We thought you were dead,” he says, voice cracking. “We didn’t know you were still kicking, I promise we would have-”

“I know,” she says. “Yang explained it. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything.”

His grip tightens. She feels something wet drip onto her hair.

Tears, she realizes. 

He’s crying. 

Uncle Qrow never cried. Even after Mom had died, when he'd been a wreck for weeks and sober for minutes, she'd never seen him shed a tear. Collapse in a pool of his own vomit, sure, but not cry.

And now his shoulders are shaking. Every movement makes his chin shift atop her head. It’s scratchy; his usual hint of facial hair has been replaced with something too long to be stubble and too short to be a beard. She wiggles out of his grip just enough to get a look at it. It doesn’t look good, scraggly and uneven, and worst of all there’s a little bit of grey in it.

His hair had been all dark, the last time she’d seen him.

“I missed you too,” she says.

Her uncle opens his mouth to say something, but a commotion in the hallway outside her room. She can hear a voice, shouting words she can’t make out, and her hands grip the bedsheets tight, unconsciously pulling them up to her face.

The voice is getting louder. It’s heading towards her.

Ruby doesn’t panic; she’s a big girl, and big girls don’t freak out because people in a public infirmary are talking in the hallways. But her heart beats faster and faster, and the sound of blood pumping through her veins is so loud.

Is it weird that Uncle Qrow resting a hand on Harbinger’s grip reassures her? Because she knows he’ll protect her, yes, but also because it means she’s not the only one who’s worried.

The doorknob turns.

If this were one of those scary movies she’d used to watch curled up next to Yang even though Dad said she was too young for them, the door would open slowly, creaking with every inch. 

Instead, it’s kicked open so violently that it slams against the wall and bounces back into the man who knocked it open.

“Qrow?” Her dad says with audible confusion. 

Then he looks down from Uncle Qrow. 

To her. 

His voice takes on a whole new tone as he says, “Ruby?” It quakes. 

His eyes begin to glisten. 

Like Qrow, he’s started growing hair on his face; unlike Qrow, his beard is full and wild. He’d tried growing a beard once, when Ruby was younger, but eventually relented to the pressure and returned to his normal self. That one had been clean and combed and trimmed. 

This beard looked like it would eat any comb that tried to touch it, and probably spit bones out after.

The doctor said to stay in bed for the time being, but she feels fine. So with the aid of her semblance, she crosses the room in the blink of an eye to launch herself at his midsection.

(She barely notices that her petals, once crimson red, are now a sickly black almost to the tips, like her hair. Barely.)

“Hey Dad,” she says only once she’s wrapped around him. “It’s me.”

He reciprocates, slowly, like the wrong move might scatter her. “You’re real?” He says. “You’re alive?”

“I sure am,” Ruby says. “And I don’t plan on going away ever again.”

The dam breaks.

Dad wraps his arms around her so tight, sobbing, a relentless flood of words flowing from his mouth: he’s sorry, he missed her, he’s so glad she’s okay.

Ruby just smiles and hugs him tighter.

Uncle Qrow joins, at some point, and then a pair of arms she thinks are Yang’s, and Ruby lets herself be at ease.

It’s been a while, but she’s with her family again.

...But despite that, Ruby can’t help but think of the reason she was sent with Cinder in the first place. Another Hound, one older than her, who freaked out whenever it saw her around Salem’s castle. She knows she should tell her family about it now, or soon, but she can’t. She’s just seen them again, after so long. Dad and Uncle Qrow don’t even know what happened to her. They still have to deal with Cinder.

But tomorrow, she’ll tell them about the Hound that smelled like Mom. 

In the dead of night, as Vale slumbers below, a very old and very tired man sits in his tower-top office and thinks. Thinks about a truly confounding problem. For many long minutes he sits completely still, the deep ticking of the great gears above his head deepening the silence, rather than breaking it. Measuring it out so that he feels every second of it.

Then a bird crashes into his window.

The old man doesn’t bother feigning shock, too used to such things to be rattled. Instead, he rises to his feet, strides over, and opens the window.

“While it was amusing the first few times,” the old man says, “I must admit I am beginning to feel rather concerned, my friend. Do you need another lecture about drinking and flying?”

“Oh, fuck off,” says Qrow Branwen, who had not been there only a moment earlier. “It’s a bird thing, not a me thing. You ever wonder why my dear sister always used the elevator? She just didn’t want to embarrass herself.” His smirk is halfway between conspiratory and mocking.

The old man tries to smile, just a little. He fears it doesn’t reach his eyes. Qrow rarely talks about his family while on business, and never his sister. The day’s events must have shaken him even more than the old man had realized.

As the gears turn, he turns back to the task at hand. “As far as our next move is concerned... You have confirmed the information your nieces revealed, yes?”

All humour erases itself from Qrow’s face. “About the wannabe Fall Maiden? Yeah. Right down to the dorm room.”

“We must act as soon as is possible, or else risk tipping her off,” the old man says. “If by chance she should visit the infirmary, or even happen upon your other niece and her team, Cinder Fall will likely figure out that something is amiss. At the moment, we have the element of surprise, and that advantage cannot go to waste.”

Qrow nods. “What’s the plan?”

“Simplicity and swiftness will be key. Draw her away from her companions, into the waiting arms of the greatest force we can muster without raising suspicion. Somewhere without cameras, ideally; if Doctor Watts’s demise is as illusory as Miss Rose has reported—”

Qrow scowls as he interrupts. “What I mean, Oz, is what exactly are we going to do with her?”

Ah. So that’s what it’s about. 

“Well,” the old man carefully says. “Normally I would attempt an arrest, use evidence of the individual’s crimes and my influence with the legal system to ensure they are placed in a high-security prison where they can never hurt anyone again.” Qrow’s humourless stare is withering, so Oz elaborates, “But there are many... additional complications, in this case. For one, the maiden powers will only be reunited upon the death of one of the half-holders, and Amber will not last forever.”

The old man’s eyes meet Qrow’s. “I must also consider, well... if I told you to arrest her, what would you do?”

Qrow looks his boss straight in the eyes as he says, “I would nod my head, and wait, and kill her the instant we had her in cuffs.”

Oz purses his lips. “Do you know, I’m not the slightest bit surprised to hear you say that? Taiyang will feel the same, I imagine.”

Qrow jerks. “Tai? You talked him into this?”

“I did no such thing,” Ozpin denies with a weighty glare. “On the contrary, the man volunteered himself for the mission, I presume for much the same reason you are.”

When he doesn’t say anything more, Qrow takes a long sip from his flask and rasps, “I’m not gonna make it slow, or anything. I’m not— that’s just not who I am. But one way or the other, Cinder Fall has to die. I could pretend it’s about keeping Ruby safe, making sure the bitch can’t hurt her any more, but... She kidnapped my niece, fucked the kid up real bad, and put everyone I love through hell. Maybe she deserves to die, but I don’t think either of us care about that. She hurt me, hurt Tai, and hurt the kids, so I’m going to kill her. No matter what.”

Qrow’s breathing heavily, by the time he’s finished, and it doesn’t get better when he brings the flask to his lips once more.

Very few things have stayed constant, over Ozma’s many millenia. But the first time he had been a child, his neighbour had started a fight with a young man over some stolen cattle. His neighbour did not get his cattle back, as they had already been sold to someone in another town, but he did kill the young man who had taken them.

Revenge had existed long before Beacon’s headmaster, and it would exist long after him.

Unless Salem got what she wanted. Then there would be nothing.

“The last king of Vale,” the old man says with deliberate slowness, “once said that only a fool gives an order he knows will not be followed.”

Qrow cocks his head. “I thought you were Vale’s last king?”

“I was,” says the old man with the king’s cane leaning against his desk. “I may be just a man, and not even a very good one, but I at least have the wisdom to follow my own advice.” 

He claps a hand to his most loyal ally’s shoulder. “Rest, Qrow. Tomorrow, we will kill Cinder Fall.”

And when the window shuts behind the flapping of wings, Oz settles back into his chair. He lets the turning of the gears measure every silence in his office. And he returns to what he was doing before Qrow arrived. 

Wondering how exactly Leonardo Lionheart, cautious far beyond the point of paranoia, had let an agent of Salem into his academy.

In her team’s dorm room, Cinder Fall sits and frowns. “Have you heard anything from Neo?”

Emerald and Mercury share a glance before shaking their heads. “No, ma’am,” Emerald says.

“Then we must assume Ozpin has captured her as well as Torchwick.”

This is a problem, Cinder thinks, though not an insurmountable one. They know the consequences for ratting us out, but Neo’s absence means increased scrutiny on us.

“As far as we are concerned,” Cinder orders, “Our teammate is missing and presumed killed during the Breach. Do try to act as though you’re grieving.”

Mercury gives a loose, two-fingered salute. “I’ve never been much of an actor, so don’t expect too much outta me. Really, we should be sending Em out to get all teary-eyed in front of random kids.”

Emerald gives him a shove. “Fuck off!” Then her eyes flick to Cinder, and she adds, “Unless you think we need to, Cinder.”

Cinder suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “We have more important things to worry about. Have either of you managed to locate the Hound?”

Emerald and Mercury lock eyes once more, and this time they grimace.

“No, ma’am,” Emerald eventually says. “The safehouses are all empty, even the ones outside the city, but it isn’t turning up anywhere. And there’s been nothing in the news about  a Grimm loose in the city...”

It’s likely dead, then. Neopolitan’s capture, while a wrinkle in their plans, would likely pass without doing more than placing them in Ozpin’s eye for a few hours; and even then, there’s every chance Goodwitch dealt with their situation before it ever reached the headmaster.

But Salem would not be pleased with this. 

They were incredibly rare, these Hounds, (Cinder herself had only seen one or two others in all her years of service) not to mention the Hound that Salem had entrusted her was by far the most intelligent one. The weakest, physically, but sheer strength was not what made it valuable.

They all followed orders, but only this one had been able to hold something resembling a conversation.  

No, Salem would not be pleased to learn of its demise. She had offered it to Cinder because it was causing problems in her castle (one of the older Hounds grew manic whenever they were together, for some reason) but had made it clear that this Hound was not a pawn to be sacrificed. 

And Cinder had done just that.

It had seemed wise, at the time, to have it supervise Torchwick and Neo, alone, instead of letting them oversee the White Fang. Neither parties had proved themselves reliable, over the past few months.The Fang’s failures she could chalk up to incompetence, but Torchwick was a professional criminal. Whether he was testing the length of his leash or just not terribly motivated, forcing him to work with the Hound should have reminded him why exactly he was on her side.

Instead, he was captured and it was likely dead.

“Perhaps, if Torchwick or Neopolitan had been competent enough to escape, we could ask one of them what happened to it,” Cinder says. “But seeing as how everyone involved is currently indisposed, we must assume the worst. Now, neither Neo nor the Hound affect our plan too much, so their absence should prove inconsequential so long as the Vytal tournament—”

She’s interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Were we expecting anyone?” Mercury whispers. Emerald shrugs.

“Miss Fall?” Calls a voice she doesn’t recognize. She opens the door to find a man she hasn't seen before. He looks to be in his early forties, with tanned skin, short blond hair and blue eyes. 

He’s just shaven, Cinder notes.

“I’m sorry,” Cinder says, “We were expecting someone else, mister...?”

“Xiao Long,” he says. The name rings a bell, but Cinder can’t quite place where she recognizes it from. “Could you please come with me, Miss Fall? The headmaster would like to speak with you.”

Ozpin? Why? Her first panicked, reactive thought is that he's found her out, but she brushes it aside. Their position is secure. Besides, had she not predicted his attention falling to them not a moment earlier?

“Is it news about our teammate?” Cinder says, trying to affect a worried tone. “Did you find anything?”

Long shakes his head. “No, I’m afraid we haven’t. That’s what he wants to meet with you about, actually. If you’d follow me?”

He smiles, just a bit. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

Cinder hesitates for a moment, glancing back at Emerald and Mercury, before relenting. She has a bad feeling about it, yes, but it’s likely nothing. She’s played everything perfectly, the fools have no reason to suspect a random student visiting for the Vytal tournament to be their undoing.

Besides, even if it is a trap, they can’t kill her. The professors are all old, weak, and still exhausted from the attack just yesterday. The only Huntsmen capable of threatening her are Branwen, who is busy with a wild goose chase in Vacuo and has no reason to return to Vale, and Ozpin himself, who has been growing weaker with every death and cannot afford to further lessen himself. Everyone else who could threaten her is dead or retired.

It would ruin her plans to fight them, yes, but plans can change. No, she has no reason to be afraid. Wary, maybe, but not afraid.

Cinder Fall walks to her death with an easy smile on her face. Her last thoughts are of herself.

The better part of a week after what people have been calling the Breach, Ruby starts eating with Yang and her friends in Beacon’s cafeteria.

It’s awkward, at first; she knows Yang’s team well enough, but Jaune and Pyrrha and Nora and Ren are all total strangers to her. Even worse; they know her, or at least know of her, if the weird looks she got when Yang introduced her were any indication.

Still, they’re all fairly nice. Besides, Ruby is pretty sure Yang’s been getting tired of bringing her food, even if she’d never dare say it.

“And then this big huge elephant thing jumped out,” Nora says, plate swinging wildly in her hands as she gestures. She’s been explaining what her team did on their mission for the past while now, and Ruby can’t help but ignore the food line in favour of Nora’s tale. “It was the size of a building! No, two buildings! No, three buildings!”

“It was approximately the size of a small house,” Ren chimes in.

“And it had an army of Grimm following it, each one nastier than the other!”

“There were some nearby packs of Beowolves attracted by the fighting.”

“I, Nora Valkyrie, struck it down with a single, mighty blow!”

“It took several minutes of fighting to bring down.” Ren pauses, then allows, “Though, yes, Nora did finish it off.”

Nora lets out a harrumph as they all sit down to eat. “No need to spoil a girl’s fun, Ren.”

As the conversation shifts topics, Ruby grabs her fork and prepares to go to town on whatever they’ve been served. Mac n cheese, potato chunks, as well as three slices of... pork chops.

Ruby’s stomach churns. Just looking at it makes her think of—

Jaws closing around leg crunching on bone blood in her mouth juicy tasty delicious want more more more—

Things she would rather forget.

Can she pass it off to someone else? No, they’d ask why she can’t eat just a little bit of meat and she can’t explain why. Yang’s friends wouldn’t understand, and Yang and her team would understand and that’s worse.  She doesn’t want that. Some things shouldn’t be known.

She can handle it. She’s a big girl.

A part of her wants to put it off, but she decides to get it over with rather than spend the entire lunch dreading what’s to come.

Her hand trembles as she brings the meat to her mouth. She hopes no one’s looking at her.

Ruby bites down on the chunk of meat. She chews it as little as she can before swallowing, but it’s tough, chewy, she bites down harder and harder but the meat keeps struggling, chewy on the outside and crunchy on the inside that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Ruby swallows. She can feel it slide down her throat.

She raises the second slice to her mouth. It’s a bit large to be eaten in one go, but there’s no way she’s prolonging this any longer than she has to. It tastes good, is the worst thing. Not incredible, but it's slathered in a nice sauce and the meat is unseasoned, pure, soft muscles and stringy tendons all coming apart as she chews and swallows.

Her mouth tastes of puke. Even sitting down, she’s dizzy. 

Just one more to go.

She raises the last piece to her mouth. 

Over the pounding in her head, she can feel Yang touch her shoulder, can hear her scream and plead and beg for it to stop, meat so loud, why won’t he shut up make him shut up shut up shut up stop chewing on his leg to put his head in her mouth and squeeze until it—

Ruby tries so, so hard to keep it down, but she can’t. 

She empties her stomach onto her plate, vomit and meat and chunks of breakfast splashing on top of her lunch, a not insignificant amount falling onto her shirt and lap. Some splatters onto her eyepatch. She swallows, and the taste of barfis enough to make her throw up again. Thankfully, there’s not much left in her stomach, so aside from some liquid leaking down her chin she does nothing but dry heave.

She looks up to find everyone staring at her.

“Holy shit,” Yang says. “Ruby, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ruby instinctively lies, then retches. She swallows again, and this time is able to keep her stomach down. 

She pauses. 

“No. I wanna— can we go back to your room?”

“Of course,” Yang says. She wraps an arm around Ruby as she helps her up, and Ruby can’t help but lean into her big sister. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” 

Yang gestures to the puke-covered plate. “Can someone, uh...”

“I’ll deal with it,” Blake says. She smiles and gently says, “Ruby, do you want me to save some for you? For once you’re feeling better.”

Ruby lets herself smile as she nods, just a little. She’s not hungry right now, obviously, but she knows she will be once she’s calmed down. 

Except then she panics, because more lunch might mean more meat and she can’t handle it, can’t do this again. “Just no meat,” she says. “Please, I, I can’t.”

Blake has a strange expression on her face, and Ruby’s heart sinks. She gave it away, didn’t she? Of course she did, they’re not stupid, they know she was the Hound and they know what the Hound was like and Ruby couldn’t just say she didn’t want lunch, no, she had to let them know exactly how much of a monster she was.

She can’t bear to look Blake in the eyes, so she buries her face in Yang’s side. She’s just a little too quick about it, and can’t stop herself from smearing something on Yang’s jacket, too.

She can feel tears forming in the corner of her eye. Even as they start walking back to Yang’s dorm, she keeps it there. She doesn’t want to see Yang. Doesn’t want to risk seeing disgust on her big sister’s face.

“It’s okay,” Yang whispers. “I love you, Ruby. It’s okay.”

Ruby wants to say she shouldn’t, but she knows it will just make Yang worry and she’ll regret it later. When she’s feeling better. 

So instead, she says “I love you too.”

The walk to the headmaster’s office fills Ruby with something a little bit like dread. She's not entirely sure why he called her to meet with him, just that it’s about her future. Not her past, like all their previous meetings, going over every last thing she remembers about Salem and her minions and her plans. For those, she at least had the benefit of knowledge. Now she has nothing.

How could she not be nervous?

She’s so wrapped up in her worries that she almost misses when another girl dashes into the elevator just as the doors close.

“Sorry,” Ruby says. “I didn’t see you coming.”

Despite having to sprint to make it before the elevator doors closed, the other girl isn’t breathing hard. In fact, she’s breathing so lightly that Ruby can hardly see it.

“Do not worry about it!” The girl says, all awkward smiles. “My name is Penny Polendina. It is a pleasure to meet you!”

She sticks a hand out, and Ruby shakes it. Her grip isn’t strong, exactly, but it feels like Ruby’s grabbing a block of smooth concrete. “Ruby Rose. Are you going to see Ozpin as well?”

Penny nods, visibly forcing herself to appear serious. “Indeed I am! I am supposed to meet with him in roughly nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds, but he requested I arrive early and wait outside.”

Ruby cocks her head. That seems a bit weird, but then she supposes it would be hard to be as old as Ozpin and not be a little bit weird.

Eventually, the elevator reaches his floor and they step out. Penny sees her off with a wave and a “Good luck!” as Ruby opens the door to Ozpin’s office.

“Welcome back, Miss Rose,” he says from behind his desk. Beside him, Goodwitch doesn’t look up from her paperwork. “Please, have a seat.”

There’s two open seats, on her end. She slides into one. 

She sits there in awkward silence for a while, waiting for him to get things going. Finally, he does.

“How is your health?” Ozpin asks. 

“Pretty good,” Ruby says. “I still feel a bit weak, and I get tired quickly, but that’s getting better every day.” Ozpin sips from his mug, as if waiting for her to continue, but she doesn’t know what else to say. “And, uhh, Dad says I should be able to start exercising soon?” She hopes her grin doesn’t look as tacked-on as it is.

“That’s very good to hear,” Ozpin says, perfectly pleasant. “I take it you will be leaving the infirmary shortly, then?”

Oh! That’s what the meeting’s about. “Yeah, the doctors don’t need to do much now.”

“I had hoped that would be the case,” Ozpin says, putting his mug away and steepling his fingers, “but, good news though it may be, it also forces us to confront the question of what exactly we will do with you, Ruby Rose.”

Ruby can’t stop her nervous gulp. What they’ll do with her?

Ozpin seems to notice her discomfort, because he chuckles and says, “Ah, pardon my phrasing, I meant nothing ominous. But from what I understand, well; your family says you were quite committed to being a Huntress, before everything that happened to you.”

So much of Ozpin comes across as forced, to Ruby. Like he’s putting on a show. But all the sympathy in his eyes is genuine as he says, “But, in light of those experiences, I very much doubt that there is a person on Remnant who would think less of you if you chose to pursue a more... quiet career.”

Ruby blinks. “You mean like, as a civilian?”

Ozpin very deliberately does not smile as he nods. “Yes. To hear your family tell it, you’re quite the engineer. I’m sure that if you went to a regular school and studied hard, you could get accepted into a good university. Graduate, live a normal life, keep your head down. You may never have to think of Salem ever again.”

Ruby doesn’t need to think long before shaking her head. “No. No I don’t think I want that. Mister, uh, Ozpin sir.”

“Oh?” Ozpin gestures for her to go on, still affecting careful neutrality.

“Well, um. There’s a lot of reasons, I guess.”  Ruby scratches at the edge of her eyepatch. “I don’t think I could just keep my head down, for one. No matter where I go, eventually someone’s going to see my eye and word’s going to get back to Salem and it’s going to be this all over again. When that happens, I want— no, I need to be able to protect myself. Yang’s already done so much for me, I can’t make her deal with that again.”

If anything she says surprises Ozpin, he doesn’t show it. Goodwitch, though, raises an eyebrow at the end.

“Well in that case,” Ozpin says, “it becomes a question of where exactly you wish to continue your training as a huntress.”

“Well... Signal, right?”

It seems like the obvious answer to her, but Ozpin grimaces and shakes his head. 

“Unfortunately, I’m not sure that would be wise. The vast majority of that school, students and faculty alike, knew you. Returning there, suddenly alive, would inevitably cause something of a stir.”

Ruby can’t hide the shudder that passes through her body. “And Salem’s definitely going to send people to figure out what happened to Cinder. If any one of them thinks to check around Patch...”

Ozpin nods, expression grim. “Yes, I fear returning to Signal may not be your safest choice. Which leaves you with one option, if you wish to continue as a Huntress: staying here at Beacon.”

“Not just one option,” Goodwitch says. “You could also attend a different training school, like Sanctum or Oscuro, if you don’t want to skip multiple years.”

Ruby’s brain, maybe reeling just a little bit from the offer to stay at Beacon , latches on to Goodwitch’s words. “Like, move to Mistral or Vacuo? No, I’m not going to. I can’t. I— I just got back.” Ozpin raises both eyebrows at Goodwitch as if to say ‘I told you so’ and she sighs. “I appreciate the offer,” Ruby continues, “but, um, what do you mean stay at Beacon?

“I mean that you would attend Beacon as a student, of course.” A genuine smile is thrown into the deal for good measure.

It’s one heck of an offer. What she had been dreaming of, before... everything. Though there are some, how should she say, logistical problems. 

“Well, um, no offence, but I mean the second semester just started and Beacon has teams so I can’t just enter by myself and initiation for new students doesn’t start until next year so, um. How?”

Ozpin only smiles wider. “You would have to wait until next year for full initiation, yes, but given your... unique circumstances, I am certain exceptions could be made. For example;” he leans back in his chair and turns his gaze to his coworker. “Glynda, if I were to ask you to prepare a one-semester schedule of classes for a student to sit in on if, say, they needed to catch up on classes they had skipped?”

Goodwitch looks to the ceiling for strength and takes her time before answering. 

“I would have to talk with the student,” she says slowly, “and prepare some quizzes to determine what areas of study they need to brush up on the most. It would require quite a bit of scholastic effort, on their part, to catch up on the classes they had missed, but it’s certainly doable.” 

Ozpin continues to smile guilelessly at Goodwitch.

Her voice is as cold and humourless as an icicle between the ribs as she adds, “It would also take the better part of a day to do, though, so unless you plan on clearing my schedule...”

“Perhaps Doctor Oobleck is better suited to such a task,” Ozpin says seamlessly, turning fully back to Ruby. “He has been getting rather restless, as much as the resting period is needed.” Ruby’s heart twists itself into a knot; not over what Goodwitch said, but she knows the name Doctor Oobleck. Remembers what she did to—

“Miss Rose?” Ozpin’s voice brings her back to reality before she can get too deep in her own head. “How does that sound to you?”

The gleam of pity in his eyes makes it clear her episode, brief as it was, didn’t go unnoticed. He doesn’t say anything about it, though, for which Ruby offers silent thanks.

“It sounds good to me,” she says. “I’ll have to work hard and study lots, but I can do that. Better now than later, right?”

The corners of Ozpin’s mouth raise up, just a little bit. “I am pleased to hear you say so. Which brings us to the second issue on the table today. Glynda, if you would bring in our other guest?”

Goodwitch exits the room, and Ruby is left momentarily to wonder. Other guest? 

Oh, right, probably the girl she ran into on the way here. Her suspicions are confirmed when the professor returns with said girl in tow, bright orange hair bouncing up and down as she walks.

“Salutations!” She says, positively exuberant. Ruby waves, and the girl sits down next to her.

“Ruby, this is Penny Polendina,” Ozpin says. “Penny, this is Ruby Rose. Given certain... similarities in your situations, I believe it best for all involved for the two of you to act as partners for the next few months.”

Similarities? Ruby’s heart quickens as she takes another glance at Penny— the girl’s on the same side as her missing eye, so she has to tilt her head even further than normal— but her eyes are a bright green, not silver.

“Similarities?” Penny echoes Ruby’s own thoughts. She looks back at Ruby, and for a moment they hold each other’s confused gazes before Penny turns back to the headmaster. “In what way?”

Ozpin seems to understand why they’re confused. “Not in background,” he says, “but rather, in terms of how we must proceed with you. Both of you, for different reasons, would draw interest from those who would mean you harm, and thus require our protection.”

Ruby’s gaze doesn’t get any less quizzical, so Ozpin adds, “I will not explain why, Miss Rose, any more than I would tell her how you lost your eye.”

Ruby flinches. Yeah, that’s fair.

“Now, strictly speaking, we could keep you cooped up and under constant supervision to ensure nothing happens to you; but as Miss Polendina can attest, that is not a successful long-term strategy. It would, I fear, drive you to act rather unreasonably.”

Now it’s Penny’s turn to flinch. In one breath, almost as if rehearsed, she recites “Please inform General Ironwood that I feel deep remorse for the damage I caused, and will not do it again under any circumstances.”

Ozpin adorns himself with a slight smile. Penny hiccups. His smile grows.

"So instead, I think it best for the two of you to be looking after each other,” Ozpin says. “One could say that we are putting all our eggs in one basket, so to speak, but that expression seems inadequate when it fails to account for scenarios in which an egg can fire lasers.”

Ruby’s head whips towards Penny. “You can shoot lasers?”

Penny blinks. “Yes! Although technically I can only shoot one laser, singular.”

“Oh my gosh that’s so cool! How does it work?”

Penny explains the complexities of her weapon, the Floating Array, and Ruby is so enraptured that she barely notices when Goodwitch shoos them out of Ozpin’s office.

They’re halfway to the dorms before Ruby realises she never asked where they’d be staying. 

It's okay, though! Her new partner knows the way.

The instant the doors to Ozpin’s office close, Glynda Goodwitch gets up and begins to make herself a cup of coffee. “They seem like they’ll get along well,” she says. 

“It certainly appears that way,” replies Ozpin, neutrally.

Glynda continues, “It really is generous of you, giving them exactly what they want. Miss Polendina gets a friend who knows nothing of her creation and can empathise with her as an equal. Miss Rose gets a partner who knows her first and Miss Xiao Long second, who has no reason to see her as Yang’s little sister back from the dead. If I didn’t know you any better, I’d even suggest you arranged this out of the kindness of your heart.”

Ozpin smiles, like an asshole. “Oh really? Do explain.”

Glynda rolls her eyes, but obliges. “The most generous reading is that, by tying Penny to Ruby Rose, you’re all but tricking Team YIBW into doing our job for us.”

Ozpin sips from his mug. “One could say that, yes. Miss Xiao Long and her team do have good reason to be on the lookout for hostile forces seeking to harm or apprehend Miss Rose, and it may prove difficult for that protection not to extend to her partner. Not to mention, Miss Rose understands far too well why exactly they must stay safe. If anyone can convince Miss Polendina to take her own safety seriously, it will be her. And as I said, giving her dedicated watchers proved fruitless when James tried it. She will undoubtedly respond better when surrounded with peers instead of guards. We do not want a repeat of her... outburst.”

Glynda can’t help but shudder. Outburst is certainly one word for the incident that got Jimmy to give up and tranfer Penny to their care, sure. Even if no one was seriously hurt, Atlesian flagships don’t come cheap. Her only solace is that the pound of flesh was taken out of his budget and not theirs.

“Still, that’s the generous reading,” she repeats.

Ozpin takes another sip. Glynda can never tell if he does that because he’s thirsty, or to hide the hints of amusement on his face, but after so many years of working for him she’s come to the conclusion that it’s usually both.

"The less generous reading,” Glynda says, “is that I’ve not seen poaching this blatant since Sylvester, and that whole affair frustrated poor Leo so badly I’m surprised he didn’t defect to Salem then and there.” 

Ozpin cringes, as he very well should. It really was quite rude of him. 

“As I recall, Ironwood asked you to look after Miss Polendina until she returns to Atlas at the end of the Vytal festival, not to make her one of your students. He seemed quite confident he, or if worst came to worst her father, could deal with her once she was back home.”

Ozpin sighs. “If Miss Polendina requests a transfer to Beacon—”

“When Miss Polendina requests a transfer to Beacon,” Glynda interrupts.

“If,” Ozpin insists, lazily waving a hand at her, “for some reason the young Miss Polendina makes the social connections she has been seeking and requests a transfer to Beacon rather than leave them, I will speak with James myself. The goal of his project, after all, was not just to create a weapon, but to create a person. If that person simply wishes to study under his ally instead of under James himself, I believe he will respect that. He knows as well as I do that there are no sides or factions in the war against Salem.”

Glynda takes a sip of her newly-prepared coffee. Still too hot, and the caffeine gives her not quite enough of a jolt. For a moment, she feels jealous of Qrow, or at least his reputation. He could drink in the middle of meetings without more than a roll of the eyes, but if she tried that? Oh, the horror.

Then she is reminded of everything else about Qrow, and the moment passes.

“If it were Leo or Theodore you were doing this to, I would have no choice but to warn them you’re taking an interest in one of their students,” she says.

“But?”

“But, in the long-term, maybe it will be good for Jimmy to receive a reminder that children are not soldiers, and soldiers are not machines for him to pilot.”

That elicits another grimace from Ozpin. He doesn’t correct her, though. Instead, he raises his mug for a toast.

“To a new and fruitful partnership,” Ozpin says when she raises an eyebrow. 

Sighing, she obliges him. “To the fit James will throw when he realizes what you’re doing.”

They drink together. Ozpin maintains the facade of a noble and dignified headmaster for maybe a dozen seconds before saying, “Twenty lien says she requests a transfer before the end of the month.”

Glynda glares at him. “Really, Oz?”

He doesn’t bother looking ashamed. She hadn’t thought he would, but still. 

She counters, “I have not gotten where I am today without learning to trust the laziness of teenagers. Thirty says she waits until the festival is nearly done.”

“Deal.”

The Kuo Kuana sun beats down on Kali Belladonna with only most of its usual intensity. The winter months in Menagerie brought no snow (and thank the Brothers for that) but did leave the island cool. 

Still hotter than most of the kingdoms got in summer, of course, but that’s life on Menagerie. Kali wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her morning walk has long since moved past routine into simply being life, checking on the city’s people and making sure everything is okay. In theory, it does have an actual point, as she always drops by the post office. But everyone knows that’s not the point. As Menagerie's leaders, their household get quite a bit of mail. Enough that no one would mind if they requested it be delivered to them. But why bother, when Kali walks by it every morning?

The majority of their mail is boring, a mind-numbing deluge of diplomatic enquiries that will never amount to anything and corporations with a bridge to sell them. 

But occasionally, they get something interesting.

Today looks to be much of the same. Politely worded letters asking why Menagerie isn’t begging for their upcharged goods, dry diplomatic language from some poor council member’s intern about a minor trade deal, an unmarked letter from Vale—

Her eyes go wide, and without care for who might see her, she sprints back to the house.

“Dear!” Kali calls the second she’s inside. “Come down, you need to see this!”

“What is it,” Ghira grumbles as he pads into the room. She waves the letter at him. “Who’s it from? Mistral? Vale?... Khan?”

“No,” she says. “It’s from Blake.”

That gets his attention. He all but rushes to her side, and when he can’t find his glasses she clears her throat and reads the letter out loud.

Dear mom and dad.

I’m really not sure how to start this. I guess the important things first; I’m okay, and I’m not in the Fang anymore. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m sure you’ve seen what the Vale branch is doing (what Adam’s doing) and I want you to know I’m not involved in it. I ran away from them a few months ago, when things started getting bad. I keep worrying about you hearing what they’re doing and wondering if I’m like them, and I need you to know I’m not. I’m not a murderer. I’m sorry for all the things I said to you, before I ran away. You were right. You were right about Adam especially; more right than even you thought. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize that.

That being said, I don’t want you to worry about me now either. I’m doing well! Ilia came with me when I left the Fang (you remember Ilia, don’t you?) and the two of us are training to be Huntresses. To help people and protect them, not hurt them. Our team is great. I know you never liked Ilia much, dad, but she’s a good friend and a better teammate, even if she can be a bit much. The universe seems to agree with your view of her, though, because she’s partnered with the one and only Weiss Schnee. 

I won’t lie, things were rough at the beginning (the two of them had some truly epic fights, which I may or may not have gotten involved in) but they’ve somehow warmed up to each other. I’m not sure which is more incredible; a Schnee being friends with two ex-White Fang faunus, or Ilia growing fond of the SDC’s heiress. At the start of the year, I would have been shocked if we all managed to get through the semester without trying to kill each other. They’ve both grown so much.

Then there’s our team leader and my partner, Yang Xiao Long. How could I possibly describe her? She’s strong, one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, both physically and mentally. If and when you two meet her, I give it an hour at most before she challenges dad to arm wrestle. It’s like she lights up the room just by walking in, though even I have to admit her sense of humour is atrocious. She’s actually the one who suggested I write you this letter, for which I couldn’t be more grateful. I really do owe a lot to her. I credit her with keeping us from killing each other, at the start, and bringing us together even now. She really is incredible.

I’m not sure when I’ll see you again, but I know I will. Ilia suggested I bring the team to Menagerie for the break in between semesters, which would be right as I’m writing this, but Yang had something of a family emergency which makes that unfeasible. To make a long story short, Yang’s not going to be leaving her little sister’s side for a while, and I can’t make her deal with it alone. I think I’m going to come back home for the summer break, if that’s okay with you. Ilia as well, unless Weiss or Yang’s dads feel like hosting her. (One of those is far more likely than the other. I’ll let you guess which.) Maybe if things go okay I can get Weiss and Yang to come visit, and then you can meet the whole team. In the meantime, we’ll be competing in the Vytal Festival, representing Beacon. I hope you’ll watch it, and I hope you’ll be proud of me.

I know I haven’t shown it in a long, long time, but I love you.

Your daughter, always,
Blake Belladonna.

Kali puts the letter down.

“She’s okay,” she says, blinking back tears. “Our girl’s okay.”

“And out of Taurus’ reach,” Ghira says. There’s more than a hint of anger in his voice, as mention of Adam Taurus always inspires, but now a sort of vindication as well. “I’ve heard horror stories of what he’s doing up in Vale. It’s good that Blake’s not a part of it.”

Kali leans over and wraps an arm around her husband. 

They stay like that for a while.

“I miss her,” Kali eventually says. “More than I did yesterday. I should be content, knowing she’s safe and doing well, but I just want to see her more than ever.”

Ghira nods. “Myself as well. I suppose she seemed less real, before. We knew she was out there, before, but now we know she’s at Beacon and she misses us. She still loves us.”

They both pause. Then Kali has an idea.

“It occurs to me,” Kali says with a sly grin on her face, “that we haven’t been to Vale in quite a while. Perhaps a diplomatic mission is in order?”

Ghira blinks, then matches her grin. “Yes, now that you mention it, it has been a while. And what better time than the Vytal festival? We’ll have to attend the tournament of course, it just wouldn’t be right to go through all that trouble and not show up.”

Kali giggles, and her husband matches with a hearty chuckle of his own. “You know,” he says, “I also get the feeling we should meet this Yang girl ourselves.”

“I did get that impression, yes,” Kali says. This time, their smiles have an edge to them.

If there’s one thing Kali knows teenagers hate above all else, it’s having their parents embarrassing them in front of their friends, second only to their parents embarrassing them in front of their crushes.

They love their daughter no matter what, and their years apart haven’t lessened that. They could never hate her. 

But she’s certainly earned some teasing.

“So,” Qrow rasps, standing in front of Amber’s comatose body, light from her pod illuminating Beacon’s underground lair (sorry, Beacon’s secret vault) about as well as the actual lights. “What are we gonna do with her?”

Beside him, Ozpin smiles so thinly that it might actually be a frown. “The main threat is gone,” he says. “When she dies, the powers will not pass to Salem’s underling.”

“We made damn sure of that,” Qrow says, and despite everything he can’t stop a hint of pride from creeping into his voice.

Ozpin’s face definitely has a frown now. “That we did. Instead, the powers will almost certainly pass to some poor girl.” He takes an especially somber tone as he says, “These may be the last peaceful days the next Fall Maiden ever knows.”

It's a sobering thought. “Unless you wanna use the aura transfer anyways,” Qrow suggests. “Give it to someone of our choice, who knows what she’s getting into.” He doubts Ozpin will go for it, but it can’t hurt to keep their options open.

But as expected, Ozpin shakes his head. “It would not be much of a choice for either party,” he says. “Not to mention what transferring her aura would do to our candidate...”

Yeah. It’s all nice in theory, making sure the next Maiden has a choice in the matter instead of dumping it on whichever poor soul loses the lottery, but in practice... well, someone’s going to be stuck with it, and in the long run it’s not gonna matter much if she chose it. Might as well let the poor girl keep being herself.

They stand in silence for a while, neither’s eyes leaving Amber.

Eventually, Qrow says, “Where do you want me to start looking? You bunch can check in Vale, and Jimmy’s got the surveillance state thing down to a science, so it’s either Mistral or Vacuo for me. You got a feeling either way?”

Ozpin says nothing, rotating the question in his head. When he does speak, it’s not with directions. “Perhaps,” he says, “we need not be so hasty with letting dear Amber pass on.”

“Really?” Qrow looks at Ozpin askance. “You want to let her be?”

“Not forever,” Ozpin says. “Better to let her pass on our terms, so we can be prepared to start searching. But, with Salem’s main operative in Vale deceased, the one who took her powers no less, it occurs to me that there exists little direct threat to Amber. It would not hurt to wait a while.”

Qrow pauses. “How long, then?”

Ozpin smiles. “Oh, I don’t know. Until the end of the Vytal festival, perhaps?”

Qrow smiles back, just a little. He knows Ozpin’s game. “That would leave me with nothing to do until we let her go. Once she kicks it, you’ll need me out there looking for the new maiden; but how will I amuse myself before then?”

“Oh, I’m sure I couldn’t begin to speculate. Though I hear that the world’s largest sporting event happens to be starting soon. Perhaps you could attend it?”

“Now that you mention it, I do have a niece in that thing.” Qrow’s hand flicks toward his flask, instinct from not having touched the thing in quite a few minutes now, but he keeps it at his side.

“A niece in the Vytal Festival tournament? My, my.” Ozpin says with a smile that might seem innocuous on anyone else’s face but is a shit-eating grin on his. “I wasn’t aware. I wonder if she would appreciate having her uncle cheering her on?"

Qrow grunts. They stand in silence for a little bit longer before Ozpin continues. “I also heard that an old teammate of yours may be attending as well.”

“Tai’s staying, then?”

Ozpin nods. “Told me as much himself.”

“Wouldn’t do to let the kids outnumber him,” Qrow says, and doesn’t even try to mask the joy at being able to say that. “But there’s a lot of work to do, and they could use some good luck for a change... I’ll think about it.”

Qrow turns to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stops him.

“Stay for a while, old friend. Please. Enjoy the festival with your family. You all deserve it.”

The smile that finds its way to Qrow’s face is faint, but in his defence it’s a lot more than he’s been used to of late. Ozpin squeezes his shoulder. He gives a two-fingered salute as he finally turns to go. 

When he enters the elevator, the old man doesn’t come with him, instead staying behind, eyes locked on Amber’s slumbering figure.

Just a little while longer and she can rest for good. And another poor soul can take up her burden. But until then? Well, no one really pays attention to the stands when kids are beating each other up.

Who’d notice a dusty old crow up there, keeping his family company?

Two weeks after she returns to Yang’s life, Ruby asks if she wants to play Immortal Ninja 2. Yang accepts, because whupping Ruby’s butt at video games is her Gods-given right. (Yang doesn’t mention that they actually released the third game a few months ago. Besides, she didn’t buy it. Didn’t see the point, if there was no one to play it with.)

It’s fun, for a while, bantering back and forth. But Ruby seems a bit stiff the entire time, taking just a little too long to laugh and thinking a bit too much before every word she says.

“Hey, Yang?” Ruby eventually says. “Can we talk?”

“Of course,” Yang says. “What about?”

Ruby seems just a little more at ease. She doesn’t look away from the game, though her button mashing loses its ferocity. “...About when I was the Hound. When I ran into you.”

Yang’s heart skips a beat. She’s been trying to forget that night, and her role in it. How, even if it had ended with Ruby safe, it wasn’t because of her. What she had been about to do.

“Yeah?” Yang forces out. She forgets to block, and Ruby’s quick to punish but messes up the combo halfway through.

“I said some, some things,” Ruby says, “and I’m not sure how you took it? Or if you took it at all.”

“What do you mean?”

Normally aggressive, Ruby backs her character into a corner as she says, “I wasn’t really there when I first saw you, but then on the train... I didn’t mean any of it, okay? None of it. I know you and I both said some, uh, concerning things, but I don’t blame you for anything, and I definitely don’t hate you. I could never.”

With how passive Ruby’s being, it’s only a matter of time before Yang lands an attack and follows it up with a combo that finishes Ruby off. She forces her hands to unclench as the screen flashes a ‘victory!’ and prepares for round two.

“Did you just make it up?” Yang says. “Not hating me, but your last words. What you said before you got turned into the Hound. Was it real?”

Slowly, Ruby says, “Yeah, but I don’t—”

“Then it still stands,” Yang says. "Even if you didn’t mean it, you were right. I promised I’d keep you safe, and the one time you needed me I wasn’t there for you. You should hate me.”

Yang’s character doesn’t observe much strategy, throwing out attacks at random. A part of her worries she may break the controller, with how hard she’s gripping it.

Ruby’s defence falters, but Yang’s in no state to punish it. “Yang, no,” she pleads. “Don’t say that. That’s not right.”

“Yes it is! You should hate me! What happened to you was my fault, and then I found you and—”

“And you saved me,” Ruby interjects.

“And Ozpin saved you,” Yang counters. “I didn’t do anything for you. I was going to kill you. Ruby, I was going to kill you! How can you say I saved you when I was seconds away from blowing your brains out!”

Ruby swallows audibly. “This is going to sound a bit messed up, but promise me you won’t worry, okay? It’s all better now.”

“Ruby—”

“It would have been a good thing, if you had killed me.”

Ruby blocks all her strikes, counters her grapple and gets Yang’s character stuck in one hell of a combo.

The screen displays another victory sign, this time for her.

“Obviously I’m glad it didn’t actually happen,” Ruby says when Yang doesn’t respond. “But I wanted you to. I wanted you to do it, and you tried even though it hurt you so much, and I just...”

“I shouldn’t have,” Yang says. “I should have held out, should have waited longer, shouldn’t have gone through with it.”

“No!” Ruby says. “You should have done exactly what you did!”

“I should have waited for Ozpin. I knew help was coming, I should have trusted Ilia instead of—”

“You had no way of knowing he was on his way,” Ruby says. “You would have been gambling with my life. Gambling with your life too.”

“But it was the right choice! He came, didn’t he?”

Ruby shakes her head. “Just because it worked out doesn’t make it the right choice. If I go to a casino and bet my life savings on some game of chance and I win, does that mean I made the right choice? No, it means I was dumb and got lucky! And if you had waited and Ozpin had still shown up in time, it would have been wrong even if it worked out. If he hadn’t, I'd still be the Hound and you’d be dead.”

“Fine,” Yang says. “Even if waiting was too risky, I just...” Yang turns to look at Ruby for the first time this conversation. Her hands are shaking. Her eye is glistening wet. “I was going to kill you, Ruby. How can you say that’s a good thing?”

Ruby meets her gaze without backing down. “Because I wanted it, Yang."

Ruby takes a deep, shaky breath. “Because every second I was the Hound, I wanted it to end. I’d do awful things and wake up every day as a monster and I wanted to scream but I couldn’t, because they’d ordered me not to, so I’d sit there and try to do something, anything, until my brain got so fuzzy that I couldn’t remember why I wanted to scream in the first place.

“And every time there was enough me in my head to think, I’d spend every second wondering how long I had until I wasn’t me again. And every time I stopped thinking, I’d wonder if it was the last time. If I’d just... stop being me. It was hell. How could saving me from that, no matter how, be a bad thing?”

Ruby stares her down. Yang blinks first.

Yang lets out a shaky breath. “Okay,” she says. “Maybe it wasn’t that bad, trying to end you. Trying to put you out of your misery.”

Ruby smiles a little. “Yeah! Like I said, you didn’t do anything wrong. You’ve got nothing to blame yourself for.”

Yang shakes her head. “I do,” she says. “It’s still my fault you died— that Salem took you.”

“What?” Ruby blinks, smile dropping. “How?”

How? “What do you mean, how? I was a bitch, and you tried to make me stop going out looking for Raven so I yelled at you and stormed off. And then you went into the forest and the Grimm...”

And the Grimm killed you, she doesn’t say. Because that’s not what happened, now is it?

Ruby looks confused. “What about the Grimm? I ran into a few Beowolves, sure, but they didn’t give me any trouble.”

Yang tries not to reel. “They didn’t?”

“No, of course not. I was maybe a bit low on ammo by the time I got to Mom’s grave, but that wasn’t the reason I...” She trails off, looking into space. “Cinder was strong. And because I know you’re going to say you should have come with me, on one hand that’s really stupid, I’d never needed help there before, and on the other hand you couldn’t have done anything. Cinder was strong enough that it took Dad and Uncle Qrow and a bunch of professors to beat her. You were only sixteen. She would have killed you.”

“You’re sure the Grimm didn’t do anything?” Yang says. “There weren’t too many of them?”

Ruby blinks, like she’s expected Yang to have moved on to arguing about the Cinder thing by now. “No? Not really. Maybe a few more than usual, but I kicked their butts and moved on. It was just Cinder who got me.”

Just Cinder. No Grimm.

“I’d,” Yang starts, then stops, then starts again, “We’d thought the Grimm had killed you. That you’d died because I started a fight and ran away.” She swallows. “I thought it was my fault.”

For a few silent seconds, Ruby stares at her. Then she pulls Yang into a hug.

“No, no, It wasn’t,” Ruby says, and on some level Yang knows she’s right but it still feels awful to believe it. Like she’s letting herself off the hook. Like lying. “Nothing that happened to me was because of you, you hear me? Nothing. It was just... bad luck.”

Yang blinks. “I get what you mean, but maybe don’t say that in front of Uncle Qrow?”

Ruby pulls back. “What? Why not?”

“It's a long story.” Well, it’s actually a pretty short story, (his semblance is a bad luck charm and he’s too used to blaming himself for things going wrong) but that’s its own conversation.

In the background, Yang can see the game displaying a flashing victory message. Ruby, always stubborn, must have taken Yang out while she was distracted. She’ll get her back for them, some day.

Some day. It’s stupid, but that’s what it takes for this all to hit her. Ruby’s back, and she’s going to be back forever, and Yang can play video games with her and cheat and get her back whenever she feels like it. There’s no rush. Ruby’s not going anywhere.

Yang’s going to go to class and see Ruby there, probably doodling in her notes. Her team will hold game nights, and celebrate finishing essays, and complain about homework, and Ruby will be right there beside them the whole way.

What used to be a Ruby-shaped hole in her life is just... gone. Just like in the good old days, Yang’s going to see her sister every single day.

She sniffles, trying to hold back the tears. Ruby, seeming to misinterpret the rush of emotion, pulls Yang back into the hug and says, “If I had anyone else in the world as my sister, I’m not sure I’d be here. You didn’t get me killed, Yang. You saved my life. You’re the best sister ever, in the whole wide world.”

It’s not the first time Yang’s heard that sentiment. Dad had said she had been a good big sister, even when Yang couldn’t comprehend how he could still love her. Uncle Qrow, as well. And Blake, and Weiss, and Ilia. And every single person who’d come to Ruby’s funeral, come to think of it. For the past year, Yang couldn’t escape people telling her she’d been a good sister.

But for the first time in a long time, she believes it.