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Chapter Text

January 4th, 797 E.A
Patch Village, Kingdom of Vale Territory

The door would swing open and the girl would step inside. Dust danced above the table, the sunlight peeking inside through the curtains.

The Girl would stand there, one step into her home, not daring to breathe.

She wasn’t focused on what lay in the room ahead—rather on what wasn’t.

The Girl would think to herself - “If I made even a single sound, this emptiness would sneer at me, gladly becoming real.”

This was back when both were still children, maybe a few months after Summer had met her fate.

The days when her dad would lock himself in his office all day or stumble around the house, lost in thought, his stare piercing right through her and Ruby as if they weren’t there.

Sometimes others would intrude upon their home, arguing with Dad, only to storm off.

Yang Xiao Long could no longer remember when this was exactly—these memories and the exact order of conversations have become muddy and confusing.

She shifted, her palm brushing against the wooden floor, her gaze trying to pierce the darkness that had swallowed her room.

Beyond the bed next to her, illuminated by the moonlight falling through the window, the room had disappeared within the night.

Yang told herself too many times—she had her own demons now—far too many to bear, new wounds erupting from the old scars.

But at nights like these, those old scars would burn no less than her limb that had no longer been there.

She would gaze upon herself, curled up in bed, from somewhere far as if her experiences were someone else’s. Time itself would run away, leaving her behind—her surroundings shifting as if she wasn’t here.

But those memories from the past, from back then? Despite time eroding everything, those glares, words, and faces twisted by anger—they would still cut deep, every muscle inside her body locking up.

Summer's passing, Raven, the cabin, Ruby, Uncle Qrow and Dad clashing—these memories would linger as if they had happened yesterday.

Yang shriveled against the wall, curling up, her hand gripping her knees.

How long has she sat there, now, on the floor, winter chill gnawing at her bones? Was it already morning? Or was it still barely past midnight?

Since the flames devoured Beacon, shattering her life, the time had been a blur for Yang Xiao Long—days endlessly repeating, going through the motions, following a script, numb to everything around her.

She glared towards the doorway—at the exact spot Dad had just stood in before, wishing her good night.

He had been trying his best not to fall apart and she hated being a burden like this.

But he wasn’t here anymore—taking a ferry back to Vale before the sun had set—setting off on yet another pointless attempt to help her.

Or at least what he had thought she needed.

They all would leave you.

Silence coated the room around her, shadows creeping towards her as the wind picked up outside, trees swinging, branches clashing against the window.

The only light in the room had been the moon intruding through the window—Yang herself had turned off the bedside lamp.

Why had she decided to curl up in the corner of the floor?

She had grown tired of twisting and turning on the bed, the arm that wasn’t aching with every howl of the wind outside.

Sleep eluded her.

Whenever she would doze off, that face would linger close, right in front of her as the searing pain would tear her apart.

And then all she would be left with was this house—empty, silent.

Deafeningly silent.

Just like back then.

When Summer had passed, Yang didn't quite understand it—the empty house weighing upon her very soul, without either Mom or the scary red lady there.

As days passed an understanding crept into her mind—Mom was gone forever.

She did not know why or how, but she could comprehend what Dad meant when he said she was gone.

Meanwhile, the house had grown emptier with every passing hour.

The lady in red who would scowl at her whenever she came over vanished right after her Mom had departed.

And, after the walls trembled with screams of her Dad and Uncle, Qrow’s visits had stopped too.

Now it was just her, Ruby, Dad, and his ghosts.

This all had felt so familiar to her—silence strangling her, sucking all air out of her home, interrupted by nothing but footsteps, creaking chairs, opening and closing of doors.

Everything here—furniture, books, curtains, clothes, even her—stuck in place as if they had grown roots, never to be moved again, her home frozen in time.

Sometimes when The Girl she used came back home, dread would grip her—a delusion of a house abandoned, nobody living there anymore.

No one - not even her.

As if the ghosts had sucked the very life out of their home.

Like Summer, everyone would disappear forever one day, only vague recollections remaining—whispers of people having existed there.

Someone else would move in, their laughter and joy resurrecting these walls—ignorance painting over what had once been.

Or maybe time, ever the cruel master, could tear into their home, the foundation crumbling till nothing remained.

Dad was no longer there.

Summer was no longer there.

Ruby was no longer there.

She was no longer there.

As if they had never been at all.

The sensations she experienced back then still lingered beneath the surface every moment of her life.

The Girl back then decided that had she done nothing, the silence—the vacant emptiness—would engulf her, devour them all—and nobody would remember them.

She knew she had to step up - she needed to.

The foundation had already been built.

As Summer spent more and more time away on her missions, Yang would already make meals for Ruby and Dad. Dad tried, but he wasn't that good of a cook, after all, so Yang already would attempt to learn new recipes, to varying degrees of success.

Now The Girl made up her mind - she would start cleaning too. It wouldn’t wash the anguish, nor drive the stranglehold of emptiness away, but she had to try.

It was back then that The Girl developed a routine to at least do something because she couldn't accomplish anything that mattered.

Little did The Girl know that the routine would become all she had known in her life.

Back then Yang wasn’t as explosive as she had been nowadays—she brimmed with positivity, sure, but solace and thought had been The Girl's best friends.

Yang used to have dreams—grand ideas of who she wanted to be.

She no longer remembered what exactly they were.

Those dreams faded back then, used as fuel for the primal wish to live, matter, and persist.

Meanwhile Ruby would thunder through the house—a bundle of joy, crashing into everything and everyone, the ever mischievous and and energetic gremlin.

With Summer's passing, the lives they had led shattered and the sisters had no choice but to pick up the pieces.

Then, one winter quiet night, the terrors had started.

Yang would jolt back up in the middle of the night, her body trembling from the screams echoing through the room.

In her room, Ruby would lay in bed, her breath shallow, her body tense as if something only she could see gripped her, its nails digging into her skin.

Yang didn't quite understand what exactly terrified her sister those nights.

After she had asked, it became apparent that Ruby had convinced herself something had taken residence inside the walls, crawling around at night, creeping ever closer to her every second she closed her eyes. Ruby, her voice trembling, would speak of the tapping in the walls, of the whispers from below, of the faces behind the window glass, their gaze burrowing into her skull—of the shadows looming by her bedside as she couldn’t move.

Yang would stay awake with her just in case, but the room would remain empty.

Yet, like clockwork, every night, Ruby would jolt awake terrified, screaming, crying.

Yang would stay with her, pushing her own fears and anxieties away, locking them in the darkest corner of her soul so she could stand strong for her sister.

One night, as they sat together in the dim glow of Ruby’s bedside lamp, Yang made her decision— she would burn bright enough to light the way for those close to her if they ever found themselves lost in the dark.

She would fill the void, chasing away the emptiness, the Death Itself that had taken residence in their home. And she would be the one to anchor her sister, to pull her back from whatever horrors that had strangled her every night.

It started with fairytales.

Just like Summer did before, she would sit there reading the stories to her sister from beginning to end. At first, Ruby would just stare at the bedroom walls the whole time, but then would get engrossed, listening, and eventually sleep could overtake them both.

Yang smiled, for the first time in a long while back then, her heart fluttering with joy.

In a life torn apart, she had finally found something she could do to make a difference.

As Yang dedicated herself to living for her family, their house would no longer feel empty once again.

Yang spun around in the kitchen come sunrise, baking breakfast for her sister and her Dad, as the scent of freshly baked cookies, frying eggs, and sliced bread would fill the house.

And then she would tell Ruby tall tales about terrifying journeys and adventures that it took for her to acquire the ingredients for it.

She would speak of Things in the Forest lurking to steal the wanderers' time, and the fairies of the old spiriting away unruly children to far past. Their house was now a castle - Ruby And Yang - guards, knights, and heroes with a larger-than-life mission of guarding it.

Laughter returned to these rooms as the siblings hid from pretend monsters— fighting dragons, saving damsels, and unearthing never-before-seen treasure.

Yang did not know back then if Ruby's nightmares had passed, but her sister no longer would wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and terrified.

Eventually, Dad started talking and smiling once again. Pieces were still missing, but warmth had filled their home once again.

Once again, it became the place where she could feel safe and needed.

Until this Fall.

Until that evening at the Arena, when it all had crashed all around her once again, reality slamming into her the speed of a highway truck.

Yang stretched out her arm in the dark as if grasping at something she couldn’t see.

The wind had started wailing outside, the storm intensifying, the branches dancing in the snow, their shadows creeping ever closer to her.

Every sound, every flash would make it worse.

Her stomach heaved and the pain in her arm—the other one—grew worse.

Her home once again stood empty and this time her Dad had tried to pick up the pieces, with no regard to his own wellbeing.

She saw him wince when he’d move through the house—yet when he’d turn around, a smile would shine on his face.

Yang could see herself in that smile—could remember how she’d act when it hurt inside.

She never realized how painful it would be to recognize that in someone she cared about.

Did her dad or her sister notice when she’d smile? Did they know of the turmoil in her thoughts—of the uncertainty and pain and sheer emptiness that never left her, not even for a second?

Did they know how much she had lost just to be strong for them?

Did Blake?

Yang clenched her teeth, shaking her head.

No, that traitor doesn’t deserve you thinking about her. Not now. Don’t think about her, don’t.

The house was once again like it had been back then when Summer left, yet the roles had switched.

This time she was the one locked in her room and Dad bore that fake smile.

And Ruby? Ruby slid into the role that hurt Yang the most—the one that left shortly after, with no regard for her sister’s wellbeing.

The fact that she did it so easily—with her destiny and conviction—twisted the dagger even further into Yang's heart.

Only Uncle Qrow hadn’t changed, for better or for worse.

Just like back then, whenever he’d visit, things would grow tense.

Ever since Summer’s passing, actually.

While his visits would grow sparser back then and Dad would frown and glare, he would still allow Uncle to come to see her and her sister.

Qrow would bring them presents and speak of larger-than-life adventures and mischief he had gotten into as a Huntsman. While Yang could never tell if they were for real or make-believe, Ruby listened intently, hanging onto every word—as if she had witnessed a fairytale.

Looking back, Yang should have realized that these were the moments when all the childhood stories and games meshed together into Ruby's unwavering resolve to step into the footsteps her mother, Summer, had left behind—to fight the pretend monsters that turned out to be all too real.

And that Yang would follow after her, ever the protector she had resigned herself to being.

After Ruby enrolled in Signal Academy, it seemed logical for Yang to chase after her sister and do the same. Even if, unlike Ruby, she wasn't really into all of that superhero-play-along, it was the simplest way to keep her sister close and protect her.

She couldn’t shake the thought in the back of her mind that filled her with dread—that Ruby wasn’t safe, that there was something, someone, just beyond her field of vision, lingering, waiting to take her away.

She had learned to fight to protect her sister.

As unlikely as it would sound now if she told anyone, after Summer's passing, Ruby used to be the one with the short temper—flaring up at other kids in the village.

No longer a bundle of joy.

Explosive.

And Ruby couldn’t back her temper up with her fists, so in such desperate moments Yang had molded herself into the knight in shining armor—taking and throwing punches, defending her.

Once again she had molded herself into what her family needed—finding relief in her ability to punch her problems away.

Life was simpler that way and there wasn’t anything that she couldn’t fight—and thus she didn’t need to show herself vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Ruby, shielded from the dangers of the world, would grow more and more disconnected from the other children, shrouding herself in her cloak, engrossed in her fairytales as she dreamed of becoming a hero.

Had they switched roles? Not likely—to Yang it had felt like both she and Ruby merely put on different masks as they had continued their play.

After all these years, now Yang could see a path heading straight from that moment to the start of her reputation as a hot-headed mess that would thrash everything in her path.

All the way to the instant when her bravado had crashed against an unbreakable wall in the form of a man with a strange mask when she had tried to protect Blake.

Yang clenched her fist.

No, you don’t get to think about her. She doesn’t deserve to be in your thoughts.

Yang gripped the corner of the bed, struggling back onto her feet, as she crawled back onto it.

A ridiculous notion that changing where she’d try to survive the night would let her escape the thoughts that had suffocated her.

Yang tried to not think back to Summer’s passing, but those flashes of time would creep back in once in a while, grief, and emptiness rushing in like ocean waves.

She leaned back, resting her head against the wall behind her, the faint smell of cedar invading her nostrils, her hair brushing against the rough texture.

She begged the wind to stop these intrusive thoughts that had plagued her sleepless nights.

Yang was no longer a child who believed in the monsters that lounged in the shadows of the night, yet the memory of "the scary lady" lingered like a shadow that refused to be chased away.

When did she find out that Raven was her mother?

She didn’t remember the exact moment, but that realization just made her memories all the more confusing and disordered.

Every smile, every exchange between her parents, every confrontation Dad had with Uncle—they had all shifted, growing all the more ambiguous and foreign to her.

It was back then that she had decided to find her mother—no matter what.

One day, she thought, she would find her and force all the answers out of her, even if she had to fight her.

One day she would find an explanation for the emptiness inside.

The need to fill this void turned into a fire that burned within her—she would be the one to keep the family together—their joy and safety replacing hers.

So what if that had left her drained—every smile, every bit of bravado as exhausting as a punch in the gut.

She could take it. She could take it all and stand victorious, tearing through whatever obstacles lay ahead.

Look how well that turned out, you idiot.

Could she have changed something? Did something differently?

Could she have avoided that ma—

That man stands in front of her as he raises her sword.

She screams, her eyes locked with her friend on the ground.

She lunges forward—every muscle in her body longs to tear this monster apart for what he did.

And then the man swings his sword.

And then the man swings his sword.

And then the man swings his sword.

And then—

Yang, bit into the pillow, her fist smashing at the wall above her head.

She flipped around on her back, gasping for air.

The moonlight shimmered through the window, lighting up the other side of the room—and the crack on the wall going up to the ceiling.

Since when was her room broken? Maybe it had always been.

Her head pounded.

Yang bit into her lower lip, stifling a scream.

What a hero she had turned out to be, what a protector!

Now the Hero lay there, bound to her bed as the jumbled mess of memories and experiences, both melancholic and terrifying, tormented her sleepless, monsters tearing her apart worse than howling winter winds, than the phantom pain tearing at her lost limb, gnawing from the inside, tearing apart her skin to reveal the hollow shell she had become.

Here, in this empty room, this empty house.

Here lay an empty vessel who had lost it all, screaming inside as she had sought a way to continue forward.

Empty.

They all left you.

They all threw you away, what an idiot you were, Yang.

Weiss had visited her once, a while after what had gone down at Beacon, but before Ruby woke up.

Yang still couldn’t get up—she just lay there, staring at Weiss, recognizing that same pained expression hidden behind a polite smile.

Once again a facade all too familiar to her.

A kindred soul, a moment of comfort in the world that had grown so hostile and alien to her.

"I have to leave. I’m sorry."

Then Weiss left.

The last bit of normalcy that she had before—torn away from her.

At least Weiss said her goodbyes. At least she did not have a choice.

Atlas announced closing its borders within days after Weiss had left with her father.

Was this your fault too? It might have been because you weren’t strong enough.

Yang pulled her pillow from beneath her head, hugging it.

Dad had told her she’d been screaming that night, once the paramedics had gotten to her—so much that she had to be sedated.

What she did remember was the day she had woken up—the time when she realized what had happened.

The exact moment when she had looked down, her head pounding, her body sore all over—it was seared into her mind, forever.

The memory lingered every time she’d close her eyes—the searing ache as she tried to open them that morning. She couldn’t at first—and when she did her sight was a blur.

Her mind took a while to wake—a scrambled mess it had become, stuck in a loop of what had happened. One moment she’d hear her father’s steps, and next—the wailing screams of the dead as Beacon, as Vale, burned.

Her body had felt like it no longer belonged to her—just a lump of flesh dropped onto her bed in her room.

Then where was she?

Eventually, her mind found itself once again, as someone had opened the window and autumn winds caressed her face.

She stretched out her hands—and then did it again.

And again.

Confusion chased away whatever sleep had been left.

She looked down, tearing the blanket off, her breath hitching in her throat.

Dad hugged her.

All Yang could do was grasp at the bedsheets, trying to separate reality from fiction.

He’d dance around the details of what happened—of where were her team mates.

It took her days to suss out what happened to Beacon—to Pyrrha.

Once the third day came, she asked Dad about Blake and Ruby.

Hearing that Ruby had been unresponsive all this time tore her apart worse than waking up had done.

The news about Blake? Burned whatever had been left of her heart to ashes.

Dad refused to tell her what exactly happened to Beacon, to Vale—and Qrow always felt like he was avoiding the subject altogether. Behind the closed doors, however—the walls shook with their voices once again.

But it wasn't their fault.

It’s all your fault, you worthless, weak, useless idiot. You ruined everything again because you were too weak.

She never could process what happened—still hadn’t, but the memories of that night had slowly returned.

And then Ruby had woken up.

But your sister left you too.

Well, Ruby didn’t leave at first. When she had woken from her slumber, her sister rushed to her.

Yang gritted her teeth—the conversation didn’t go well.

You just had to break whatever bonds still existed between you two, driving her even further away, you stupid hot-headed fool.

She always prided herself in being the one who had kept the family together—dedicating every ounce of her being to rebuild what had been lost.

She locked up every bit of anger she could—every bit of disdain, aimlessness, and sorrow. Yang Xiao Long didn’t have time to be all emotional.

Over the years the turmoil inside would burst out—her fighting style growing more destructive, more unrestrained.

She built a wall around herself and before she knew it had turned into a dam, holding back an ocean of emotions she hadn’t allowed herself. She found comfort in those short bursts of violence and chaos—guided, directed, pointed at her enemies, at those who would have hurt people she cared about or stood in her way.

The burst of anger—a vice—just like his flask to Uncle Qrow.

That man had broken that illusion of control with a swing of his sword.

The moment Ruby first entered her room after Beacon still tortured her.

What stood in the doorway was a shadow of the lively, energetic girl she had been before. She tried to smile, she tried to pretend everything was fine, but Yang knew—and it made her feel horrible.

So when Ruby began to speak with her, the usual restraint and positivity Yang had offered her sister before gave way to a torrent of emotions she was no longer capable of hiding.

The conversation was a minefield, interrupted by awkward pauses, fueled by still-fresh wounds.

Ruby would deflect—she always did—trying to be positive and supportive, almost goading her into reaffirmation that everything would be fine.

The more Ruby spoke, the more she had brought up the things that had happened, the more Yang’s body ached, her heart threatening to burst out of her chest.

Yang couldn’t stand it anymore—her every answer a retort intended to contradict and hurt.

Ruby visited her three days in a row.

She’d speak of the future and of the hope that remained and how they could get through this, yet her face, the way Ruby held herself, sung a different tune.

And every time Yang tore down every attempt at positivity, every lifeline toward hope that Ruby had.

Maybe you wanted someone to blame, Yang? You always did. First, it was the bullies in the streets, then it was Raven having abandoned you, then your enemies. It took you so long to lay the blame on the one loved the most.

The last, the third visit was the worst.

Useless. Thrown-away. Powerless.

She let loose, her words spilling out in a torrent of anger and pain.

Tears drenched her face as Yang spoke, but that only made matters worse—forcing her to realize how vulnerable she must have seemed right now.

And her sister? Ruby just sat there, listening, speechless, as if she had been hit with a brick and couldn’t figure out why.

“You can dream of heroes or unicorns, for all I care, but I have to greet every day the reminder of all the tragedies and betrayals awaiting me whenever I look in the mirror.”

The words Yang had screamed to her sister’s face she couldn’t ever take back.

As far as their confrontations went, this time had been different. For once, it was completely one-sided—Ruby remained dead-silent the entire time, frozen.

Yang could see the fear and anguish in her sister’s eyes.

But that didn’t stop her—the last thing she needed was pity, compassion, mercy.

Years and years of frustration and despair and helplessness, most of it not even having anything to do with Ruby, came pouring out.

“You’re delusional, Ruby. You always have been. And look where it got you!”

Even remembering those words, made her shiver.

Yang wrapped herself in the blanket, her bones aching.

Fighting was what she knew—whether it were her enemies or the obstacles in her life.

Was it so strange that in the time of despair, in time when she could no longer hold back her emotions, she would latch onto the first person she could as a target, her words the only weapon she had left?

She again glanced at the doorway, the door half-closed.

It wasn't just her father who had stood there, driven away by her bitterness.

In the dark, she could still see the faint outline where her sister would stand all three times she had visited her.

She and Ruby had always been close. But now, it was like something had been broken between them.

After she had lashed out, after that third time, Ruby didn’t visit again.

The house had grown dead silent—only her dad peeking in once in a while as she sat there in silence.

She didn’t reach out to Ruby and didn’t try to apologize.

Yang could have—her dad made sure her physical recovery would go down swimmingly, helping her orient herself through the house.

Or so he had thought.

Ruby would get the same treatment too, but the two would never cross paths.

Instead in her free time, Yang would slump down by the window, gazing at the skies as the snow blanketed the forest.

A few days later she’d discover from her desperate and anguished father that Ruby ran away on a journey without telling them.

Was this her fault too? Could she have held back a little, somehow?

Did Ruby blame herself—or did she think of Yang as useless?

Every night she’d relive that last argument they had—as if she were watching a movie, unable to pick different words.

Meanwhile, her dad got even more desperate in his attempts to locate fitting prosthetics. With Atlas closing its borders and intercontinental communication down her options were limited.

Her dad would travel and forth between Patch Island and the Vale, scourging the Kingdom for help, unwittingly leaving Yang to simmer in her loneliness.

Nights like this had become commonplace.

It was not his fault.

Was it your fault, you stubborn fool?

So here she was.

Useless. Abandoned. Thrown-away. Powerless.

Alone.

Those words had become a mantra in her mind—ringing louder and louder till the morning would come.

Could she have done something to change her fate? Anything at all, that would have prevented all the suffering and loss?

Could she have said the right words when they mattered—made different choices?

Like back during the Fall of Beacon—in the courtyard, when she had to pick between what she had become and what she had been searching for.

Yang curled up, the blanket covering her chin, hugging the pillow as if her life depended on it.

She wanted to disappear into it.

Peeking out, she reached for the dust lamp on her bedside table, and with a click, the moonlight gave way to hues brass-brown—light strong just enough to cover her bed, illuminating the darkness on the other side of the room where a pack of crates stood still.

All that she had left was this room and those crates—her teammates' belongings that Qrow somehow managed to salvage when retreating from Beacon Academy.

She never had a chance to ask him why he even bothered—the reminder of the people who had left her now filling her room.

She left most of it alone.

Except for a few books that Blake had brought with her—to pass the time.

Reading had become her solace on nights like this, giving her almost a voyeur kind of sensation.

Hey, it was their choice to not be there—Blake, Ruby, Weiss, they could stop her any time if they had wanted to.

But whatever satisfaction was there, couldn't overcome the emptiness around her.

Alone, only a dimly lit flickering dust lamp by her side, cold winter winds howling outside.

Alone, sleepless, only with thoughts of everything lost haunting her—thoughts of all the choices she hasn't made, all the dreams she never dreamt before...

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

She reached for the book next to the dust lamp.

Rap, tap, tap.

Suddenly there came a taping as if someone were gently rapping at her window from outside.

Darkness there and nothing more...

Chapter Text

December 7th, 796 E. A
Residential District, City of Vale, Kingdom of Vale Territory

A bakery stood there in the Eternal City, one of hearts of Mistral.

The damn place loomed on the corner of the street, right next to the walls of Shan Academy.

Back then, she’d visit there every few weeks—the owner kind enough to give her leftover bread.

And then one day she robbed him blind because she needed money to leave the city.

Beneath the glossy towers of Haven and the majestic Anima tree in Dragon Fortress, beneath the ever-changing Argus and the Great Lake in between—survival making up the foundation for most of that Kingdom.

And lies—its building blocks.

Was it that surprising that lies lay the foundation of her adolescence?

Blake had told many lies in her life—she had to.

Unlike some, she never had it easy—fighting for scraps, for the right to exist.

She sat on the rooftop’s edge, her legs dangling over the precipice as if she had long forgotten the danger of the distance beneath her feet.

The City of Vale stretched below her—or what had been left of it.

It had only been a month since Beacon fell, its emerald spire crumbling to ashes.

Down below, the street had been torn apart by forces that had roamed back then as machines of steel and creatures of Grimm both descended upon the City.

When she first came here, the Commercial District was a place bustling with life and chatter.

Now, the ruins of buildings bared their teeth at her in silence.

It had been over a month and yet she could still taste ash on her tongue whenever the wind would blow.

“What is it that you are running from?”

Someone once asked her this.

Well, once might not have been the right way to frame this—many had thrown this question at her through years.

To this day, she couldn’t tell the answer even if she wanted to.

Was it the thirst for violence, the metallic aftertaste of blood spilled? Was she driven by that feeling of righteous violence and how addictive it had been in all the wrong ways?

Seven years ago, she had promised herself to deliver it upon those deserving and she never stopped—not until that day when she had made her choice, severing herself from that past.

Blake had never considered herself a coward—survivor, maybe, but coward never.

The sun had set on the horizon, far in the west as it sank beneath the Nameless Sea. In the east, the night already encroached upon that thing nestled atop the broken spire.

She would gaze upon that visage every night now.

Sometimes, when the moon shone just right, Blake could swear it had looked like a hand reaching out for the stars.

The wind howled, an envoy of the oncoming winter.

She dug her fingers into the bricks till they ached.

What was it that Blake Belladonna had been running from?

This question had haunted her, not unlike the shadows that lingered around her with every step she had taken.

Was it the terror stalking her dreams, painting her world red, waking her every night, drenched in sweat, shaking as her eyes would dart around the room?

Searching for that face, creeping closer, that voice echoing, threatening and so very calm.

Or maybe her fears had predated that man—something deeper, to her childhood. The hand of fate that had gripped her that day in the library and never let go.

“What is it that you want to face?”

She had asked herself this countless times since the day everything changed.

Blake used to say her enemy encroached upon her like a force of nature—intertwined with every living soul of this Land.

Friction. Hate. Mistrust. Desperation. Evil. Corruption.

She had called it many names, yet she had always struggled to find the one most fitting, the one that did not make her feel like a dishonest liar.

What did it say about her that she could not find an answer to those questions?

She squeezed her eyes shut, the screams ringing in her ears.

She had seen destruction before—she had tasted defeat and hopelessness, ever since that day, in Babel Library.

With so many lies, was there anything true about her?

For one, she knew the truth of this world—chaos, pain, and suffering had drowned it, scrubbing it free of reason, of meaning.

The Inner workings of glorious Kingdoms and decrepit villages both had been incomprehensible.

The Inner workings of the human soul—the limitless yet infinite love, the freeing shackles of hatred, the catharsis of anger, finding one’s strength within weakness—they all had been incomprehensible.

“There’s too much wrong in this world to just stand by and do nothing. Inequality, corruption... Someone has to stop it.”

It hadn’t been that long since she uttered those words to someone.

A statement that enveloped everything that she was and every decision she made to this day.

Something that described a path she walked and justified all the suffering and discrimination she faced and all the righteous fury she unleashed, right and wrong, every mistake, and every drop of blood washed away.

Blake still believed what she had said back then.

Her gaze shifted eastward, towards the shadow—its nails dug into the corpse of that mighty spire.

She had noticed this a few days ago—the darker the night would grow, the clearer the silhouette of that thing would grow.

Just a month ago, they all stood together ready to fight—ready to die—for what the Academy had stood for.

Bullies and Victims, Faunus and Humans, Rich and the Poor—they all stood in line, baring their weapons at the encroaching darkness.

If Humanity could stand united against a common threat, why had they decided to war amongst each other?

The Faunus legends stolen from them, the scarring of Vacuo, the Great War, Vale’s bloody history, Mistral’s countless uprisings, and feuds.

The Third Crusade.

The people who had passed—her friends, her allies, the innocents caught in the crossfire.

She had read many stories—of heroes and rogues, of adventures most graceful.

The Hero would emerge from humble beginnings.

The Hero would fail, experiencing loss.

The Hero would rise, overcoming adversity.

Every tale would follow that structure—allies met, friends perishing.

She’d devour those books like nothing—the stories stirring her imagination, empowering her dreams.

She would find peace in them. Back then, she had believed in the idea that even the worst of tragedies could be made sense of, that pain could lead to something greater.

Living those stories had been a whole different Beast.

This world remained stagnant, devoid of hope.

The Hero fell atop that tower.

The Chivalrous Knight crumbled against a flash of a blade.

Stone tiles crumbled beneath.

The more she had tried, the less things would change, repeating instead.

The Foundation.

The Foundation just couldn’t support the Heroes standing atop.

The World around her cracked at the seams, those stories torn to shreds—a puzzle that didn’t quite fit together anymore.

Change was needed or humanity would eat each other alive.

“Very well. How?”

Just like those three words back then, reality tore apart her dreams as she stood among the ash.

What could she have said in response? Could she have said that she had thought about this for so long and yet no answer would come? Could she have given an answer that would have satisfied her back then?

Could she ignore the fire inside, the silent scream that burst, that explosion, fire devouring the wail of the dead, darker, deeper than any vices the world could provide her? Could she dull the soul clawing from the inside, the conscience telling her to bring about the change she had read of, she had dreamed of?

Or could she have lied, as she had always done?

Alive!

A lie.

She stood at the edge of the rooftop now, the wind searing through her bones, a wasteland of ash beneath her.

Where had the dream she had lived for just that moment gone?

Blake took a deep breath, chill, and ash seeping into her lungs, coughing.

The silence below—nay a scutter of a rat—had been her answer.

She hesitated.

Blake couldn’t stay here, atop this vision of the end that had haunted her for years, since that night among the rain, flames licking at the vestiges of her future.

Her heart pounded in her chest, each beat a memory tearing apart her future.

The rain in that Eternal City, the scream drowned out by the world’s hate.

That night in the slums—a choice made that would tear her apart in more ways than she could realize.

A certain blonde’s eyes closing as she tumbled to the ground.

Four times now flames had scorched her, twisting a night into day.

Four times fate had taken away something precious, the ocean tearing down whatever sand castles she had built against the madness of those waves.

The current story she lived in did not feel right. The world had taken away her parents, their lives snuffed out like candles in the wind. It had treated her as though she were an animal, a monster, a pure evil akin to the Grimm that crawled through the shadows.

She no longer waited for changing times, because now she yearned to live by those beliefs, to change how the world works. Not by reading a book, but by writing the world like a book.

She was going to do everything she could to change that, to prove them wrong, to bring about the world of her dreams, and to squash the hate and inequality, no matter how scorching her fury had to be.

A naïve child dreaming of heroes in a world that only saw monsters. Did she expect to flip through the pages and reach a tidy ending that all her choices have led to? A congratulatory message telling her that she was right and justified in everything she did?

“What is it that you are running from?”

The regret, the mistakes, the lies, that infuriating blonde, so annoyingly cheerful, helpless on the floor.

Blake shook her head. She wasn’t running. She just had no time to be distracted by these thoughts right now.

She shifted her weight as stepped off the edge, her weapon digging into the wall as vertigo overtook her.

Wind rushing, teeth gritted.

The Ground.

Thud, her boots touched the pavement—impact reverberating through her bones.

Mere seconds—that’s all it had taken for the descent.

Decision, change, consequence.

She lived as though she could dictate the world’s order, shaping reality to fit her ideals. All her life she would spend years agonizing over each choice she had made, trying to find the right path, only for mere seconds to tear it all down.

She thought she knew the cost, yet every step of the way life would show her how naïve she had been.

Time would blur the line between a hero and a villain—every action she’d take with noble intent turning into that step down the endless void.

Her childhood burned, the winds of change she had longed for turned into a hurricane and now ash had laid her dream of heroes to rest.

Seconds—the time the jump took—the difference between the landing and the fall.

As the wind swept away the clouds, moonlight shone upon the graveyard of this city. The world around her had become a patchwork quilt of destruction and unfulfilled hopes—or maybe it had always been this way.

The Fall of Beacon had etched grief and hatred into this city, turning it into a mural, a monument—a tombstone.

Yet the carcass of that tower, the abomination of death perched atop, still loomed up ahead, judging, deciding.

Blake had never seen a creature of Grimm that size in real life.

Legends spoke of terrible monsters as they’d freeze the clouds, burn the oceans, and tear continents apart.

Most legends would lie, embellish, and cheat, yet the creature ahead fit the bill—a monstrosity out of myths and fairytales from her childhood, the kind of creature the heroes in the books would face.

They had said that thing had been frozen solid, unmoving, even though still alive, yet Blake could still feel a gaze burrowing into her skull from afar.

Something malicious—a madness, like ocean waves, naming this land its domain, the creatures alike leaking through, crawling in, nestling atop the corpses of the fallen.

She trudged onward, each stride a punch against the despair that threatened to pull her under.

She had spent almost a week in this broken city now, jumping at every opportunity to do something, to help.

Sometimes she’d encounter others—guardsmen, huntsmen, thieves—all united in a single mission now. They stood together, the custodians of peace far too fragile, as they faced the terrors swarming the city.

Blake had seen her fair share of tragedy and despair in her life—her fair share of corpses and lost hope.

Nothing could have prepared her for the abject rejection of humanity that had become of this mission.

Retake the Vale, they said, brandishing their spears, spirits high.

So many had bought into this fairytale, this glimmer of hope that they had been sold.

That this could be undone, that the evil could be eradicated, the preternatural giants pushed back from the heart of the city.

Her eyes scanned the desolate landscape for the creatures most profane.

Blake hadn’t seen a single Ancient Grimm beyond The Goliaths lingering in the fog, but from the screams and the death toll, there had to be more.

The visitor atop the tower had been infesting Beacon’s territory with The Grimm, the very air, the very ground, growing more toxic every day, attracting more of those unalive beasts into the city.

Soon the entire southern half of Vale would turn into a domain of death, just like what lay beyond Mt. Glenn's settlement.

A Neverland—the domains of death itself, the eternal wounds of the land that scar every continent of Remnant.

The Huntsmen existed for this very reason—to kill the aberrations, dispersing the Grimm so the festering wounds don’t grow larger.

Within a single night, The Fall of Beacon had undone a century of effort, the Southern Farmlands Neverland growing beyond Mt. Glenn, devouring Vale, as the ancient things wandered further, heeding the call of that abhorrent thing.

In hindsight, the attempt to retake the southern parts of the city should have been doomed to failure from the start.

The world wasn’t a fairytale where heroes could grasp victory from the jaws of defeat against all odds.

Life wasn’t a book. Although it had been a mosaic of moments, both mundane and extraordinary, no happily ever after had awaited in the end.

If anything, the world would be a play, Blake, and everyone else dancing to fate’s whims, roles predetermined that nobody could comprehend, nobody could see the strings.

Vale’s most courageous, most powerful marched for hope and fell one after the other.

And most of them didn’t even see a single monstrosity reaping their lives from that fog, nor The Goliaths dashing through, the buildings crumbling.

How many of the students at Beacon had managed to survive this attempt they so valiantly rushed into? How many teachers, how many policemen or guards?

In the end, only the stage would remain, the heroes interchangeable, so easily forgotten.

Blake glanced at her scroll.

The command center had to issue a recall order any second now.

It had been way beyond time to do it—ever since that corny Professor had died.

They had retaken most of the Commercial District at the least—plenty of space to house refugees from the rest of the city once it’s cleaned, fortified, and safe.

A price far too steep as dozens lay among the broken streets.

Blake froze—something thrashed up ahead in the rubble. Or so it had seemed, a second ago, as nothing but silence enveloped her.

Her eyes darted around, every shadow sending shivers down her spine.

Not a single second did she feel safe or at peace.

For the last few weeks, every shadow, every speck of dust just beyond her field of view, had become an enemy creeping upon her.

Despite the dread that had returned, whispering at the back of her skull, Blake longed to bring about change in the world that despised her—she did all her life.

Yet now, witnessing the decay and madness all around, she couldn’t help but see the truth.

She had been running all this time—ever since flames engulfed that car, carrying not just her parents but all her naïve hopes and childish dreams, a second, a moment, consuming everything that mattered.

She ran back then and never looked back. Not just at the explosion that took her parents and friends. She never did gaze upon what she’d left in her wake—the wails of those long since perished, their faces fading within the smoke of chaos she had unleashed.

Even now, she didn’t bother to look behind her. Not at the bloodied streets of Beacon or the bodies left scattered in its ruins, nor the hurricane of destruction she had unleashed before when she wasn’t this Blake.

Blake Belladonna was no idiot.

She knew of the carnage left behind, even if she did not stay to observe it. She knew the direction her little group of friends-turned-activists were going toward. After all, she was the one who drew up many of the plans they executed. Thus, she could not delude herself into ignoring what kinds of goals Adam set for them. She might have fooled herself into thinking he changed somehow and got worse, but deep inside, she knew this could be the road they ended up taking the moment it all started.

Her path, once the trail through the stars, now brimmed with fire—violence, revenge, anger—leaving a void behind, in which only those flames had remained, lighting the way forward.

Each step beneath her feet, that fire would burn bright—sometimes showing her a brighter, hopeful future and sometimes ablaze with righteous rage, burning everything in her path. The goals driving her, once clear, had long since been consumed, burning away like embers. Her ideals had crumbled upon that funeral pyre before she had realized how much they mattered.

She had tried to fill that void with purpose, with a mission that gave her reason to keep going.

The path ahead promised a brighter future for those like her, yet only ash greeted her every step, consumed by hotter, darker vices, coating her in emptiness and despair.

Now, as she sat there, the city’s ruins still ablaze with humanity’s latest failure—with her failure—she couldn’t help but feel like that void had only grown in the meantime.

Her scroll finally beeped, signaling the end of a mission long since failed and she couldn’t help but wonder how many of those who risked their lives had survived.

Blake strode forward, rubble crumbling under her boots, through the Residential District, the Fall of Beacon having turned it into a battlefield.

The once-familiar sights around her had grown all too alien—decaying buildings, rusting car carcasses, and just out of sight, something worse, something rotting.

Up ahead, the river flowed, separating the Residential and the Commercial, lights shining on the other shore. And right there on the bridge, a makeshift guard post had been set up.

If she were to cross it, Blake would find herself back in the realm of humanity, the Grimm soon infesting the shore she stood on now in no time.

Another failure.

Blake longed to break this world, to turn it into a fairytale, yet it broke her instead.

Yet now, what burned her more than anything else was a single thought that had grown into something impossibly heavy—a thought that descended upon her like an oncoming storm. Now, this didn’t come from some life-changing crisis or revelation. Like all storms, it seeped inside some ordinary long-forgotten moment—a second when she had been doing who-knows-what, who-knows-where. Could she have been writing? Or maybe eating a sandwich while staring at the falling leaves? It didn’t matter as now the rain kept pouring, refusing to give away.

Because that thought wasn’t like any other—a weight had been placed upon her chest, a burden crushing her with every breath, every step taken.

How often had she tried imagining a different future, a road less traveled?

She blazed down a road, destruction in her every step. Then she strode down another one—a conversation serene. Yet each time, when It had mattered, nothing would change—the road, no matter which one she had chosen, taking her down a path she knew far too well.

The stage props came to life, orchestra blaring pompously—the narrator announced to the audience:

“Nothing Ever Matters!”

Wherever she had gone, there she was.

The moments of happiness, so fleeting, could only light the way for so long before the all-consuming nothingness would claim them.

The path beneath her feet had been littered with the footsteps of those before her—many had attempted this arduous task.

Her parents tried, they put their entire being into the noble cause of changing the world for the better. They burned, back then—their efforts met with betrayal and scorn—victims of a system too powerful and self-sustaining to care about the blood it had spilled, the pain it had caused, the hatred its only fuel. A system where greed and tradition would undermine any progress.

Adam faced his own struggles, burning away with each attempt till nothing but fury and rage had remained. Just like her, just like many others, her mentor had found himself trapped by the cycle of violence he once sought to break, dancing on the edge of his blade, each step making his festering wounds hurt all that much more.

Blake herself had tried giving it her all, pouring everything she had and more into her battles, her rebellion against injustice and hate. Yet, no different from the others, the heat scorched her over and over again, leaving her adrift in the sea of flames. Each time she would return and each time, the void inside would sate itself with flames as she screamed.

Even that blondie—

Blake stopped, gritting her teeth. Her gaze drifted up at the stars in the sky.

Even Yang, who had burned brighter than anyone Blake had ever met, would suffer the same end.

A swashbuckling pirate, a fairytale knight, or a mischievous rogue—Yang fit many roles from Blake’s countless tales. Yet she had also been a force of nature—unpredictable and wild, all-enveloping, her emotions a tornado dancing within an endless storm, every choice she had made embodying the very essence of her being as she dove into danger head-first, a smile on her face.

She made Blake believe—no person in the world deserved to be that Beast, chained by suffering and regret. In those burning eyes, everyone, even Blake, had the potential to change, to grow, to be someone worthy of standing by her side.

Redeemed. Better. Stronger.

And yet her flames were extinguished by the phantoms from the past that Blake so desperately ignored.

Blake sped up, moving forward, ears ringing.

That moment, that one moment when she fell, kept replaying, like a broken record. And it was all her fault, it was all her fault, it was all her fault.

Nodding at the guardsmen, she rushed past the guard-post and into the semi-lit Commercial Area, where people had been hard at work rebuilding, fortifying, repairing—night and day.

Don’t think about her, don’t think about what happened, don’t think. You can’t do anything about this. Don’t think about what happened.

A mantra, a lie to make herself believe.

Blake Belladonna knew better than anyone that all heroes meet the same end.

In the end - all would shine, till they burn away, leaving nothing behind. The world would be none the wiser about which path they walked or what they believed in. As years passed, there would be no difference, vice, or virtue. It wouldn’t matter who burned—her, Adam, or her parents.

There would always be tears.

She cried when her parents passed—tears pouring until they couldn’t no more. And then Blake Belladonna made her vow that day, back then, in that library.

She cried when the Nemea’s sky lit up. And she cried when Yang rushed ahead, screaming, as the blade swung—thorns gouging Blade’s heart each time.

Tears would eventually stop—they always do, way before the pain.

Heroes replace heroes, suffering takes the place of suffering, and the torment is made all the more pointless.

She never knew her parents’ last words. She never did learn what Adam experienced when they had taken him away.

Blake Belladonna ran—from Adam’s malice, from Yang’s despair, and even from herself, from the fact that she too one day will burn away.

All Heroes burn, as another flame would replace them in that fruitless labor, only to burn out too, no matter how bright or powerful it would have been.

Her legs shaking, Blake crumbled to the ground in the middle of the street.

“Nothing We Do Matters!”

A moment of naked clarity enveloped her.

The ruined streets, the crumbling buildings, the ash, and the rust permeated the air.

A city she had started to call her home had shifted, turning into a vision of her future, the specter of things to come visiting her, its claws digging in deep, tearing her apart.

Through the wind and the screams, it had whispered to her.

In the end, in the embrace of death, all that she did, all that she worked for—ideals and dreams and heroic deeds would crumble at the hands of time, swallowing all that she was.

It could have happened that night at Beacon, or it might happen tomorrow, or maybe ten years from now in a far-away city.

She would lay there, motionless. As the end would swallow her thoughts, one by one, she would realize that she never figured out a single answer for the countless questions thrown her way.

Just like her parents.

A Fool. A Liar. A Fraud.

Blake stumbled back onto her feet, slouching through the streets, the violence wiped clean, the district reborn.

The Council of Vale had nationalized most of the buildings in the district, hastily converting them into living space.

Very few refugees had settled here yet, but the number would grow.

In time, the shadow beyond the river would become the new Mt. Glenn and people here would be none the wiser of how much smaller their world had gotten.

Until the next Breach. Until next Fall.

No lessons learned, no mistakes acknowledged, no sins redeemed.

Just like her.

In the days past she fled the all-consuming flames, shielding herself in the blaze of vengeance and fury, fire clashing with fire. When that inferno surged too hot, she darted toward Vale, toward the faint, comfortable glow of that emerald tower.

She longed for a utopia, for the hearth of justice, a sanctuary offering her a moment’s respite.

The path to leaving her fury behind wouldn’t have been easier, but with the help of her family-found, she had managed to get all the necessary papers forged. Behind her mentor’s back, she had made plans, an exit strategy, a road forward.

She abandoned everything, donning the mask of a righteous huntress, a wolf in sheep’s clothing just like the one who had raised her after her parents met their fates.

That day Blake Belladonna would walk Vale’s streets a new woman, Beacon’s spires blind to her past. Here she would join a team of heroes, dreams propelling them into the future. Together they would face the world, forcing it to change for the better, bringing about something intense, dazzling, and hopeful.

Was she a Huntress, a righteous hero, the protagonist stepping out of the pages to change the world?

As her past had caught up with her, the truth had been laid bare—every leap she had taken, every step she had obsessed over rang hollow.

A hero’s path had been nothing more than a naïve rebellion against fate scoffing at every plan she had made.

Not a hero—a runaway, hypocrite, terrorist.

Coward.

Despite grand declarations made, the coward kept running. She fled every shadow, every echo gnawing at her soul, the wailing growing closer, every path untaken, every choice forsaken—like spears piercing her, pinning her to the crumbling walls of this once-city.

Blake Belladonna, the valiant huntress, lecturing others, fighting injustices.

The deception was most grand, the one where she had fooled even herself—shielding herself from the fact that people here never had seen her that way.

She should have known, should have realized, accepted, and understood the flaws within her path this time.

Even back then, after she had just entered Vale, when she had stood out from the crowd for the first time.

First her teammate, her gaze, her disdain in her voice as she proclaimed all them animals. Then, the docks, her past greeting her, a reality check thrown in her face.

She barely could have processed what had happened before she had found herself in a police station, forced to untangle her story for skeptical ears.

Blake leaned at the bench, gripping the wood, trying to ground herself.

Memories of what had been couldn’t help her, but she couldn’t avoid them.

Slumping down onto the bench, she gazed at the defiled spire in the distance—just a month ago that had been the abode of Beacon’s Headmaster.

Back then that night, in the station, he came to her, lingering, like a ghost.

Then he stared right into her eyes, his gaze burrowing into her skull, chilling her to the bone.

The Headmaster proclaimed that knew who she was, offering his help. And yet his first question had been whether she had been here meaning trouble.

She has seen that line of reasoning used before, although often with a bit more self-awareness. Every Faunus had heard this at least once. Behind the veiled concern, what people like that often meant had been far different.

“We know who you are—an animal, a savage. You can’t hide among us. And if you disturb our peace, we’ll hunt you down.”

And then nothing they could do would prove those people wrong, change their minds, deliver them a revelation of how awful they had been.

Now, she was sure Headmaster Ozpin did not mean it that way—he always struck her as a caring and hopeful man who had seen way more of the world than anyone should.

The kind of sage that existed only in myths and fairytales, like the Five Wise Men in Mistral’s legends or the kind Hermit Huurteinen in the Atlas children’s books. Wisdom of the ages hid behind those eyes, betraying genuine worry for all things living.

But did that intent matter? It was still the same lingering thought simmering in so many, buried behind each smirk, each shrug, each gaze.

At first, she persevered.

Blake would stride down Beacon’s halls every day, right past the statue of Huntsmen triumphing over Grimm. Her head held high, she would attend lessons where pompous professors, none of them Faunus, would chirp about how special the Faunus are, how different they are, how much stronger, better, and magical they are.

The same rhetoric would be picked back up by their students, who’d use it to fuel their hate, telling tall tales about how Faunus were a threat, how they were nothing like humans, how they’d use their natural-born advantages to threaten humanity.

Did the so-called professors understand what evils they’d unleash? Or did they secretly, honestly, wholeheartedly believe it themselves?

How many of those professors, of those students, would stroll past the statue in Beacon’s courtyard and instead see an animal rightfully crushed beneath humanity’s foot?

Did it matter if those who built it had intended that? Did it matter if it was just a few people or everyone? The ignorance of the well-meaning hurt all the same.

Even now, as she hobbled through these threads, the gazes bore into her—every single one wondering, even if for a second, whether she was a threat. How much worse would it get if they knew what she was if she didn’t have the ribbon? How many of those guardsmen, of those Huntsmen, would entertain a thought that nothing stops them from shedding their modesty and propriety?

Blake bolted back up her ears ringing as the moments of last year poured from her memory—TV news reports, friendly chatter, retorts during sparring matches, the bullying at Beacon.

Vale held plenty of hate she just let slip by her ears.

Still, the animosity in Vale would manifest differently than in Mistral.

Sure, both Kingdoms shared those smiles and positivity hiding malice and distrust, but Mistral had always been so overt about it. Deportations, punishments, retribution, displacement. A wrong step would to the wrath of hell right at your doorstep.

Vale didn’t bother with any of that. Friendly smiles took the place of batons and solemn concern, the place of disdain. Yet the meaning beneath—the threats—remained the same.

Softer, nicer, oblivious—still dangerous.

Maybe sometimes these people would be way too thorough in their vigilance, maybe they would be all too willing to lecture those like her, or maybe they’d refuse to bend the rules the way they’d do for their own kind.

Vale wasn’t the place you’d go to looking for confrontation. There were no open repressions, no widespread violence—instead, the hate lingered beneath the surface. Same animosity, painted over by politeness and hope.

Blake hid behind the mask, but so did the city.

Eventually, it dawned upon her—beyond mere prejudice, another illness had strangled this Kingdom.

Trouble, Peace, Confrontation, Violent Outbursts, Riots—she heard those words wherever she went.

Blake cowered, hiding inside her coat as she strode forward, every bone in her body urging her to leave the District and go back to the Encampment in the Forever Fall.

No Harmony and Unity pulled the strings here to ensure public order.

She had witnessed it over and over again since the Fall—the city itself had been obsessed with status quo, with returning to normal.

Vale loved being normal, stale, even ordinary. They prided themselves on it. No matter what, they wouldn’t escalate or act out, instead choosing to ignore everything around them.

A bookstore owner, who happened to be a Faunus, got brutally murdered? That wouldn’t even make it to the news. Just another robbery gone wrong, they’d say.

And for such a place, I still ended up in one of the most chaotic teams here.

Blake chuckled.

Her team had been an exception that only proved the rule.

The chaos at the docks they’d cause? Not a blip on the radar. A stolen weapon from a foreign Kingdom running amok on the highway? Just another case of road rage, they’d say.

And yet a Faunus Rights protest turned violent would be the newsworthy of the front page.

Injustice, discrimination, or hate weren’t this Kingdom’s real enemies—how could they if, according to those in charge, they didn’t exist? Instead, it had been the change that scared them.

Upheaval, Chaos, Unpredictability—those words terrified people here. They lived in this almost utopian sense of permanence, shielded by the safety Beacon’s brightest provided—a lie.

Her group of misfits and her classmates both would get into trouble on an almost daily basis, but to the general populace, they were flawless heroes.

Life would go on, the Emerald spire shining in the distance, the City standing guard, unchanging for centuries.

A comforting illusion—even for her.

Living in this unchanging slumber let Blake Belladonna forget her woes. She could ignore prejudice, and discontent, grow blind to the dark schemes lingering, gathering, simmering beneath the surface, enveloping the city till it strangled all.

Now as she trudged through these crumbling streets, broken people passing by, the city that was still lingered like a ghost.

Looted shops, empty houses, and wilted flowers on the balconies that now rested atop the rubble.

An abandoned cafe, windows boarded, now housing people whose future had been torn from them. A purse, holes scorched through it, resting on a broken bench.

A children’s playground, twisted, crushed by something massive.

A car carcass, out of place, a dead street leaning against the perfume shop split in half.

And from everywhere, anywhere—the spire, shining no more, now a throne to abomination profane, its unworldly horror towering above all

” Nothing here matters!”

A whole Kingdom that had lived in an illusion, its people trained to never peek beneath the curtain. Was it so strange that tragedy blindsided them?

Beacon fell, the Academy grounds lost, covered in toxic ash and malice, the domain of the half-dead thing atop the tower, every inch twisting into Neverlands.

Agricultural and Industrial districts now lay in ruins, creatures of Grimm roaming the streets. Most of the infrastructure crumbled due to ensuing chaos and creatures’ advance. And further, deeper, closer to the Mt. Glenn? Something worse lingered within the fog.

The Residential Districts suffered the worst, The Goliaths of Mt. Glenn moving there, taking it as their new home.

In reality, the city fell before that—terror and chaos claimed the city within seconds, way before the creatures of Grimm did. The fears they never had, the paranoia that never had crossed their minds—they all came crashing down upon the unaware as an act of violence tore apart the curtain, drowning them in uncertainty.

An act of violence broadcast worldwide, like a virus, a pandemic spreading far, infecting all.

Now, a new mantra would be upon everyone’s lips.

“Who can you trust?”

And it would be only a matter of time before the public had tasted it, grown addicted to it.

Yet even in the face of war, Vale, still the petulant child, threw a tantrum, grasping at the vestiges of a dying order.

A new, temporary enclave was established in the forest of Forever Fall, bridging the Upper-Class District, the domain of the rich and powerful, the surviving upper parts of Vale, to the struggling refugees and rebuilding carcass of a city, both.

The Commercial District had swiftly turned into a battlefield, being taken back—because of already reinforced defenses after the Breach from underground. Most of the remaining Huntsmen had gathered in these streets, blood spilling just a few weeks ago where Blake now trode.

The carcass thrashed, flailed, hoping to one day reclaim the rest of itself, waves of Grimm crashing against it, the creatures drawn there by their Elder.

People still believed things hadn’t changed and wouldn’t change.

This stupid attempt to push forward towards Beacon had been the prime example—one that even Blake had bought into. When the Council of Vale’s order to retake the town came, they didn’t hesitate, valiantly pushing forward, Blake included. Students and professors, veterans, and newcomers - they put everything on the line for a newfound sense of hope.

They’d take the city back, they’d take Beacon back, they’d restore order and nothing would change!

In the following days, more huntsmen laid their lives there than through the entire Fall of Beacon. Death was still the reigning champion, the everlasting tyrant of this place.

She shook her head.

Because life wasn’t just another of her stories—the happily ever afters and the near structure, epilogue delivering its message.

Her attempt to sacrifice her life in this valiant last stand had amounted to nothing.

Last stands only ever work in books, in plays, in movies—there they would serve the plot as key moments where fortune smiles upon the downtrodden as heroes vanquish the evil that lay ahead.

Fiction. Tales. Lies.

Unlike the books, life would go on, until it didn’t and nobody would get to stand in the center of this stage.

Only one thing would change everything, upend everything.

Tragedy.

One, and then another, and then another.

Losing everything, gaining something, achieving nothing.

In the real world, there had been only one winner, only one conqueror, worming its way through hopes, dreams, ideals—all the same.

No matter who cried, no matter who tried, in the end, only Death Itself would win.

She shivered, cowering inside her coat.

The decay lingered around her now, beneath the surface of rebirth.

Another cycle.

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.

She stumbled, vertigo spinning her around as her fingers grasped the brick wall.

The people, the huntsmen, the guards, kept on trudging past her, their night duties never changing. They didn’t have time for one of the many, their shoulders crushed by the weight far heavier.

The city had been stuck in that night, going through the motions, refusing to believe they can’t do anything to bring back what had been lost.

Just like her.

Metal, rust, ash on her tongue.

Is this what hopelessness tastes like?

No wonder she had run here to build a new life, no wonder she bought into the hopeless mission to retake the city.

A veil lifted.

This place, this city, it had been a mirror—so much like her, every hypocrisy, every cowardice reflected back at her.

She, too, attempted to ignore the past and her missteps and build a new path for herself. She, too, never learned from her mistakes.

Not until her past caught up with her, its claws digging into her throat, breaking people she grew to care about.

She pushed herself off the wall, and onto her own two feet, fixing her coat.

She couldn’t strut around in her usual outfits right now, as they’d have made it harder for her to blend in, possibly alerting others to where she had been.

Blake couldn’t face them—not now, not until she fixed things, paid for her sins, and made things better somehow.

She had hoped to risk her life in saving Vale, but that had obviously turned out to be a bust.

So what else could she do?

As the moon hid beneath the clouds, a chill ran down her spine.

Her shoulder burned, and she jumped, spinning around, breathless.

It was as if death, her oldest companion, placed its rotten hand on it.

Her eyes darted around, shadows growing, stretching, grasping in her gaze, twisting into an uncanny grin, maws open, welcoming her as the phantasm of her past swung his sword.

She shuddered, stumbling backward.

She won’t end up like this city.

If her life has been just this sinking feeling of futility, then all she could do is refuse to drown.

A single step, in any direction, would be better than standing still atop this swamp of dread and hopelessness that had swallowed everything.

Nobody could fix this city, nobody could undo her mistakes.

She couldn’t take away Yang’s despair, return what was lost, kiss away those tears she'd have shed.

She couldn’t stop the waves of hatred rushing towards the Faunus, all of Faunus—all because of Beacon’s fate, of what her mentor had chosen to do there.

Calamities and tragedies can’t be undone—they can only undo.

Blake clenched her fists, the shadows mocking her, that man’s mask lingering just beyond her sight, mocking her, taunting her.

What could she do? What could she change? Was there anything left for her here?

As she strode through decaying dreams and broken lives that, for the last few months, had been her home, she swore to herself.

She wouldn’t stay still.

She would do something, anything, she could, something she should have.

Her mind, rusty from complacency and ignorance, screamed at her, a list of names, of places, flashing before her eyes.

In this world, where death would claim everything, where everything would end someday, all she could do was end what she had started on her terms.

It might not atone for all of her mistakes or the people she failed and it surely won’t bring an end to centuries of discrimination and hate, but it could be a start.

Could she do it?

Blake froze.

”Very Well, how?” - She repeated the words that stung her before.

Nobody answered her.

Chapter Text

December 10th, 796 E. A
The Grand Schnee Mansion, Kingdom of Atlas

Years ago she stood here, her hand brushing against the window as she gazed at the skies, morning air encroaching upon these marble walls.

She held her breath, her eyes widening as dust danced in the atmosphere, painting the sky aquamarine and purple—a heliotrope blooming in the sky.

Her Grandpa had called it Dusklight—souls of the dead dancing in the last battle against the dark, announcing the coming of spring.

The Longest Night—the Atlesian festival of change and rebirth, he’d tell her. Every year on the eve of December 21st, the battle would start, nights lasting far longer than a day, and by January the festival would be over, the light reclaiming the Cycle.

Her Grandpa had been an ember in the hearth of this mansion, till the day he no longer had been there—fighting in that sky every year, no doubt.

Weiss would still linger, gazing at the skies, only silence accompanying her now.

Her mother would lead her down the hall, smiling—back then, somehow still capable of it—at least till Jacques’s voice would thunder through the mansion.

Her mother’s hand would shake and let her go, the warmth fading.

Empty. Alone.

The winds of Atlas howled, the glass trembling from the force.

Etiquette and self-defense lessons, security detail’s looming presence.

Her mother shoved her forward into the ballroom, lights snapping, pictures taken as Jacques would introduce his beloved family.

She’d spin between the people, bowing, nodding, chirping greetings—rehearsed thousand times over.

What her life had been, what her life had turned into.

Cold. Harsh. Violent.

Just like the warmth of her mother’s hands, just like her Grandpa’s voice, these sensations had been inscribed onto her very soul—the notes of the song that had been her life till now.

Whatever memories she had of her childhood had been tainted, twisted, eroded by the creeping hoarfrost.

Her life had never been her own.

Now once again Weiss Schnee had stood there, as if no time had passed.

She had always lived in this.

Proper Behavior, they had called it—the ability to bury your feelings, bow to the rules, and smile.

Smile. Smile. Smile.

The Heiress, The Successor, The Schnee—those words had been carved into her from the day she had been born.

Every day, she’d live with this feeling that she had been running out of time—that she had to hurry, to be proper, great, to be worthy.

No room existed for mistakes or mischief, for tomfoolery—or even for fun and emotional outbursts.

“The public will eat you alive the moment they notice a single hint of weakness”

Her Grandpa’s words.

Even the hearth of her family had agreed with something all the others would repeat.

So she learned to smile, to freeze that dread into mighty walls hiding her vulnerabilities.

Before she had learned to read and write, before she knew how to sing, Weiss Schnee had learned how to appear strong.

The window creaked from the pressure, as if the glass was about to break from the wind hammering against the mansion.

Schnee name had carried a certain weight, certain pressure to it, too.

“Weiss Schnee.” - She whispered to herself.

The name could part the oceans, ground mountains into dust, and twist forests into desert.

Before Weiss was even a speck of dust in her mother’s eye, the Schnee family had sown the seeds of the Kingdom of Atlas, their investments in research and land reaping benefits beyond their wildest dreams. When her grand-grandfather bankrolled the Mantle Military Research Station expansion up in Mt. Atlas, many of his business associates rolled their eyes.

Waste of time and money, they’d say—back then to many of them, the future of Dust lay in the Menagerie project, after all.

Little did they know that mere years after the Great War, the so-called Research Station would morph into the ground zero of a brand new Kingdom of Atlas.

Whether they had done it out of some misguided sense of patriotism or because of the survey results showcasing rich Dust mines deep within—it didn’t matter.

Her family’s obsession with the whispers of this mountain had paid off.

The Schnee Family—the roots of Mount Atlas, the foundation stone of the Kingdom of Atlas itself.

The mansion they had lived in, situated in the near center of the current city—emblematic of the power her family held over this place now.

Factories, offices, stores.

Mines stretching deep into the heart of the mountain.

Schnee Dust Company—the world’s largest provider of Dust.

Valiant innovators driving multiple industries forward, advancing technologies and fueling the progress of Humanity itself.

Yet to her, her family, the corporation—it took a different shape.

Weiss spun around, facing the shadows of the hallway. The storm outside, mixing with the moonlight, crept inside, shadows dancing as if they had been alive all along.

Tendrils, shackles, roots.

Roots entwining the entirety of Atlas, propelling it on their shoulders.

Yet most would find it hard to view this place as a City. Atlas had been a fortress, a titan of steel—etched into the mountain. It had been crammed full of technology, its steels claws digging deeper, the soldiers patrolling—its blood.

The safest place on Remnant, protected by top-of-the-line weaponry and the natural terrain of the tallest mountain in all the land.

All because of The Schnees.

Was there a thing in this world that wasn’t?

Weiss strode through the hallway, clutching her sides.

Her footsteps echoed.

Click, a dust bullet loaded into a gun, bearing the SDC logo, soon to pierce creatures of Grimm—humanity’s valiant stand against the dark.

Clack, a mech blasted through The City of Vale, its steps reducing it to a barren wasteland—humanity’s sin spilling more blood.

Everything on this land ran on Dust—and thus everything, good or bad, was dependent on them.

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

She sped up, running now, steps—bullets—ringing in her ears.

Her family had been a driving force behind Remnant itself, for better or for worse.

Growing up, one thing had been driven into her over and over again:

“Being at the top of the world comes with a cost. It means becoming an enemy, a target.”

It meant that those below them could only ever stare at them with greed burning beneath their gaze.

Teachers, servants, family - everyone would tell her that her family differed from other nobles and especially from commoners.

Schnees were the pulse of civilization itself, above others—overmen.

There would be people who would be itching to make use of that power, of that influence, whether for misguided ideals, pure intentional malice, or simple greed. If a wrong choice was made, all this power and influence could fall into the wrong hands.

Weiss gritted her teeth.

It already has.

Her biological father.

Jacques Givre didn’t need to be here to be here.

His voice rang through the acoustics of these halls, echoing within each step, each cough. His presence lingered in the cheap status he had insisted should decorate the foyer.

The paintings of the family hung on the walls, frozen in time, as she ran past them—a snapshot of control.

A specter—haunting these halls.

Cold. Harsh. Violent.

Jacques Givre never put in any effort to connect with his biological daughter. The most he would bother with were a few pointers here and there. The man had been very efficient with critique, with putting others down, reprimanding them—and his relationship with Weiss had been no different.

As a man who had married into it, Jacques had been obsessed with the family name, despite not having any right to it nor making any effort to be worthy of it.

Whether the name of the Schnees had been a curse or a blessing, this man wore it with pride like a shroud, a mantle of power.

And if there had been a thing Jacques Givre loved in his world, it would have been power.

Back in the day, he and Grandfather would lock themselves in the Schnee Library, arguing, discussing something, their voices reverberating through the walls. The rest of the time, he’d simmer in the Central Office, head buried in documents, screaming at whoever the unlucky soul would have interrupted him this time.

This hadn’t been a passion of a talented employee.

Those eyes, greed burning beneath the gaze? Jacques Givre had them all the time.

The need to possess more, to control more, to consume the world around him, to twist it to his liking.

Even when he would come in contact with Mother, Weiss could find no warmth in their interaction, no spark. To him, Family had been a set of rituals acted out to keep up appearances, a theatrical performance to frame Jacques in a specific way.

Everything had to be to his liking—just perfect, each element, each person, framing him just the right way for the cameras.

After all, if there had been a thing Jacques Givre had loathed in this world, it would have been things he couldn’t control.

And thus Mother, Winter, and even Weiss herself had become nothing but dolls, puppets for him to arrange, to move around, to pose with.

Mother had long since refused to look at Weiss—she spent her days locking herself in her bedroom, the stench of whiskey lingering as far as the hallway. She’d only come out for parties, where Jacques would need her to play Family. To Weiss, this distant broken woman had always come off as tired—even before Weiss had realized everything going on behind the scenes and before Jacques Givre dropped his facade at home.

This way, in the public eye, Jacques Givre remained a passionate head of the Schnee family—a magnanimous businessman keeping the Kingdom safe, his smart and wise investments and decisions propelling the Atlas into the future.

The man had a way with words, boundless charisma, and cunning—an ability to shift into whatever persona necessary to achieve his goals. He held himself with bravado befitting of a powerful individual—the type of man who would always remain in the spotlight.

A loyal and tireless up-and-comer who had greased the wheels of this eternal machine, ensuring it could squeeze every bit of profit out of this mountain.

A self-made billionaire, who had stepped right out of the magazine covers.

A reflection of truth within a shattered mirror. Warped, twisted, unrecognizable, fake, his family—nothing but props for his image.

For years this ghastly apparition of Family had been all that Weiss knew—normal and expected. Thinking back, that twisted image of her parents might have damaged her willingness and ability to form bonds far more than she realized.

Weiss learned to protect herself, to build walls that even her own blood could not breach. Her father’s behavior had taught her three things one could draw power from.

She didn’t understand why kids her age would tend to keep their distance from her—whether at school or the parties.

A kid would bump into her or say something rude and she would never see them again, as they and their families would get disbarred from socializing with Schnees ever gain. A kid at Ercol Academy would play a harmless prank and would have to transfer schools the next day.

The kids of her Grandfathers and her biological father’s associates would avoid her like a curse, an omen. After all, because of the business the Schnees had run, they’d make a perfect target for righteous Faunus vengeance and business rivals alike.

Every person who came in contact with her would get screened, tested, and even interrogated. Butlers, maids, security—they’d disappear, replaced by new ones. Some would quit. Some would get fired, deemed unfit to serve such an important family. And some would end up dead in a ditch, the blade buried in their stomach.

As she grew, she stopped caring, however.

The surrounding faces would change so fast, that Weiss eventually start ignoring them as if they hadn’t been there.

Isolation, loneliness, alienation—she had been surrounded by these treasures, these signs of strength and refinement.

Empathy, love, vulnerability? Mere weaknesses they had been—the kinds of which she’d never allow herself.

She did try the friendship thing once, as encouraged by her grandfather—a friendship that had lasted for years.

Never again, not after what it had led to.

Back then Weiss had convinced herself she didn’t need friends or connections. Weiss still had her sister, Winter, after all.

Her sister had managed to do one thing Weiss longed to—escape Jacques. She had spent all her days in the Academy, and then in the Military. Whenever Winter would visit home, she and Weiss would meet in the gardens, under that dome where summer reigned no matter the time of the year. There they would talk and joke like sisters would. Beyond their sanctuary, however, Winter always seemed like a stranger in her own home—counting minutes, seconds, till she could leave, escape her parents and this Mansion.

A luxury Weiss didn’t have—yet.

But that was fine. Weiss had grown accustomed to solitude. Music and arts filled the empty void in her heart where her parents could have been. She had told herself countless times that it had been better this way.

Weiss had no vulnerabilities to exploit—she would be a better leader, more logical, more capable, and more rational than others.

For years, she’d repeat that to herself every morning, in front of a mirror.

She was alone, surrounded by cold, embracing the solitude.

And that meant learning to hide, to find places where she could be alone.

Places where she could be safe from Jacques’s wrath.

Weiss stopped, eyes darting, scanning the hallway for signs of life.

Once she had been sure she had been alone, Weiss darted into one of the empty niches in between the columns.

There, leaning against the wall, she shifted the dust lamp, rotating it ninety degrees.

The tapestry of blue and azure rumbled, parting the Mansion and welcoming her beneath the curtain.

A secret passage. The Mansion had been brimming with them—a leftover from the days after the Great War when the City had yet to envelop it with its protection.

Through the years Year had learned of every passage, every panic room that had remained.

Now, back here again, crawling into the crevice inside the wall, the secret entrance closing its maws behind her, an unfamiliar thought crossed her mind.

A thought of how lonely, how empty, how terrifying those spaces she spent her childhood in had been—of how warped her perception of the world had been.

Weiss had spent years in solitude, surrounded by walls she herself had built—everyone around her a target to drive away with that chill, that cold within her stare, the poison on her lips with every word.

Only at Beacon, those walls would thaw—starting with the day that idiot had bumped into her.

The smile and spontaneity of her team’s so-called leader would put her delusions of strength to the test.

At first, Weiss had hesitated to take the hand offered to her. Even though it pained her to admit the truth, she did have an ego befitting the Daughter of Jacques Givre, after all.

So when warmth encroached upon her, she’d hide beneath those walls, beneath that reflection in the mirror that she’d reinforce every morning with the same old mantra.

“Emotion is a weakness. Emotion is a weakness. Emotion is weakness.”

It had taken the existence of her teammate, Blake, and had shattered her world—that lie, that reflection—to pieces.

And that idiot in red, once again, had offered her hand to Weiss, pulling her out of the shards of glass she lay in.

The lies she had shrouded herself finally shattered, only then that face in the mirror, wearing that mask of indifference and cold, would start to terrify her. Only then Weiss would realize how much her reflection had come to remind her of Jacques.

Weiss hadn’t been used to others calling her out on her biases—and not to punish her, but to help her.

That idiot’s smile still lingered whenever Weiss would close her eyes, still warm like the sun.

She wouldn’t trade that memory for anything else in this world.

Only when her team had been taken away from her, did she realize how life-altering her stay at Beacon had been. Before, she had never thought of opening up, of sharing her feelings, of being vulnerable around others without being ridiculed.

Weiss stood still, humming—a melody from back then.

The escape passages contained dim and hollow areas between the rooms, within the walls, meant to provide safety of movement through the house during a possible attack.

In specific corners of the house, however, these passages contained panic rooms—like the one just ahead of her.

A low-ceiling area with an old patched-up couch and a tiny table—that one Weiss had dragged into here. No idea how a couch could have ended up inside the walls, though.

Weiss had plenty of time to familiarize with these spots ever since the days the days when indifference and cold froze her home, snuffing out whatever warmth had remained here.

She strolled to the couch.

She had come here every day now, cleaning the place, sneaking in some books and a dust lamp.

If she were to once again drown in this hellhole, she had to make these places comfortable again—and clean.

When had she started thinking of her home this way—like of a battlefield?

It had started with Grandfather.

As a former Huntsman, Grandpa had been a man filled with energy beyond his age. He had reigned over the company for over thirty years by the time Weiss had been born.

Which is why his retirement took everyone by surprise.

Weiss had been around eleven back then.

Grandpa stepped down from his position as CEO of Schnee Dust Company, naming Jacques Givre, his son-in-law, as the successor to the position among the board.

A decision that would change things forever for her.

Jacques’s presence in the Schnee Mansion grew like invasive, pungent, slimy patches of mold.

Now, the Mansion itself had remained the same—at least from the outside.

Iron gates loomed, the walls hiding the mansion from the eyes of the commoners. If one were to enter, somehow, then they would be greeted by the fountain and the mansion—towering over them like a castle from the myths.

The maze-like gardens still stretched next to it, caged by a glass dome—eternal summer inside. An imposing labyrinth of flowers, lush hedges, and ancient statues celebrating Mantle’s history would remain here forevermore.

And in the middle of the maze, just past that weird flying monkeys statue—the old gazebo, the sanctuary for Weiss and her sister.

Just like her family itself, none of the people outside could tell of the changes taking place inside these walls, as life itself had begun to unravel under Jacques’s influence.

Gone were hues of red and white—the aesthetic choices of her Grandfather. The walls themselves have lost their warmth, suffocated by the bluish marble plating that coated them now.

At night now, the hallways would shine with a ghastly glow, moonlight casting shadows off the grotesque statues Jacques had ordered placed all around.

Weiss slumped onto the couch, her gaze drifting to the floor.

Below her lay the Schnee Library—home to generations of knowledge.

Or at least it should have, had Jacques Givre not altered it into the new Central Office, the old one having been turned into a storage room for Jacques’s purchases of what he had, for some reason, assumed to be art.

Weiss clenched her fists—that man couldn’t recognize art even if someone were to hit him in the face with it.

This was the Grand Schnee Mansion’s reality now—a tasteless, extravagant display of control. Empty halls, chill running through them, shadows dancing madly with every step.

Stone pillars towered by the entrance, giant snakes wrapping around them, their gazes locked to a standstill as they loomed over whatever unlucky soul was to come here.

Then further, inside the foyer, there lay a view that would chill the visitors to the bone—a grotesque statue of a creature, a serpent’s body, yet a human head, strangling the globe of Remnant itself.

Only after she left for Beacon would Weiss learn that the statue itself had been ancient, looted from a museum in the Kingdom of Vacuo during the final days of The Great War.

A fitting monument for the man whose greatest achievement had been worming his way inside a family to defile it from the inside, plastering his name all over an eternity of history.

To the younger Weiss, however, the statue had been just another out-of-place horror, having nested inside her home—just like her biological father.

Weiss leaned back, disappearing into the couch.

Back then, she still had a sanctuary beyond her hideouts.

Grandfather’s workshop—the building in the far east of the mansion that had been untouched by Jacques’s renovations.

Grandpa now would spend his days there, having taken up painting. Jacques and he would barely, if ever, cross paths now—whether intentionally or not, she had no idea.

In rare instances they were to, an argument would break out, the topic at hand far beyond her age back then.

Every day she would visit her Grandpa in the Workshop—a way to escape the chill of her home and Jacques’s mood swings.

The smell of paint would greet her every time, the place littered with paintings, some finished, some not—memories of Grandpa’s life.

Sometimes they’d gaze at the stars and sometimes, she’d ask about a specific painting and Grandpa would descend into his memories, telling her tales from his past, from the decades just after The Great War, when Atlas had just begun.

Among them had been the story that stuck with her to this day—The Breach of Mantle.

Her imagination had conveyed that tale again in her dreams.

The screams, people rushing through the streets.

The Army and the Huntsmen mobilized to fend off the threat.

A single creature, a single aberration that had wandered too close to the city, breaching its walls like nothing.

One of the Ancient Grimm, one of The Goliath.

A denial of life itself.

Not a stampede, not a flock of them.

Just one.

A fable about dozens of people, different occupations and walks of life, laying down their lives against a creature of pure madness—if it could have even been called a creature.

A fable that Grandpa himself had lived through as he, bloody, desperate, and tired, had landed the killing blow upon the abomination that had defiled the city.

It would have been years till she’d read about the rest—the unrest that had reached the boiling point, the suffering of Mantle’s downtrodden attracting the manifestation of despair.

Back then the tale had stuck with young Weiss—valiant heroes laying down their lives for the sake of the city. It had stirred something inside her—a dream to be like him, to help others, to protect others.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be back then—unlike her sister, who had given the position away by joining the military, Weiss had still been an Heiress.

Gods forbid she’d be improper.

And then her Grandpa passed away—a day that still haunted her even now.

The day when she had stood face-to-face with Death Itself. The moment when Jacques Givre had finally dropped his mask, his facade slipping.

Weiss closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.

Memories, sensations, dread.

The wind caressed her face as she stepped out of the vehicle, having returned home from a private tutor.

She hurried inside, head spinning, blood rushing from the temperature difference.

The young her rushed back into the warmth the Mansion could provide from that cold.

The singing lessons had been one thing her Grandpa had managed to provide her—hiring a vocal coach a few blocks from here.

Jacques, on the other hand, never got the whole singing thing—to him, art that served no purpose seemed like nonsense, a waste of time better spent on other matters.

The statues in the mansions served a purpose of projecting his power and control. Her singing—not so much.

“Cease that loud noise.” - his words still reverberated in her head.

Still, he didn’t stop her and thus the lessons, twice a week, had become part of her usual routine.

That fateful day had been no different.

Empty mansion, Jacques nowhere to be found and Mother likely having locked herself in her room.

She’d catch her breath and rush outside once again after changing—right to the workshop.

Only to be greeted by the locked doors.

Dark. Silent. Cold.

Eventually, one of the servants—a maid—had let the dreadful news slip.

Apparently, just a few hours ago, something had happened in the Workshop. The servants didn’t know the details, but the Atlas Military Police had been involved and Jacques had ordered the entire staff to keep the matter confidential.

Only later would she learn the truth—an assassin had managed to sneak past the security, scale the east side walls, and, undetected, slither inside the Workshop.

The Mansion, the entire City, had been placed under lockdown and the suspect would be cornered within hours as they had tried to leave Atlas. Unfortunately, they could detain them alive.

Weiss never found out the identity of the murderer, or their motives, but did it matter? Knowledge wouldn’t give Grandpa back to her. It wouldn’t undo what happened.

It wouldn’t change the fundamental truth of her entire life.

Weiss Schnee was alone.

Forever. Always.

Her personal hell had started back then when Jacques Givre came back that day.

He crashed through her bedroom door, his stare piercing straight through her, screaming, ranting at her in that dismissive tone of his as he paced through the room.

Weiss couldn’t recall the topic beyond his usual demeaning jabs at how useless she had been. That day had been the first time Weiss had felt blood boil within her veins as Jacques kept defiling Grandpa’s memory, screeching about protocol.

A thought had wormed its way into her mind back then.

There’s no way I can ever call this man my father.

Jacques Givre had cared more about his hair dye than about what had happened.

And young Weiss, head still spinning from what had happened, eyes blood-red, couldn’t hold her anger back anymore.

She was not going to let it stand. She was not going to let Jacques slander him.

And then he lunged towards her, his hand swinging.

Weiss bolted back up from the couch, sweat drenching her forehead.

Her eyes darted through the panic room as if to confirm she had been alone.

She shook her head.

For Weiss, singing had been her passion. Often she would drift off inside her thoughts, composing lyrics in her head—a mental exercise that made it easier to pass time.

To be anywhere but here.

Was it so strange a girl longing to escape her gilded cage would turn her hobby into something more?

She couldn’t speak and couldn’t change her fate back then, so she poured her life and emotions into songs instead.

Young Weiss enrolled into an academy of combat and arts here at Atlas, which came with its own twists and turns.

Eventually, her father would find a use for her songs.

She became a literal idol of the company that bore her family name—it had helped to keep the facade going, as well as entrenching The Schnees into Atlas society even more.

An untouchable, unapproachable songbird stuck in her prison, walled off by torrents so cold she would bear signs of frostbite on her body, from day to day.

How many ways of hurt there had been that wouldn’t even leave a scar!

But even all the pain and isolation weren’t able to take her voice away.

And so the songbird sang.

A nightingale, a bluebird.

She sang of lost friendships torn apart by betrayal, of uncertainty gnawing from within, of the loved ones disappearing in the fog, and of loneliness, the tomb encasing her soul.

Something in her words, in her voice, had obviously resonated with people as her popularity grew—a sliver of power Jacques Givre mistakenly ended up allowing her.

And every second within the spotlight meant keeping Jacques Givre at a distance, severing his control over her life.

The Academy had taught her how to fight and how to sing, and in this case, these concepts had been one and the same.

Weiss fought, grasping for even a speck of power, of agency within her life.

Eventually, she would fight for it with her rapier too—a gamble, a bet with her father that he had miscalculated. In the end, a wound across her face would be a fair price to escape the cage.

Weiss traced the scar running through the left side of her face. Sometimes she would forget it even had been there.

She smirked—to Jacques Givre, this scar had been an eyesore of his own making.

A mutilation—a mark of damaged goods.

Yet to her, the mark upon her face, in all of its sweet asymmetry, had become a symbol of the path forward—away from that man.

And yet now that dream had shattered into a thousand pieces, like a mirror.

Weiss Schnee had found herself back here, back again—creeping through secret entrances, hiding within a panic room, shivering from Jacques’s voice ringing through the halls.

Back here with the same absentminded cruel Mother who seemed to have grown even thinner and the same two-faced monster of a biological father.

Here, in the monarch’s mighty castle—a target for envious eyes outside.

The people in the streets, the people below—they couldn’t know what terrors lay beneath the facade of this place.

They couldn’t see the dance of despair through its windows, the shadows dancing off the monoliths proclaiming the tyrant’s reign.

The Mansion hadn’t changed.

Jacques Givre hadn’t changed.

The same prison, the same prisoner.

And yet everything had been different.

What Jacques couldn’t tear away from her were her memories, her experiences back in Vale.

Weiss wasn’t the same naïve privileged girl as before—she gazed upon her childhood home as if for the first time ever.

The imperfections could no longer escape her—just like the cracks within the statues int he Mount Atlas Excavation Museum.

With every passing hour, what used to be an inescapable cage had shifted into something more infuriating.

If there had been one thing she had learned in Vale, it was that sometimes the prisons—whether real or within one’s heart—existed to be broken out of.

She didn’t need Jacques to allow her power.

She didn’t need to see the world his way, hues of azure blue blinding her to the warmth that friendship and hope could provide.

And thus the Mansion had shifted, changed, before she could even realize it.

Did she ever notice just how many servants her family had before—of how terrified they looked at her whenever she would speak or make a demand?

The World of Jacques Givre had no longer been normal or acceptable to her.

Even the City had changed.

With every stroll outside, she’d see a different Kingdom than she had before. Had Weiss ever considered why, out of the entire Faunus population within Mantle, ever since the inception of Atlas, somehow the City had remained mostly human?

Had she ever considered why so many would have worked within the Dust Mines instead?

Had she ever wondered about the eight o’clock curfew—the moment when the Council’s clock-tower would strike seven, the bells ringing through the city, as all citizens vanished off the streets? The city would fall silent, military police patrolling the streets. Then, the next morning, as the clock would strike seven, the city would, once again, come alive.

How come her family and others as influential as the Schnees could ignore the curfew whenever they had wished?

The Mansion, The City, The Kingdom—Atlas hadn’t just been suffocating and oppressive to her.

It infuriated her.

It made her want to change things—to be the person she aspired to be, to leave her family’s mark upon this world in a way that defied Jacques’s will.

The bastard never ever thought of her running away. After all, she couldn’t leave the Kingdom even if she wanted right now.

And Winter still hadn’t visited.

Weiss wasn’t going to just calmly sit back—a trophy, a diamond atop the monarch’s crown.

She’d cling to every shred of power to change her fate.

No longer that little girl hiding in the walls, she’d find a path out of here.

Her teammates needed her. It had been her turn to pull them up out of shards of the world broken by violence and hate.

She’d be there for them, she’d be there.

Somehow.

She gazed at the table—at the sketches, at the plans she had drawn.

Jacques’s schedule, military patrols, and servant shift changes.

She’d just have to find a gap wide enough—and the means to make use of it.

And for that, she needed her sister.

Yet the calls remained unanswered, straight to the voice mail—the only piece of her sister’s voice since they had left Beacon.

Weiss glared at her scroll.

Well, if she won’t visit, I’ll just have to pay her a visit instead.

But first, she had to have something to offer—an idea, a concept of a plan to drag her sister into.

SLAM.

A noise below interrupted her thoughts.

Weiss crawled onto the ground, right where the center of the room below would have been. The Grand Office.

Pathways and panic rooms within the walls had allowed Weiss to avoid Jacques during the days when his fury would boil over.

Being able to spy on him was a bonus.

The old Central Office Grandpa had used had been designed as an enclosed and secure location from the day the mansion had been built.

The Schnee Library, on the other hand, had always been a public place until Jacques had converted it into his office.

A source of knowledge to spend an evening with your family and friends.

A location with perfect acoustics.

Which meant that if one knew the exact structure of the building, they could find the exact spot the sound could travel the clearest through.

Frequent and uneven steps—Jacques.

Well-paced, heavy stroll—someone from the military.

There was no way to peek inside, but Weiss could recognize who had entered the office below—the moment they had started talking.

“What were you thinking?”

The shaking, deep voice of General Ironwood—angrier than Weiss had been used to.

The general had rarely visited the Mansion—Weiss had gotten the sense that he couldn’t stand Jacques. Meanwhile, Jacques never quite forgave him for military stealing her firstborn daughter, as he had put it to Mother before.

“There’s no need to be so angry, General.” - a hoarse, patronizing voice of her father. - “I thought we had agreed to this before.”

She could never stand that accusatory tone of his—his every word seeping out as if he were judging her, proclaiming his superiority.

“No. Not to this. Things have changed.”

“Oh, have they? The treaty still stands and our agreement with Mistral remains true, does it not?” - the voice coughed, expectorating, before laughing. - “You’re worrying too much, General.”

SLAM.

Another sound reverberated through the floor below her. Weiss could practically imagine the General slamming his fist onto Jacques’s desk—she had even entertained the delicious vision of Jacques jumping back in his chair a bit.

“Do you have any idea of the consequences?!” - The general shouted now. - “Remnant’s a powder king. The last thing we need is another war—and all because you had sent that thing over there.”

“Calm down, General. Everything is still going according to the plan you agreed to.”

“Except that need I remind you that the communication’s down? If an issue were to arise over there, we can’t exactly sort whatever misunderstandings may arise!”

“That’s an overreaction and you know it, General. We both agreed this was a necessary course of action. If the Project is to continue, we need this transaction to be completed.”

“And who gave you the right to make the decision all by yourself—bypassing the military and the council both?”

“Well, I am the one financing the whole project, if you remember. The Schnees had been staunch supporters of what you all are doing over there, for decades.” - Jacques paused. - “Besides, starting a war with us would be suicidal, especially now of all times. We could squash Mistral in three days tops.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Relax. The information I sent over is sufficient and everything is handled through proper channels.”

“There are no channels anymore.”

SLAM.

Speckles of dust and cobwebs slowly floated down around her.

That was a strong one.

Weiss had found herself wondering how many hits that kitschy table could take before Jacques would have to give up on it.

“Oh, you better hope nothing goes wrong. When it comes to military secrets, there won’t be any court or due process for you if it does. So remember that, the next time you decide to make more of these, as you said, decisions, by your lone self.”

“Thank you, General. I will be sure to keep your advice in mind.”

THUNK.

The door slammed shut—followed by steps, faster than before but still as heavy.

Weiss bolted back onto her feet, rushing out of the panic room, through the passage, and back into the hallways.

She darted to the window, gazing outside, scanning the area by the main exit.

And surely, as expected, General Ironwood stormed out of the Mansion in a hurry.

No Winter in sight.

It had been like her sister had disappeared off the face of the land and Weiss couldn’t understand why.

She could understand that matters had been more frantic and confusing than ever in the Military, as the Kingdom grew more uneasy day by day.

Nobody could figure out whether Beacon’s fall had been the start of something bigger—and if so, what that something would have been.

After all, when news would travel by foot, they would no longer travel fast—Atlas had no way of knowing what had transpired in the other three Kingdoms right now, what kinds of conclusions the governments there could have drawn.

Not without literally sending couriers back and forth to the other continents.

Did the Kingdom of Mistral view this as a chance to reopen old territorial disputes? Were those in charge furious with Atlas and Vale?

Weiss had an idea of which family Pyrrha Nikos had come from—the thought of someone like that being killed by a secret weapon from the Kingdom of Atlas, broadcast to the entire world, could spark more than fury.

It could spark a war.

Let alone the Pyrrha’s unfortunate, yet heroic, passing—on foreign soil.

And how about Vacuo—did people there view this as the beast of Atlas baring its fangs? The scars ran not only through the sands of Vacuo, but through the hearts of every person living there too, the crimes Mistral and Mantle had committed there still fresh in their minds.

Add the White Fang into the mix, let alone Atlas military tech running amok and the other Kingdoms’ reactions could have been anything.

The only unified message the chaos at Beacon had conveyed to the world had been a chilling one.

“You are not safe, nor you ever there. Who can you truly trust, then?”

Weiss scolded herself for paraphrasing that woman’s words from the broadcast, the recording of which she had replayed far too many times by now.

Chaos. Uncertainty. Hate.

In the case of Vale, she couldn’t even be sure if the Kingdom even still existed right now, at all.

Weiss shivered, pinching her cheeks.

No, Vale’s still there. Snap out of it you, dolt—now is not the time.

Sure, her sister had been busy, no doubt—but that wouldn’t explain the ignored calls, the radio silence.

And then the exchange she just had witnessed—or, well, heard, more like.

The Atlas closing its borders had Jacques’s fingerprints all over it already—her biological father just loved waxing about self-sufficiency and how other Kingdoms had been bloodletting Atlas for their benefit.

Who else would pull the strings to close the Kingdom’s borders under the pretense of heightening tensions worldwide—over the idea that Atlas can only trust themselves?

Surprisingly, The General didn’t get in the way of that—likely, because deep inside General Ironwood agreed this was the best course of action.

Why?

Maybe he had thought about Atlas being the next target by whoever had been behind Beacon’s Fall or maybe because the General had been afraid of this escalating into another Great War, like he had just proclaimed to Jacques.

It didn’t matter.

The outcome would still be the same—Atlas shutting itself away from the world.

Mere days after Weiss had come back from Vale, Atlas effectively ceased all trade with the other Kingdoms and focused its resources inward, having recalled its companies and citizens back.

Whatever had been going in the world, this would mean Vale and Mistral would no longer get Dust shipments and all Atlas companies would have to close their international branches.

The Kingdom Fortress would turn into a literal fortress, bracing for what may.

As she gazed at the General’s car disappear behind the Mansion’s gates, the conflict between him and Jacques still rang in her ears.

Atlas had many secrets, as the Fall of Beacon had shown, but Mistral—what was that all about?

Ever since the end of The Great War and the ascent of Atlas into a full-fledged Kingdom, the relations between Atlas and Mistral had been complicated, to say it simply.

Neither Kingdom wanted to admit their past mistakes, nor highlight their cooperation during the Great War. Yet at the same time, many of those in power within both Kingdoms still had ties to individuals who had caused the many atrocities during the War—the Faunus trade, the Scarring of Vacuo, the Anti-Emotion Edict, among them.

Those individuals had faced justice in joint trials after the War, but the connections could still be traced back.

Reminding people of those ties would end political careers, no matter the Kingdom.

Thus the representatives of all Kingdoms would never openly discuss how much resources they had poured into joint post-war projects—whether it had been Mistral’s unification and Argus or the Atlas Project.

Whether it would be rebuilding the Kingdom that had started the largest war in Remnant’s history or repairing the Kingdom that had been responsible for one of the worst ecological disasters—nobody would want to take credit, considering how easily it could have been spun into negative PR.

Yet Mistral still needed dust for its forges and Atlas needed trade allies to rise from the ashes of Mantle—and it had been in Vale’s best interest for all Kingdoms to remain stable.

What came after the war had been an unspoken alliance where neither side had to trust the other, yet all were more than willing to profit off the silent partnerships that came to be.

The most people would hear would be collaborations between companies, not governments.

In turn, the Kingdom of Mistral would grow a new heart, the Port city of Argus.

The Kingdom of Atlas would dig even deeper into the mountain.

Meanwhile Vale would benefit from a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity, compensating for the areas that had now been lost to the Grimm, transformed into the Neverlands.

It had taken decades for Kingdoms to speak of Atlas positively, let alone gloss over the issues with Mistral.

And yet even now the governing forces of Kingdoms themselves, especially Mistral and Atlas, kept to themselves, exchanging stern or, at best, neutral rhetoric—reaffirming the importance of peace, celebrating joint competitions like the Vytal Tournament.

They’d spread platitudes about the progress of humanity, yet still jump at shadows, afraid to turn their backs to each other.

Weiss scoffed.

A joint military project between two Kingdoms on the losing side of the Great War sounded preposterous—hard to believe the governments would have even signed off on something like that.

Especially now that the carefully crafted ties between the Kingdoms had been severed, all four Kingdoms were gripped by paranoia and uncertainty.

If anything, cooperation would be paused, even if just for a while.

Yet Jacques had just bulldozed through protocol to make this happen, to make some kind of deal, some kind of transaction with Mistral.

Right after lobbying for isolationist tactics, no less.

Whatever gambit Jacques had attempted here eluded her.

She spun away from the window, darting through the hallway towards her room.

Could Jacques have gotten involved in something way over his head? Could that monster be far less invulnerable than I had thought? Could karma truly exist in this world?

She hopped through the hallways, her steps echoing once again.

Click, the lights turning off, burying the kingdoms in darkness.

Clack, the cage doors shutting off, trapping her in her past.

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

All the way back to her room, another sanctuary—as if she had never left.

Jacques Givre didn’t care what his daughter had been doing, but it did not hurt to be careful.

It was impossible to escape his grasp for now, but she had to find a way.

Shivers ran down her spine—whatever Jacques had been up to now couldn’t be good.

That monster craved power, craved control, more than anything else.

For him to openly defy and confront a General?

She slowed down, tip-toeing through the halls.

Creak—she pulled the door open, gritting her teeth at the sound.

Soon her room greeted her with familiar hues of red and white—her sanctuary.

Jacques Givre never had bothered to invade upon her or to dictate how her room would look and thus through years she had managed to get the servants to revert his petty renovations—if only within this space.

Small victories.

Weiss yanked the door shut, pressing her back against the wood—a dense, polished surface that had once been an Anima tree.

As if to reassure herself that nobody is about to burst inside.

Not that they would.

Weiss closed her eyes.

Anima trees—one of the most resilient plants on the surface of Remnant.

They’d grow on every continent, regardless of climate, their lifespan spanning centuries.

A tree effortlessly torn from its roots sliced apart and transformed into a carcass.

Twisted into a decoration.

Weiss bolted forward, gritting her teeth, fists clenched, nails digging into her palms till they had drawn blood.

She wouldn’t be just a decoration.

She wouldn’t be just another trophy.

People were waiting for her return—whether it had been that annoying blondie or that idiot or the judgmental Blake.

Weiss stomped her foot—a weak thud barely registering within the ambiance.

The great huntress-in-training, the Schnee Heiress, the Bearer of her Grandfather’s will and ideals, threw a display of her power unbound.

A childish, barely noticeable tantrum.

That’s all the power Weiss had here—that’s all her freedom and conviction had amounted to.

Weiss shook her head, inhaling as deep as she could.

For now.

Things would change.

She wasn’t that little girl anymore, cowering in the corner of her room at the mere thought of Jacques.

She just had to find a weakness, a way to break out of her cage once again and—

Weiss froze.

She had always been meticulous about keeping her bedroom tidy. Even at Beacon, she had demanded a certain kind of order, which often would result in an outright war with that idiot.

Even after she would finish messing with her Dust rounds, she would make sure the vials would be organized—ordered in the kind of way that only she could understand.

Everything in her room had its place.

Which is why it had been so easy to tell when something here had been out of place.

Something that didn’t belong.

A bright red envelope was placed on her bedside table.

Her heart skipped a beat.

That hadn’t been there before when she had left the room a literal hour ago to go on her adventure inside the walls.

Legs trembling, she slouched closer.

The envelope could have been anything considering Weiss standing—poison, explosive, a random love letter.

She scoffed, writing off that last option.

Oh, to hell with it!

She grabbed the envelope, tearing it open.

Inside there had been an ivory white piece of paper, the size of a business card.

Completely blank except for a single line of text, written with black ink.

“Broken watch and the floorboard. 85. We need to talk. A Friend.”

Weiss crumbled onto the bed, her head spinning.

Ghosts and apparitions had danced in this mansion she once had called home.

Ghosts bearing the names of Conspiracy and Despair.

Chapter Text

RED.

The scythe whooshed in a spin, cleaving the air.

A roar thundered.

She snapped forward, lunging at the liquid shadow creeping towards her.

Familiar faces waved goodbye, closing the door as they left her behind.

Such things always had terrified Ruby Rose.

She growled, her scythe dispersing the shadow as it dissolved in the laughter of her mother.

RED.

Ever since a young age, Ruby couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she had been all alone. Ever since that day, since the dream of her mother whispering her goodbye, she struggled to fill the void inside with something, anything she could grasp with her two hands.

Her dreams and imagination had haunted her very being.

Ruby lived as if she were dreaming. Yet elsewhere she would dream a life that had never been her own.

Her dreams had been vivid, dripping with the aroma of emotions she could never quite put into words.

Gasps never taken would echo as thunder scorched the wooden deck of a navy ship. And sometimes?

In a single breath, ears ringing, she’d find herself in the middle of the forest, the tree branches clattering, chattering, whispering the names of those she had never met.

Before a single heartbeat struck, she’d sink into desert sands as screams of thousands would echo somewhere deep below, so deep the voices would get tangled in the branches of the universe itself.

Sometimes she’d witness a vision out of time and sometimes—something simpler.

A farmer, shadow washing over him in the fields.

She had been familiar with that sensation of finality all her life, starting with her mother—and more recently, her friend.

RED.

Ruby screamed as the scythe connected with another apparition. Gripping the handle, gritting her teeth, she tore the horror in half, but that hadn’t been enough.

She spun around, a horizontal slash shredding the falling form as it hit the dirt with the melody of rust and steel.

One by one they’d lunge at her, claws, teeth, and crimson gaze.

What had she been fighting for? Who?

She couldn’t tell, even if these beasts were to ask her.

Time crept to a standstill in her world, as a single color washed over everything, like an ocean, just like when it had drowned her mom.

RED.

One dream had nested inside her brain for years now—an unfathomable city, idling on the edge of an abyss.

She’d smell pain, and she’d smell happiness as her fingers traced the walls, the sensation of red grazing at her fingertips.

The doors, the stairways to them, would burrow inside a wall, the rooftops bending over themselves in ways that didn’t quite fit.

She’d chant to herself that it had been but a dream, yet dream logic could only explain so much.

Stairways like spirals burrowing inside the wall, rooms that had more walls than she could count, the stars that sparkled in the reflection of the well.

And those thrones, marble thrones, awaited the victor.

Each dream she’d rise from in a cold sweat, screaming herself awake.

And then, here it would be.

A figure in her room, just out of sight, creeping towards her bed—never quite seen, but always heard as its limbs would tangle, thrashing somewhere on the ground, towards her.

Ruby would dream of waking up, only to wake again, only to wake again, only to wake again.

And each time, that thing would have crept closer to her body as she’d lay still there, dreaming, unable to move—her breath stuck inside a scream.

She’d bolt from her bed, eyes darting around the room as if in disbelief that she had returned.

In those waking moments, her head would burst with thoughts she couldn’t parse—white noise gnawing at her brain.

She’d breathe quicker and quicker, as the walls would bend towards her.

Any moment, any second now, the ceiling would cave in on her, had the walls not crushed her.

The sensation of it breaking apart, the unknown above just rushing into the room, swarming over her—it would leave her shivering, gasping for air.

She’d grasp her pillow as she struggled to breathe.

Sometimes she’d claw at her face as if trying to scrub a layer of dirt that hadn’t been there. She hoped that would have given her a reprieve from this, grounding her in the world.

Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been another presence in the room—staring, hunting, observing.

It.

Its head would peek from the bed, its gaze burrowing into her brain.

That which had crawled out of the crevices of the earth had lingered by her side, yet she couldn’t assign the words that could contain its meaning.

That which had many names she couldn’t quite name.

Waiting for her to move, to say something, before it could lunge at her.

Eventually, her eyes would settle on Yang.

Her sister would stay with her through the night.

She’d read her stories, fairytales, myths.

Ruby’s imagination would dispel the white noise, the stories filling her mind set in places beyond time.

Two Brothers, Sanus, and Solitas, would trade places with each other, crawling up the mountain to hold the dome of the sky.

Anima would cry tears of stone, drowning the darkness to protect her children as Anima Trees would spring forth from her sacrifice.

Dying Beast would carry the stowaways through an unpredictable journey through the seas, as the Trickster Spider tempted them.

Each tale materialized larger-than-life heroes who fought her inner chaos, restructuring her thoughts.

Heroes like her mother, who had read her the tales before.

Heroes like her sister, watching over her now.

Heroes guarding her dreams, allowing her to drift off to sleep once again.

RED.

Ruby glared at the beast that had crashed down onto her from the ruins’ rooftop, its paws splitting the ground like thunder.

A bloated, malevolent mass of hate and despair.

She had gotten so used to screaming now, as the emotions she once had bottled up would surge like blood.

Rolling to the side and from under the wolf-like phantom, she swung her scythe.

The gash in its chest couldn’t slow it down.

Why was she fighting these monsters? She couldn’t quite remember, yet, but with each wound inflicted, with each swing of her scythe, there would be a reprieve.

There had been one constant within the white noise—the clarity that those things can die, no, must die.

The beast howled as her scythe tore off its hind legs.

It had crawled towards her now, snarling, shrieking—whispering.

A shot to the head had finally silenced it.

RED

Ruby’s childhood hadn’t been easy even during the waking hours, even after those dreams had gone away.

Most vivid memories of her earliest years involved a door creak as a figure towered arguing with another, screaming.

As she lay in bed, the walls would tremble.

Eventually, Ruby figured out it had been her Uncle and Dad—arguing, screaming, quarreling with each other.

Yet, when in her presence, they would wear smiles on their faces like nothing had happened.

There were clues, of course—Dad tapping fingers on the table or glaring whenever Uncle Qrow would state he had more time to spend with them or stories to tell.

It was as if Dad struggled to make sure she and Yang would spend as little time with Qrow as possible.

Soon Ruby had realized—Red had haunted her world.

Color Red—lingering in the empty house, clinging to that grave, glittering beneath her father’s gaze or her sister’s smile.

As she matured, she recognized Red by another name. Its true meaning, the cold logic beneath the visage dying her world.

Death—the phantom that had taken her mother, that had reminded her how cruel and cold the world had been.

Ruby would do anything to elude it, to get away from its grasp, its claws burrowing into her skin.

She would dream while awake instead.

She’d lift the heroes and champions of those tales into reality; she’d long for them to squash all that is vile in this world.

Her sister would help her, unwittingly. Yang would partake in her adventures—whether the sisters would climb trees or build pillow forts, whether their imagination would conjure dragons or face off against the figures in black, the myth about the Ankou, the priests of death itself, still fresh on her mind.

Whenever she’d stare into the distance, her gaze would soar over the horizon into the landscapes filled with castles and beats most fantastic—the kinds only her imagination could have conceived.

Within the fairytales, everything would make sense, as the narrative would order the world itself into a story.

Hope would overcome Death.

Heroes would persevere, bringing about the Happily Ever After to the Kingdom.

Families would reunite, and parents would smile, dancing with their children.

Ruby wouldn’t have to gaze at the forest haunted by the visage of her mother—a pale dot of white disappearing beneath the forest’s teeth.

If only she could deny the reality around her and bring about miracles instead where fairytales would dance on her fingertips.

She had to make this world real.

She had to.

She needed to be The Hero, and Heroes would always have a goal and a superpower.

Ruby made that fateful decision back then.

Red would be her superpower—she would wield that which she had feared, twisting it into something heroic, something positive.

She’d cover herself in Red so it could protect her from the harsh winds of this world, as she’d inscribe the stories of those books into the world around her with every step.

She’d make it real—the fairytales, the stories, the myths—the hope.

If this world attempted to steal her warmth away, she’d prove it wrong—she’d prove all of them wrong.

Everything would have meaning, people wouldn’t just leave, and good would always triumph.

She could have that power—The Huntsmen are heroes, after all.

Her mother was one, and Summer Rose was a hero.

One memory had lingered in her head since early childhood—the visage of her mom, stepping inside her room, kissing her on the forehead goodbye.

Ruby swore on her mother’s grave that day that she’d follow in her footsteps, take the same responsibility, and tread the same path.

Ruby Rose would be a Huntress—the champion of the people against the injustices of this world.

RED

A tide washed over her.

A sea, nay, an ocean of shadows—wolf-like apparitions.

Or maybe a sky—filled with the stars of crimson Red.

She gritted her teeth as she swam against the tide, her scythe steering her through Death Itself.

Ten, twenty, hundred—it didn’t matter.

With each swing, she had morphed into a force of nature, a storm, a hurricane splitting the ocean apart, tearing through the stars.

She wouldn’t stop until all stars had died, and only the void had remained.

Ruby Rose danced.

Thump, thump—her heartbeat, to the beat of the drums.

There was no logic to her steps, no intelligence behind the dance, but the instinct most perilous guiding her hand.

And she reveled in it, drowning in rage instead.

She would be the vessel of Red and whatever her Eyes could see would perish by her hand. And the Red had been overflowing for a long while now, leaking, flowing, bursting.

Like an ocean of death.

Only within this could she find the meaning behind each swing—only within the ash could she find oxygen in her lungs.

And only through her weapon swung could her screams persevere.

RED

Ruby couldn’t make any friends at Signal Academy—she didn’t even try.

She wouldn’t.

Striking up a conversation with a stranger didn’t interest her one bit.

Back then, rage overflowing, Ruby would get into fights even though she couldn’t win them.

And that would force others, mostly her sister, to intervene.

Anger had been easy back then—she didn’t need to think or try to vocalize all these feelings boiling inside, threatening to burst.

How could she talk to anyone about her Mom or the thoughts that plagued her soul? How could she tell her Dad his arguments with Uncle had plagued her dreams?

Thus, in the moments that mattered, Ruby would find it hard to pick the correct words, to say the right things.

What’s more, she could never intrude upon the conversations she thought she didn’t belong in.

But why should that worry her? She didn’t need friends—every second of her existence should be dedicated to fulfilling her dream, to being the best Huntress, the best Hero that she can be.

She dedicated herself to becoming the best she could ever be.

Surely she didn’t do this because of fear—the thought that had she ever opened up, Red would swallow everything and everyone she had cared about.

She’d run faster, sprint forward, bolting towards her ideal.

She would be quick enough to stop it the next time Red had rebelled against her—strong enough to deny it its prize.

Ruby Rose would save everyone, even if she couldn’t her mother.

Some Heroes in the tales had companions, while others had trodden a lonely path, but what mattered in the end was their ability to turn the tide to help people.

It’s what made them Heroes—fulfilling their purpose, changing the world.

The rest would come together all the same.

She didn’t need stupid dresses or parties or birthdays for this.

Okay, she might still have needed birthdays—but only with Yang and Dad and maybe Qrow if he had been sober enough.

Everything was fine.

Reflecting upon one’s path had been pointless.

She’d move forward.

She’d move forward.

She’d move forward.

RED.

She rushed forward as the second wolf bolted straight at her, crashing into her scythe’s handle, howling.

Pushed backward, she swung it, pulling the trigger, as the bullet caught the creature unprepared as it rushed towards her.

It crumbled, to dust, to ash—with a gasp, with a choking sound of disbelief an animal would have when caught within a bear trap.

Ruby gritted her teeth.

Was she here on this island? Or had she still been at Beacon that night, never having left?

Her head pounded, her heart threatening to burst out of her chest.

Her blood boiled as the silence enveloped her.

How many had she slain now? Well, there had to be more, there had to be more, there had to be more!

The weight of the weapon in her hands? That crunch when her scythe connected the sensation of pressure as it burst through the apparitions?

Pure catharsis, her screams manifested into being, the continuity of her existence.

Had she always been this way? Something whispered inside, gnawed at her very essence, telling her to stop, to breathe, to listen.

But Ruby couldn’t.

Because when it had mattered, she could do nothing but watch.

She wasn’t fast enough, strong enough.

She failed.

Years of running from problems, attempting to deny the world its realities, ignoring the truth—the dam broke, and the ocean crashed against her, smelling of rust, its cinders burning her skin.

Ruby grasped upon her cloak—torn and sundered by ash and death.

She could no longer hide within it, she could no longer hide behind a smile—the ability to do so burned right in front of her that night.

Not with a scream, but with a silent gasp of disbelief.

The next time she opened her eyes, the world she had so carelessly built shattered into a million pieces.

Vale—covered in ash—the city she had sworn to protect was torn apart by death and metal alike.

Her team—covered in ash, as she saw them lay there in pieces, no matter how hard she had worked to overcome her insecurities.

What a leader!

The dream she had worked so hard to fulfill, struggling to be the Huntress her mother would have been proud of, no longer mattered—as she had been just in time to see the very personification of that ideal reduced to cinders.

Ruby’s legs wobbled.

That which she had run from had finally caught up with her.

Death and despair invaded her life, dividing her team

She had learned responsibility and leadership just in time to fail at both.

RED

The worst part had been her sister’s eyes—Yang would no longer meet Ruby’s gaze, as if fearful of those eyes crushing her.

Ruby wasn’t there when Yang got hurt. She wasn’t there when Yang woke up, screaming, and thrashing in her bed as realization of what happened hit her.

She never asked her sister what had happened—of how she had lost her arm.

All she could do was avoid confrontation, trying to change the topic, to inspire hope and positivity.

A mistake—her sister didn’t want a silver lining or a happy epilogue to their story no matter how much Ruby had longed for it.

It would only infuriate her even further, till that fateful day that facade had cracked to the point of no return.

All Ruby could do was keep running.

Not moving forward—running.

Even if it meant dashing far away to a land unknown, on a wild goose chase based upon nothing but a few lingering sentences from Uncle Qrow and hearsay.

Cinder had come from Mistral, Ruby would reason. She had infiltrated Beacon via Haven Academy, so there had to be a paper trail left. So was this a journey to track Cinder down?

Blake had come from Mistral—that much Ruby knew. So would this be a journey to bring her back? How about Weiss, who had been taken to Atlas? After all, the only way to enter or leave Atlas now had been through the northernmost part of Atlas—the place where Anima and Solitas would meet—the Land of Roots.

Not to mention The Great War came to a stop in Mistral, according to Uncle Qrow. And Professor Ozpin had been involved.

Even though the man himself had been missing, maybe she could find something there?

Something about the man who had known about her Eyes.

None of those threads would connect in any discernible way. In fact, most of these have been a stretch at best.

Yet all of them had somehow led to the same Kingdom.

As jumbled and haphazard such idea had been, the only direction she could see ahead was offering Jaune, Ren, and Nora a chance to travel to Pyrrha’s birthplace and return her belongings to her family for closure.

A pointless, hopeless chase of a journey to honor their friend.

Yet Ruby could not find something else to live for.

When Ren had offered to travel with the smugglers, Ruby gasped, but not out of surprise.

All because there had been no other way.

With Atlas closing its borders, air transport had been a no-go. Most of the Atlesian airships had retreated into Atlas airspace, after all. Vale had few vessels of their own, but the Council restricted them to government use, sending out envoys and politicians back and forth between the four kingdoms, all while amassing resources and manpower for what Ruby hoped was a valiant effort to retake the town.

Argus had also closed their ports now, denying entry to Vale’s ships as she and her friends had found out in Iosal.

The only hope they had was to go through the southernmost part of The Shallows—the path of smugglers.

She knew of pirates and smugglers, risking everything for profit, even though the very idea had struck her as dumb.

The day she had stepped upon the deck that cargo ship docked in Iosal, a push and pull of dread and curiosity battled within.

She did not dare to think of what exactly was being transported inside those cargo boxes inside the locked areas of the ship. After all, if she had let herself, then she would have to come to terms with the fact that they had been using people like this for transport.

And that nobody batted an eye at that fact—neither smugglers nor her friends.

Was this what the Huntsmen do? Entering another Kingdom with the help of criminals, turning a blind eye to their business so lucrative that they would risk everything for it. And that the business would continue even after she and her friends had left the ship.

RED

Storm clouds boiled upon the horizon, thunder roaring through the skies.

Oh right, she had been on this island because of a storm.

Ruby gasped for air, covered in ash and sweat as the thought just crept upon her out of nowhere, together with a sense of dread.

Her team—they had never taken that many actual photos together.

She screamed once again as more of them approached.

Beowolves—a mockery of animal life and this very world, writhing through the ruins toward her.

Something tore through her cheeks—tears?

Her scythe dug into one’s head, each swing of her scythe a scream tearing through her throat.

She danced through sobs now, laughing as each fell to the ground.

RED

The day the ship set sail east, for the first time in her life, Ruby had struggled with the thought of how futile everything she had done was.

No matter how many creatures Ruby was to vanquish, she could never squash the human greed or malice within their hearts.

Only heroes of fairytales had fought against ideas themselves and the real world had taught her the hard way of how different her life had been.

Even her journey now had only been made possible through the kinds of people she used to fight—thieves, robbers, smugglers, runaway criminals.

She’d stay on the deck day to day, staring at the waves, keeping to herself.

What right did she have to judge these people—to fantasize of what they might be transporting, of what kinds of lives did they lead?

She had never questioned what drove the bad guys she had faced.

As she watched the coast of Vale disappear, she wondered whether this had been the right choice.

But what else could she have done?

Back then, what Yang had said to her tore her apart worse than any beast, and the visit to her mother’s grave didn’t help but she wasn’t going to let it get to her.

Yang did not mean what she said, she was hurt so, understandably she’d say those things.

Ruby wanted to believe this.

Every time she’d close her eyes, she’d be back there, rushing up the side of that tower, just in time for that final gasp.

She had to get away, she had to get away, she had to run, or that gnawing pit in her stomach would have torn her asunder.

This journey was all she had been left with.

Surely a change of scenery, being busy with this grand quest would have let her ignore the hole in her heart, she thought.

Surely.

RED

Ruby gripped her scythe tighter, amidst the dissipating carnage.

Her life wasn’t a story.

She lived in “the real world”. And the real world did not care about her fairytale definitions of heroes and villains—just survival.

This thought, a certain criminal’s words ringing in her head, only squeezed the air out of her lungs further.

Her eyes darted around whatever this island had been called.

Could this even be called an island, really? She could see the other shore up ahead.

A tree grove, a stone road leading up the hill, and the ruins of a town square—those were the only things waiting for them here.

Two-to-three-story buildings, most of them having rotten away into nothing but stone.

Single building near the grove stood intact—likely the place the smugglers had gotten used to treat as their hideout during their trips.

Beyond that? Nothing.

There had, no doubt, been a town here, once upon a time—till it had just vanished, the carcass crumbling with time.

The Shallows had multiple islands like this—abandoned fisherman villages, ruins out of folklore and urban legends, the hideouts torn apart during the Great War.

And to think she had fantasized about places like this back in the day—of the journeys and swashbuckling adventures.

Yet in reality, this place had been desolate and empty, void of any life.

Just like Mt. Glenn—or many other locations all through Remnant. Lives were lost, and civilization vanished without a trace.

Ruby scanned the area for any remaining creatures, yet her mind refused to give up this thought.

It would have been so easy to imagine that well right here in the middle of the village square. That garden just far ahead, that path leading through the forest just beneath the buildings.

Patch, her home, would be like this one day too.

The screams echoed in her head, the very last lives on the island fading as that thing from the sea—

She stumbled onto her knees, the headache pounding inside of her skull.

The sky came crashing down upon her, the clouds plummeting like rocks as the sea itself had bent, twisting into walls—an enclosed space like a coffin.

She gasped for ear, her fingers clawing at the dirt beneath.

In and out.

In and out.

The beasts howled once again.

RED.

RED.

RED.

She swung her scythe. What was the point? Shackled to this tool, she had been.

The beat of her heart slowed down as time itself shattered into a million pieces.

What was the point? Could she have said something to Yang that would have repaired the bond they had always shared? If so then why couldn’t she meet her sister’s gaze? CLANG, it bounces off the creature’s skin. The girl fell, her face dyed in disbelief, as her umbrella opened. And yet did Ruby hesitate, did she feel sorry for her, did she regret the anger, the fury, the flame that scorched her to move? SCHWAP, the beast tears in two. Did Jaune hate her for not saving Pyrrha, for being just a step too late? Could she have done something more, be faster, stronger, less hesitant? And what about Weiss—she never saw her leave, she missed even her team falling apart. Was there anything Ruby had ever been on time for? Was there anything in this world she had ever been good for? The crimson-red eyes flicker as the creature snarls right in her face. What had she been trying to do facing off against Torchwick and that girl alone? She had achieved nothing back then, she had saved nobody. What kind of hero would that make her? If she had been in the right then why did his last words stick with her, cling to her, echoed in her dreams? She kicks at the creature and pulls the trigger. She had always run from her fears and yet even back then when Beacon burned she couldn’t escape her first terror—that realization that her mother would never come back home again. The creature crumbles to the ground, but she keeps pulling the trigger. She never got to see Vale again after the Fall. Was Penny’s carcass still rusting in that arena? Stale bread tasted awful, but freshly baked had always been tasty. Why couldn’t she have been faster? Another one lunges at her. That smug expression on that woman’s face as she took everything from her, oh how she wished to one day wipe that smirk off again and again and again and again. The City hungered for life that it had never tasted, looming atop the abyss. Rolling to the side she screams once again, chest heaving. How did Ren know about the smugglers, why had Nora looked so uneasy the whole time they had been on the ship? What a great friend she had been to never bother learning anything about them—any of them. Even Pyrrha, her idol, the epitome of Huntress, the shining star of Beacon—was there anything that tied them together beyond the few measly training sessions? Did Mom care more about being a huntress than her family, because the bakery on the fifth street had the best sweets and cookies and the blood poured like rain out of the wound as it burst into flames as the gaping maw in the earth devoured him whole the forge fires crackling in the air with that fog of death consuming all as the scream echoed as she wanted to cut apart the lies, she was living a lie, she—

“Ruby!”

Like a hum somewhere within her skull, mingling with her heartbeat.

A voice.

A familiar voice, above her, no, in front of her.

“Ruby, wake up!”

Ruby clenched her fists, bells tolling in her head, the grit of the earth between her fingers.

The damp, muddy feeling of dirt pressed against her palms, against her cheeks.

Raindrops? No. A gust of wind crashed against her face—sea breeze, howling.

The sunlight burned into her through her eyelids.

Gritting her teeth, she turned her head.

She had been lying on the ground, Crimson Rose next to her.

With a deep breath, Ruby opened her eyes, only to be hit by an earthquake.

Or, well, not an earthquake—just Nora, her friend, shaking her, still screaming something, obscured by the ringing bells and that hum.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” - Ruby repeated, her voice coarse. - “Stop shaking me before I get a concussion.”

Every muscle in her body shook as she punched the ground, struggling to flip over and to get up.

With a tug, Nora pulled her off the ground instead.

“Really, I could have done this myself,” - Ruby muttered as she kept attempting to clean her cap with her hands. - “I’m fine. The sea breeze just made my head spin, that’s all.”

“Must have been some breeze.”

Ruby spun around—there, Lie Ren strolled through the road towards them.

“So, where are the Grimm?”

“Well, you heard her, Ren,” - Nora rolled her eyes. - “After she rushed ahead, all alone might I add, the sea breeze made her slip and fall and that defeated all the Grimm.”

Ruby snickered.

Hearing them talk had been had been akin to a door opening, freeing her out of some confined prison.

As she stared at them, the sequence of events reasserted itself in her brain.

January 5th, 797 E. A
Isle of Apples, The Shallows

This had happened when the cargo ship was about to dock on the island. She had just gotten into a gnarly argument with Nora and Ren about something when the sailors’ screams and alarm bells interrupted them.

Pointing at the island, they shouted something about the place being overrun by The Grimm.

Without a second thought, as Jaune screamed to not split up, Ruby had bolted overboard and, thanks to her petals, onto the falling apart wooden bridge the sailors had called the docks.

She had run forward, ignoring everything else—straight into an ocean of a different kind.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of Beowulves, just swarming all over the place.

Ren had explained before that even on the islands, the creatures of Grimm still appear, which is why the smugglers had been so willing to transport Huntsmen together with the cargo—as a protection, usually after a bribe.

That had been the most she could remember—back then she could barely keep herself from jumping off the boat, every single wave making her heave.

Ruby took a step back from her friends, leaning against a pile of rocks that had once been a building.

Why had she rushed ahead this way? She couldn’t recreate the exact reasoning beyond that single thought that tore apart her from the inside ever since Beacon.

“It’s me who must face those things.”

The thought had repeated in her brain, no, in her heart, endlessly, ceaselessly, like a sing-along song, or rather a eulogy, a funeral rhyme.

A random memory flashed in her mind—or maybe not so random.

That day, after Mom had perished, Uncle Qrow stood on the doorstep, drenched in rain as Dad greeted him without a single word.

He did not invite him inside.

He did not know she had been watching, her head peeking into the living room because the walls had been trembling from their voices.

They had been arguing, but by the time she had willed herself to take a look, there had been only a silence now.

And then Dad screamed something at Uncle and hit him right in the face, just under the left eye.

Seeing that she had rushed through the living room, but stopped a few steps short.

That moment had seared into her brain and even though some of the details have blurred—plenty remained.

That little stumble Qrow did right after, exactly three steps back as he’d leaned onto the terrace railing for the support.

That little quiver of his mouth as Qrow had attempted to say something, before turning around and stumbling back into the rain, disappearing out of sight without a word.

Dad would turn around, gaze right at her, and pat her head.

Then he rushed past her, into his room, slamming the door shut, as a scream reverberated from the inside.

Yang then rushed to her, carrying her back into the bedroom.

Ruby would only comprehend what had happened there a bit later in her life once she could understand what happened to Summer Rose. She would replay that moment again and again in her head through the years, like trying to make sense of a broken record, skipping in a loop.

Maybe that thought had lingered ever since then inside.

“It’s better if it’s me than anyone I care about.”

She stared at Nora, who had gotten way into telling her what had happened from their side of things.

Supposedly as the ship docked, the trio had watched her rush, screaming, disappearing behind the ruins gates, killing every Grimm in her path.

She couldn’t recall the details, but she did remember that anger. Did she really do this to save everyone, or did she long for something she could defeat?

“So, guys?” - Nora broke the silence first, twirling on a rock. - “How do you suppose these things got to here? It’s water all around so do they, like swim or something? I thought it’s like BOOM and it’s all clear skies in islands like this. Do they just appear out of thin air?”

“Nora.” - Ren groaned. - “Did you listen to a word I said on the ship?”

“Oh? Sorry.” - She giggled. - “I was way too busy guessing how long it would have taken for Ruby to empty the contents of her stomach from all those waves.”

She jumped off the rock and onto the ground, smiling.

“Also, the image of a bunch of Beowulves just swimming through the ocean felt quite funny in my head.”

Ruby stared at them without uttering a single word.

Her team, Team RWBY, had quite a rocky beginning—Blake had been the silent one, burrying her head in her books, Yang would barely listen to a word and Weiss would find everything, literally everything that Ruby would do or say wrong.

Eventually, though, the walls would crumble—the team would quip and interact and spend time together.

Ruby, too, had let her guard down, learning to let people in, top open up.

A True leader is defined by their empathy and trust, earning the respect of their teammates, sharing their goals, and moving forward—together.

Yet it didn’t last for her.

Her team had been taken from her.

Now, even though she had begun a journey to a whole other continent with her friends, things had been different.

Ever since Beacon, ever since her world had fallen apart, she once again couldn’t find the right words.

Once again she had been drowning in thoughts, she couldn’t convey and emotions that threatened to burst forth, scorching everything in their path.

And her friends?

Ever since they left Patch, there had been tension in the air—as if none of them had been honest about this little play-along journey of theirs.

Sure, on the surface they could be called a team—they had fought together before, together, from the first day they had stepped onto Beacon.

Ruby stepped back another step.

Nora kept throwing around jokes, yet she hadn’t had a single conversation with Ren that had lasted longer than a minute. And even though one minute might as well have been a year in Nora-time, that had been unusual for those two.

Jaune would also often just stand there, back turned, staring somewhere on the horizon.

This whole journey he hadn’t said a single word either.

Now, Nora had really gotten into describing her imaginary version of a Beowulf-with-fins, as Ren rolled his eyes.

Jaune had vanished somewhere already. He would do that sometimes nowadays.

Ruby exhaled as she strode past her friends, back towards the ship. She had to get her belongings as the crewmen had already started leaving the vessel and onto the island.

Any of the smugglers could have mistaken them for a team of Huntsmen.

But they were just shards—shattered pieces of two teams torn apart by what life had thrown at them.

People lie all the time—and Ruby had been no different.

For at least a little while, on this pointless journey, she could keep lying to her friends—smiling, droning on about how everything is fine.

But she couldn’t lie to herself.

That night, when she had witnessed Pyrrha’s fate—something broke inside.

Something had been gnawing at her from the depths of her soul.

Thoughts, emotions, choices she never made, mistakes - all of them boiling, bursting, screaming to let them out.

A sense of pain, rage, death, finality, and many other things.

A sense of red.

People would leave—all of them.

And in the end, nothing but her demons would remain.

Chapter Text

I never could figure it out.

What is it you see when you gaze upon them? What is it that draws you to these children of bone and dust?

The relentless passage of time couldn’t make this obsession wither — no matter how many times failure sets their cities aflame, you keep trying again and again.

You turn your head and chide me now, yet you know I am right — nothing has changed.

Nothing will change.

You were born in the depths, a shadow imprinted upon the land.

Like moonlight, although certainly not silver, so you would not shine.

Guess that's why you always had a penchant for heights. Towers you would build, standing above it all, always scheming your schemes and dreaming your dreams — even before Men could walk, pray, or speak as they do now.

Up top, you could still gaze upon the ocean without ever having to touch that water, to submerge into those depths you fear.

How many years, decades, and centuries have you spent gazing at the fruits of your labor, the blood you had shed, land covered in ashes that spell your name?

You had nobody left — I know that. You lost hope back then, and all you could do was observe.

Meanwhile, life unfolded below. Language, Culture, Architecture, Belief—these children of thought would spread anew, carried by the sands of time.

Do you remember how something stirred within you back then?

Watching them shape their feelings and emotions into art—songs, paintings, statues—all forms of futility as a desperate stand against the currents of time.

They’d witness you, of course.

Their pitiful minds, a burst of creativity aflame inside, would paint the canvas with those sights, those ideas you had whispered, giving them shape!

Words. Objects. Sight and Sound.

A sigh of this moment — Memory and Thought given form!

Back then, that creativity and imagination within them were what made you realize — no matter what, no matter how many times they had to start anew, humanity would always find a path forward.

And it amused you.

Your Beacons of Civilization would illuminate their path forward, thousands of years passing within that one contemplative moment of yours.

A Kingdom would be built, wrapped up in that Lie of yours.

Meanwhile, the Cycle would turn, the melody of endless repetition — conquest and ruin, fire and blood, ash, and snow.

A scream out there, somewhere, far in the distance, engulfed by the dark. Can you hear it, that echo, piercing your eardrums? Empty, dead seas. Arid deserts. Withering forests. Faces vanishing from sight, never to return.

Just over there, where your eyes can’t reach.

Everywhere. All at once.

That single note, at the end, again and again — you had made a symphony out of it over the years.

These Children would clash and struggle against the End — again.

I don’t understand. Why do you always come back here to these familiar sights?

You were here long before these waters, lands, and skies had lost their names. You stood still on that hill when the stars shed their first light upon the land below.

Everything ends and begins with you.

And yet you bother with these children as they claw themselves out of the mud.

The youngest dawdle in their cradles, oblivious to the world around them.

They struggle, oh, how they struggle, Ozpin!

And all because you had given them hope that their futility is not without merit.

For they do not know their end has already been written.

How many Kings have you graced your presence with? All of them dream the dreams of idealism, passion as their fuel. Yet, little by little, time would grind them into dust.

A King is such a limiting word, you say? Then, how about a tailor, a beggar, a hero? Maybe these are the titles that tickle your folly, you who had once called himself a Hermit?

Often I could see you sitting there, contemplative, pondering—do those titles matter at all?

With each step, the idealists, the commoners, the royals, they would abandon parts of themselves to continue, to tread down this path you had laid out for them, replacing that which made them who they are with that which is necessary.

A step for a step, a price paid, a choice made.

A Hero’s Journey ahead of them, the roles would perish, drowning within that ever-glorious purpose.

Till one day you’d look at them and see something hollow, reckless, and paranoid, as they bicker amongst themselves, only the worst qualities of their species persevering.

Memory and Thought, given form. The curse of that knowledge you gave them burned bright.

You’d watch them crumble each time, till nothing but legends would remain. The cities, they’d burn, and the Kingdoms would fall.

The house of cards you’d build, the armies of heroes and legends you send into your war, your crusade? Each would meet the same end.

Doomed from the start.

Divided.

As the castles crumble and the fire is snuffed out, the world would reveal its truth to you in those moments. And among the ruins? Revenants, wandering down the paths stolen from them by your lies.

Within that silence, something would budge.

Can you hear it, Ozpin? Can you hear the heartbeat of the void beneath us all, of the emptiness so vast nothing could compare — breathing down your neck?

Of course, you can. Every time you close your eyes, you find yourself there, wondering whether you are dreaming again or if, maybe, somehow, your soul left that mortal lump of flesh behind.

That maybe, just maybe, the void would whisper to you - “Welcome Home.”

Oh, I can see you glaring at me even now.

Why is it so surprising that these memories cause you to drift back to that ashen wasteland once again?

To that day, when that young man perished, devoured by his own ego and in his place, something else took shape.

Something different, something something hungry, something that stood there, witnessing the end of all things.

Do you remember that origin, your origin?

Hundreds, thousands, millions of souls, life itself burning up in flames. Brilliant cities spanning the horizon and terrifying monoliths piercing the sky - all of them burn the same as civilization itself rusts into nothing.

With every dying sigh, they’d whisper to you that All Things Must Die.

That man, he’d close his eyes for the last time, grief overtaking him.

And then, you’d stand in his place, inheriting his will, his dreams, and his despair.

Same, yet different, changed.

Standing on that sundered ground as skies bled above you, you swore back then that you would change things this time.

But is this world here, now, that different from what had been back then, Once Upon a Time?

Trying makes you feel good, yet no matter how many times, it still leads them to the same fate.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the first thoughts of an infant or the last defiant gasp of a man having outlived his children. Whether it’s in that small house by the river or the bustling metropolis up top of that mountain. Plans? Goals? Your vision of what’s coming? It all burns. Anything and everything eventually passes.

Can you taste the ash lingering in the air even now? Can you feel the rot of time, the way all things crumble to dust?

Death welcomes all with open arms, Ozpin.

Nothing in this land can last ever after.

Even You.

Do you believe it’s possible to change things? That these disgusting specks of dust you call humanity can stand against the oncoming tide?

Or maybe you long to experience that futility, that human weakness and frailty you had already lost? Is that why you mimic them, stealing those lives, taking upon those names and faces as you whisper your wisdom upon them?

You are more than this — you could have it all, as your wits would bend the universe to your will.

You could be a god, you could be a demon, you could be a force of nature!

Yet instead you chose the life of an ant — to be like them, to live the mortal life you can’t have, driven by the melancholy of things lost, reaching for the impossible.

It will never be the same.

No matter how much you try to imitate them, how much you mimic that smile and drag your carcass through their halls, you will never bring back that which you owe this world.

You shroud your lies in care, in that hunger you feel towards their noise. But it is hunger all the same, isn’t it?

You want to matter to them — you want to care, and you want them to give your despicable, futile existence purpose.

In fact, I think that you have already given up on trying to become them.

There’s a reason you chose to call that which came before Once Upon A Time, condemning the origin to myths and legends, twisting it to fit your needs.

You gave up on bringing back that bluster of the bygone age.

It took a while, but you don’t travel this world anymore. You spent the last two decades in that tower of yours, after all. It brought a sense of control over the chaotic and finite reality you inhabit now.

You couldn’t just abandon it all, you had a responsibility, a position.

That’s what you told yourself, haven’t you?

In truth, you had given up on the world having anything new to offer to you.

I know why, Ozpin. I share that sentiment, believe me.

In that unthinkable amount of time, there was no corner of Remnant you hadn’t observed, no heart you couldn’t peek inside.

You gazed upon the primordial Kings as they shed blood as the foundation for their laws and their domains.

You witnessed the first settlers reach Solitas and conquer its chill. You were there as you saw the awe in their eyes when they had witnessed that mountain for the first time.

You had gotten used to the Cycle.

Nations would form and perish, continents would turn to dust, and nature itself would change shape.

You’ve seen it all as you lived your many lives, so why bother, right?

Or, maybe it’s something more pitiful, like your hatred for failure?

Do you remember the City of the Pillars, the dream that once had settled upon those sands? So much of what was there had been built upon things before this age. You had no part in the birth of that Kingdom. It had existed without you, despite you.

You never visited that place, neither before nor after, always so busy trying to save them back then.

You had no time to travel these lands anymore, to sightsee, to live. You have seen it all, Ozpin.

Having heard all the stories and lived many lives. What is there left to see?

But the melody of its name would ignite passion within like no other.

Hope.

If you were there when it Fell, your soul likely would have been filled with regret! How could you never visit such a magnificent place in its prime?! The terror and the despair, witnessing the glory of civilization reduced to rubble, conquered by division and hate.

The emptiness within its people, scattered through the lands, living with the knowledge that their home is no more.

Another nameless ruin, a myth, a fairytale, an ocean of time drowning out the words whispered by their kind.

A glory of the future itself, snuffed out by something you had willed into being.

A tale re-enacted through time again and again.

If you had been there, back then, maybe it would have been finally enough? Maybe you would have realized what a worthless loser you are, how pointless and pitiful your struggle had been.

Maybe you would have conceded your defeat?

Alas, for now, you still have hope, of course. That was always your strongest suit. Optimism would always help convince and inspire others, concoct plans, scheme the schemes, and tell the lies. It would drive you to achieve your goals, no matter what these might be.

You gave up on being surprised, on experiencing something new. But you haven’t given up on them. At least for now.

For you and I, Ozpin, we aren’t bound by the passing of the season and the rotting of the flesh.

Time is a toy, a game, a charade.

A cycle, a monomyth.

You’d tell yourself you had all the time in the world to try again, to lead them further, to find a different path.

And so you would mingle with them once again.

You would speak of salvation, of hope. Full of hypocrisy and ignorance. Singing praises to the continuity of the Lie etched into this land.

You tried so many times.

A Trickster manipulating the web of lies.

A Hermit whispering knowledge among the trees till they took that solitude and turned it into a Sin.

A Seer guiding kings forward till they’d turn their distrustful gaze upon you, laying blame for all their deeds upon your tender neck.

Even a Storyteller?! You did share those tales with them by the fire, twisting what once had been into convenient stories to further your Narrative.

You were also a reckoning storm, falling upon those who would defy your will, those who would deny humanity its right to persevere and exist. They don’t know the heavy decisions taken, how much bloodshed, and the lies told to build the domains they stand upon now. You never hid it, but never really told them either. Because you, of all people, knew that mixing black and white just makes it all turn gray, like a fog, preventing them from treading the paths laid out for them.

Through thousands of years, you have wandered along many paths, all of which failed, all the same.

So you merely left them the choice to be ignorant—unaware of the larger schemes at play—just a simple world of struggle against evil as you’d invoke worlds of knowledge upon your guardians.

But you forget, Ozpin, that if they were to cry enough tears, the air would turn so humid that fog would envelop them, anyway.

A Professor is just another dead-end.

Because even if you were to share your strength with them, it would not bring the victory you so desperately crave. You know well that humanity always finds new ways to hate and destroy. It’s what imagination is best at!

They are so good at making war.

However, you did build a magnificent stage here! Little by little, step by step, with every failure, having shaped this land.

There’s a reason you call it a cycle, Ozpin. The laws governing humanity remain true, whether it’s the vast infinite universe or a smaller, simpler soul. You had all the time in the world to confirm them true. To accept the terrifying truths that drove you into the path, you haunt today.

You would tell them, time and time again, — “if you just follow that brick road, you will remain unharmed.”

Yet all the rules prepared for them are there for one reason only — so they don’t stray off the beaten path and meet someone they should never have, thus indulging in their true nature.

After all, every civilization has a specific order, sequence, rules, and an Ending. And, like always, all things start and end with you. Everything else is an illusion, a Lie told by the man behind the curtain.

You failed so many of their kind as you kept trying to reach that goal, scheming. It’s so like you to overlook these failures, to focus on that silver lining of hope.

Did you tell her about her mother? Did you tell her of things she did and where all of it led her? Of the mistakes and mistrust and madness that hide behind those Silver Eyes? Remember when you showed her the truth of the world? And how that knowledge shaped her, the rifts it created between them, the damage it did?

Did you try the same with the girl herself? Or did you tell your tales, like when you spoke to that champion about the maidens? The old and wise sage rewards kindness! With time, you came to learn how spinning stories makes it all the easier to convey concepts beyond them. But you also realized how easy it is to dye those ideas with your intent.

It’s why you are so fond of those stories — even if you keep telling yourself it’s ensuring someone remembers them.

You knew something would happen.

For years now, paranoia has gripped your rotten heart. So you spent all this time preparing them, guiding them, molding them.

And yet your soldiers march towards the inevitable, none the wiser.

The General guards the north, carrying an impossible task on his shoulders. The teacher gazes upon the broken tower, soon to be disillusioned by your lies.

The prodigal son greets the land he has forsaken. Your wayward twins now walk their separate paths, doubt creeping upon their minds. And your smaller, more honest soul? Haunted by her ghosts, she travels.

Do you think she’s safe, Ozpin? Do you think there’s hope for trust and sincerity there? Even the tiniest secrets can cause gaping wounds the size of these seas. Would she be able to recognize an impostor creeping ever closer? Would she be caught unaware?

Of course, you never realized the scope of threats lurking around and within your pawns. Of what’s among them, of the vengeful fire and the rightful justice being delivered upon you.

That’s because you are blind, Ozpin, hindered by your optimism and your schemes. You are so sure of your wisdom that it has made you even more ignorant than you were before. You tried so hard to set in motion all of those schemes that you didn’t even realize - your undoing is of your own making.

Your beacons have cast terrible shadows upon the Land Below, shadows you are too prideful to witness yourself.

And now you are back here again. It will take a few seconds to recognize the visage before you. It communicates with you in the way that only it can. The still air still makes you feel as if you never left.

Understandable.

This place has been etched into your mind for thousands of years now.

Here, this feeling never vanishes - it’s a permanent piece of the chaotic tapestry - patched together from impossible scraps of thrown-away hope, sewn together into a coherent whole by threads of forgotten dreams, lifted from the void by all the decisions you never took.

A corpse of a city lies in front of you, a watchful beast gazing upon it from above. If there were some way to define “empty“, this would be it.

The man-made monuments of the past or time-eroded, silent hills? What is this place made of? You can’t tell the difference anymore, and neither can I.

All that this place knows is death. Because it had never tasted the fabric of life, it frantically molded itself into it. This place holds many secrets you’d want to uncover. You are at home here, as if you met some long-lost friend again. But nothing here can answer you, you hear me?

Something older than us, yet also younger than us, an echo of impermanence of all things, a harbinger of the end.

Every time you would drift there, that thought tortured both of us - why, oh why is it always this place - why does it always come back to you in this exact shape? The incomprehensible phantom of the city in front of you is hungry, hungry for life, for possibility, for hope. But you can’t offer it any.

There’s no hope you can offer because this city never existed. It’s an apparition, a wraith, a parasite - an echo, reflected at you by the vast and empty void, like a scream.

A truth born from the folly of man, from the first cry of a newborn as the clock began anew.

A shadow.

Like me.

Even if you were to open your eyes and this place would vanish, melting away, as it lets go of you and reality takes over, it would not change anything.

You would still sense it, lingering in every bit of emptiness around you. You would still see its shadows, frozen in the sky, painting over the clouds.

It would remind you, in every second of your infinite stay, of how horrifying and vast the surrounding nothingness is.

Your rotten heart against the boundless ocean of the Void Above.

It waits for you, longs for you. For us. All of us.

It hungers for that fire of a beacon inside every soul.

I think it’s understandable that, as much as this comforts you, you can’t stay here for long. You want to escape once again. You want to run.

Of course...

Like always, you are in a rush to play your games again.

Even if I were to tell you, you’d still deny it, oblivious to the simple truth.

Despite all the careful scheming, all the pieces on the board are no longer how you left them.

Whether it’s a few or many, they have all been scattered throughout the world, going through unintended journeys, spiraling in unexpected directions.

Heroes and fairy tales can only hold back the tide so much, Ozpin. And the endless sea weighs heavily upon your soul. Do you ever wonder if you could reach out your hand and—

Ah, there it is, you are stirring now, deep within that labyrinth of your soul.

Can you hear the waves already?

In this exact moment, you would always hear my words from back then echo through it all, reminding you of how pathetic and pointless the eternity of your lifetime had been.

That has always been our dance, Ozpin.

You stay still and bring them nothing, showing illusions of what once was. And I am here to end that hopeless charade.

Have you prepared the stars of your grandest performance yet? You may show them illusions of hope and convince them of your shared goals. And yet, they, too, will pass.

You are pathetic. You never change, never grow, never realize your mistakes.

So I’ll repeat those words again, Ozpin. Those very same words from back then, when it all had started, okay?

Curse you.

Curse you, the impermanent fool. Curse your ignorance and your ego. You have doomed all and one day you will have to pay the price, to accept what you had done, to face your Sin, to embrace that oblivion of your own making.

Happy now?

Go on, make your plans and plot your schemes. Send your fighters, your heroes, guardians, and champions. I'll wait just so you can watch them fall.

You’ll get what you earned.

So, wake up—and burn.