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He was dreaming.
He had been getting better at differentiating waking reality, foreign memories, and actual dreams.
This. He knew what this was.
It was a dream.
He knew that.
It wasn't even his dream.
He knew that too.
He had also gotten better at identifying which subconscious was creating his dreams.
Right now? It wasn't his.
Nothing in this dream would be for him. He was going to be dreaming a stranger's dreams. Hoping stranger's hopes. Living out a stranger's fantasy. He didn't know if it was going to be any better than feeling a stranger's guilt, crying a stranger's tears, and cowering from a stranger's fears. Knowing whose dream it was, probably not.
He needed to constantly remind himself that it wasn't his dream.
Facts slipped through his mind like water through his fingers. He couldn't hold on to what he knew to be true.
Reality slipped.
He had been getting better at grounding himself, but he'd be lying if he claimed he was any good at it. Not that he didn't spend most of his life lying anyways, especially to himself.
He shook his head.
Focus.
Remember.
This is not real.
Don't get lost in this.
It's just a dream.
That didn't stop him from staring at the house in front of him like a drowning man that had found a lifeboat.
This house was gone. Gone. Rotted away, long long before he was even born.
Colorful and happy. Carefree and blissful. This house that they had refurbished and painted, together. The empty decaying house that they had made a home. Gone. Home is gone.
Gone.
Stop trying to find something that is gone.
This house isn't yours. This is not real, anyway.
His desperation ignored the willingly forgotten fact.
Another fact that was imperative to remember.
The woman from this house was gone too.
Gone.
Dead. Or as good as. Because death, wasn't really an option for either of them.
Stop trying to see her again. Why was it so hard to leave her grasp?
Still, after all she has done.
She was gone.
That didn't stop him from walking up the porch and slowly opening the door.
...
She was there. And his defenses crumbled.
Her.
He wanted to run. Run... Run...
Run to her and lose himself in her embrace.
How he loved her. your...
He wanted to run. Run... Run...
Run away from her before she could capture him for her torture.
How he hated her.
And oh brothers Grimm, she was here. Right in front of him.
His subconscious warred with itself, trying to decide who she is. Both versions of the woman overlapped and shifted, distorting her image. It was hard to look at her. It was hard to know what he saw.
Was she a horrible monster that delighted in killing him again?
Or...
Was she a gentle maiden who whispered words of love?
He couldn't tell.
Was her skin a dead bone white with thin white hair as if she was an old old woman?
Or...
Did she have a youthful honey glow in her cheeks with beautiful blonde hair framing her face?
Were her eyes red and hateful?
Or...
Pale blue and innocent?
He didn't know.
Both. Neither. Nothing made sense.
How he wished that he wasn't use to that feeling.
She spread her arms. "Welcome home, darling," Her voice was smooth and tempting. Just like it was when she had pledged her love to him. I will love you forever. So soothing when she gave him her promises, that nothing would ever come between them. I will love you forever.
So much for forever.
He hated the word, forever. Forever was too long of a time. He should know. He's has lived through forevers.
Pain shot through him. Good. Pain would help him remember not to trust her. Pain she caused. Pain she reveled in causing.
Suddenly he was at her mercy. Again.
She forced into a chair on their porch. The little deck overlooked their garden. He sat opposite to her.
She left her seat and towered over him. A sharp claw-like nail forced his face up, so she could get a good look at him. "Oh, Oz. You're so young," There was a sad kind of pity in her blue eyes. But her red ones that replaced them only burned with contempt.
Oz. The name didn't sound right to him. It seemed to whisper something is wrong.
Snap out of it. That wasn't who he was. He almost told her so, but then he had a sudden terrifying thought. He turned from her. His gaze fell on the his reflection in the window.
He gaped.
She was right, he was young. So young. He wasn't exactly sure what age, but still a child. What was he doing here? What was he doing with her?
Childlike features arranged themselves into confusion and fear. He didn't seem to recognize his own face. Who was this boy, barely old enough for combat school, with tawny brown hair streaked with strands of white. Did his eyes always flicker between green, brown, and gold?
His image was distorted and confused too.
Looking at himself was just as unnerving as looking at the ever shifting woman next to him, if not more. No. Definitely more so, his own image had more layers superimposed onto him. She only had two, while he could barely even comprehend how many he had. How many ghost's seemed to cling to him. How many different people did he see when he looked at himself. And why didn't he recognize any of them?
Who was he?
...
He didn't know.
...
What was he?
...
He must have once known who he was, but that fact too had slowly been lost to him. A man dying of thirst watches as the cool refreshing water cannot be held in his hands.
What name matched this boyish face?
...
Not Oz. He clung to that one thought. One piece of wreckage, the only thing stopping him from being lost to her current. I am not him! She has no control over me, and I am not who she is talking to! I don't even know her at all!
...I don't even know myself at all...
Who am I? Not Oz! I swear! I am my own person! A stubborn part of his mind screamed. Remember that! Please please remember that! My own person! Me, not Oz!
But as to who that person was, he had no clue.
My name.
Try again, he can't have forgotten his own name.
My name is.......
What is my name?
...
Not Oz.
He couldn't remember his own name.
If not Oz, then who? In his memories people had often called him Oz, she called him Oz, and there were even moments when he had talked to himself and used that name.
But it didn't feel right. He felt fake. An imposter. A stranger in his own skin.
"So unbelievably young. Have you really no shame that you would take over a child?" She spoke judgement. So disappointed in his actions. Which of course he deserved. He deserved every condemnation, he had made more mistakes then any man, woman, and child on this planet.
But not from her, he reminded himself. The only woman who competed with him in terms of deaths caused, and enjoyed each one.
He wanted away from her.
...
He wanted to lose himself in her arms.
Just being near her was driving him mad. Hurting his head. Weakening his resolve.
"You were always a gentle man, Oz. Has your old age really hardened you so much that you would use children as soldiers, as dispensible pawns. As empty vessels?" She withdrew her hand. He was both glad it left and missing her touch.
Her words hurt. Soldiers in a war no one understood. Sacrificed pieces so that the king would stay on the board. Not dispensable he felt it, when she killed his followers, every single one. However it was her last point that hurt the most. Burned with a physical pain. Vessel. What a crude and ugly word. A word he hated. A word he knew she knew he hated. A word he had been called before, a word she was calling him now.
No.
I'm my own person. Not his vessel.
Not empty.
Not him...
...
I swear it. I'm my own person.
Not Oz. Voice this please. Tell her she has the wrong person. She will continue to control you, until you realize that she has the wrong person.
" 'm Not Oz," the words forced themselves out of his mouth with a difficulty of thousands of years. They barely resembled a human language, but at least they had been said.
"Oh?" She asked in a terrible whisper. She sat back down. Stared into his soul with those harsh inhuman red eyes. "Who then are you?".
...
He had no answer.
Not Oz. I don't know. Not Oz.
She gave him a glance over and then a patronizing smile took her lips. A soft beautifully melodic little laugh echoed around him.
"Shall I call you by one of you other names then? What is your chosen name this time, Ozma? Ozymandias? Oswald? Ozpin? You've had far too many for even me to remember. I wonder sometimes if you even know them all. So many to pick from. Which one should I use today?" She was mocking him. Tossing around his names in the same frivolous manner that a parent talks to a child or a therapist to a patient.
A child tells his parents, 'today I am a superhero!'. They smile an amused smile and say, 'Of course you are, sweetie'.
The madman declares, 'today I am the king of the world.' The therapist writes something down in their notes. 'Of course you are, now take your pills.'
Today, I am not Oz, I am someone else.
'Of course you are darling. You are whoever you want to be.' And the patient saintly woman would tolerate and cater to his delusions, as he ran around changing his name to suit his whims.
No. No. Not me.
"Oh, Sure you claim to change. You steal lives and as a token—of what exactly shame or some warped sense of nobilitity?—you at least think to use the stolen name? Does that make you feel any better? Does it give you some small sense of validation that at least the name matches the vessel. To allow yourself to keep going. To pretend that you haven't completely overridden your host. How pathetic. You are a fool, Ozma," she spoke sowly, trying to teach a stubborn child a lesson. Her eyes were filled with patronizing pity. "You always have been. You hopelessly naïve fool! Still thinking that everything will work out in the end so long as we try to 'come together' and do what's 'right'," again she mocked him, over and over she degraded him.
Then she seemed to change her tactics. Her voice grew softer and more genuine.
"Tell me, Ozma what has doing the right thing ever done for you? You tried to live your whole life for others, swore on the oath of a hero of legend. And what did it matter? A noble and righteous man, and what did that earn you? you still died!" Tears spilled from her demure blue eyes. She was destroyed when he died, he knew that. She was pleading with him now, 'don't keep making the same mistakes. Please, please, your actions only cause pain'.
"You came back only to serve the very people whose fault it was to begin with. You have gone through life after life, time after time, always trying to do your best and how do they repay you?" She touched his cheek in a loving manner. Her gaze blue and sorrowful. The girl he rescued from the tower who just wanted some freedom.
He was her freedom. And she was his.
When he first rescued her, it was out of a noble duty and had nothing to do with his own desires. He had always lived denying himself for others, anything he wanted was given up for the sake of heroism. She was the first thing he selfishly didn't want to give up. The first woman that might have been worth forgetting the world for.
And how did that turn out for them? She was the proof that he can't give in to his desires.
"aren't you owed more than disrespect and condemnation?" Her skin was silk soft. He leaned into her touch, something he had been denied for so long. Her thumb gently stroked the light bruise on his cheek, as if she could ease that pain and the betrayal that caused it. "Why do you still advocate for these people? These wretched humans, the false cruel gods, why do you push me away when I am offering you the only way out?" The soft movement stopped.
Even back then she had been a bad influence on him. 'Do whatever we like. Be selfish for a moment, what's the worst that could happen?'
'Aren't you tired of always loosing yourself for the greater good?'
'Who even are you anymore? You don't know. You've denied yourself for so long, that you can't even recognize your own face. You've lost yourself too many times, that you are lost for good, who even are you?
The air changed and the horrible mother of Grimm was before him again. "why do you insist on hurting yourself for them? Why do you insist on making me show you just how little they trust you, just how hopeless your task is. And my dear I will show you just how wrong you are," Her Grimm red veined hand moved to his throat. "How many times must I break you, for you to just give up?!"
He couldn't breathe...
...
He was drowning.
At her mercy.
...
Again.
...
She was going to kill him. Again.
Again. ...And again.
For all eternity.
Break him. Over and over...
Again.
...
"Why do you make me do this? I don't want to do this, but you keep making me" World blurred. He was going to return to the white.
Maybe this time he can stay dead.
Rest in peace.
...
Heh, no no peace for him. No death...
...
Long live the King.
Oh for how long?
Far too long lived the king.
No release.
...
He dropped to the floor. His small body crumpled at her feet. She let him go.
She was just asserting her dominance. Reminding him that she was willing and able to kill him.
Why did he forget that sometimes?
Why did he want to listen to her sometimes?
Why did he fool himself into thinking that they could be happy again?
And why did everything inside him, insist that he still wanted to be with her?
...
He didn't.
He hated her. She was awful. She was dangerous. He was afraid or her.
...
He barely knew her.
Every single word from her mouth was to someone else.
Everything she told him was just to manipulate him.
Weaken him. Hurt him.
She just wants him out of her way.
She wants him under her control.
She wants him dead.
...
But it's that something that he secretly wants too?
Every single time he dies or is in life threatening danger he can't help but secretly wish that this time it will stick.
He wants death too. She wants death. They just want freedom.
"Aren't you tired, Oz?"
Of course he was. He was beyond tired. He didn't quite know what that word meant anymore. It was meaningless because it didn't begin to describe how he felt. But it was the best he had, and he was tired.
"Don't you just want this to stop?"
Of course he did. But he couldn't stop it.
He had tried. She had too. Neither could reach the beyond.
The first time he had been the cause of his own death, was awful. Not only did he feel ashamed and guilty, he also felt useless because he had failed.
Cursed someone else, because he couldn't handle this life. And it was pointless anyway, he just had to keep going, because death didn't want him either.
"What if there was a way to stop it?"
Oh, how he'd give anything.
But if it was her who suggested it, it couldn't be good.
"Why try and save this world, it's doomed. Why fight the inevitable. You can't win, you already know that. So why try? Why not just let it end. Stop this whole wretched thing. Be free," She extended her hand waiting for him to hand something over. "Call back the gods of old and let them see this forsaken world. Let them end it all,"
The relic of knowledge was hanging by his side, looped in one of his belt hooks along with a rainbow handkerchief. He didn't remember having it. But there it was right next to his cane.
End it all.
End this torment.
End this fight between them.
End his suffering.
End the world.
No.
Kill everyone.
No
Destroy everything.
No, he couldn't let her do that.
"No," he said softly. Too softly. She knew he was thinking about it.
"When the world ends, it will be just you and me,"
"I don't want that,"
"Come, Oz. We will be free,"
"I'm not Oz,"
...
She smiled cruelly, "for how much longer, I wonder,"
"I suppose I must convince you a bit more. But mark my words, Ozma. Your kingdoms will fall," She pointed to their garden and suddenly in the distance was the ruins of his academy, Beacon. Another home she destroyed. "your followers will turn, and your small simple soul will be snuffed out. You will lose everything, and will soon realize that this task given to you is nothing more than a trap. When you come to your senses and for once in your life realize that you need to be selfish to free yourself. Then, when you are sick of caring, fighting for a lost cause, playing their games. You will come back to me. You will return on your knees begging for the end. And I will grant it to you, finally. Finally. Finally. We will end it all, just you and me dear. Then we will finally be able to be free,"
___
Oscar woke up in a panic. Her red eyes burning in his head. Her words echoing in his heart. Her touch stinging in his skin.
A dream.
Not a memory.
A dream. He knew the difference, even if he had dreams about Ozpin's memories before.
But not like that.
Oz?....
...
He was still quiet it seems. He had returned briefly and then vanished again. Although this time it felt like the old man was just resting, not unreachable. Oscar didn't feel empty or like someone had shut down or cut off access to a part of himself. It was more like Oz was dormant, but not gone. Not very pleasant, but he'd settle for not gone.
He wondered if the old man had witnessed the dream too. He hoped not. It hurt enough when he didn't really know Salem, he couldn't imagine how painful it would have been for Oz.
I'm not Oz. I'm Oscar. He completed the thought from his dream.
He remembered his name again.
Oscar.
It felt so good to know again.
Oscar.
Oscar Pine. His name.
I'm not Oz. I am not Ozpin. I am not Ozma.
I am Oscar Pine.
He couldn't forget his own name, again.
He glanced around and saw the others sleeping in their stolen air ship.
Safe for now.
He quietly made his way to the window. He stared at his reflection.
No white in his hair. Not him.
No gold in his eyes. Not him.
No ghosts clinging to his body like an extra layer of film. I am no one but myself. I am my own person.
No outward sign that he was anything other than a normal fourteen year old child.
He gave a sigh of relief and headed back to his designated corner of the floor.
He made one more look around. The relic was attached to Ruby's belt and not in danger of him handing it over to Salem.
Ruby was sleeping, as peacefully as can be expected, next to her team and the remains of team JNPR.
Together for now.
And him on the outlier. Never quite fitting in. Not as Oscar, the farm hand so far out of his element, and certainly not as Ozpin, the broken pedestal that was their old headmaster. Not me. He reminded himself.
Yes, they had treated him like crap.
'And how do they repay you? Your followers will turn.' His back and cheek still hurt a bit. But more than that his heart was heavy and a new cynical mistrust, that he wasn't entirely sure was Oz's, settled down within him.
But they had apologized, well kinda. They went out looking for him. They paid lip service to the fact that he was a part of the team. They listened to him and trusted him in the battle against the mech. That had to mean something, right?
'Does that mean he has been watching us this whole time?!' Yang had accused when he had admitted that Ozpin wasn't as gone as before.
As gone as they had hoped to make him.
'When you are sick of caring, fighting for a lost cause, playing their games.'
Yeah he was sick and tired of it all.
But he was also sick and tired of her, and he hadn't even met her.
Sick and tired of being treated as just Ozpin. Or Ozma. Or whoever.
Sick and tired of being manipulated like a puppet.
Sick and tired of people telling him that it was pointless to do the right thing.
So freaking what?
Yeah, it's hard to do what's right, it's hard to figure out what the right thing is, and it is sure as hell hard to do the right thing when it all seems pointless.
But that is not an excuse to give up. To just not try. To allow those who do the wrong thing to get away with it.
So what it's hard? So what if it is impossible? Yeah, maybe the good that they do means absolutely freaking nothing in the grand scheme of things!
But saving lives, protecting innocents, and trying to help people cannot be pointless. Ever.
So, he made his choice. To help others.
To put others before himself.
'Come to your senses and for once in your life realize that you need to be selfish to free yourself.'
I don't care. So what if I'm never free.
I don't care. I won't be like you. If I have to live with this horrible cursed existence for the rest of time.
I don't care. I will still choose them.
And no, he wasn't in this moment talking about teams RWBY and JNR or even what was left of STRQ or anyone else in Oz's secret circle whom he had never met. The people he refused to think of (even in passing, in the depths of his mind he had no control over, or by complete accident) as his students. Because they weren't. Because he was never even a teacher. Because he wasn't Ozpin.
He wasn't thinking of them, they never really even gave him much consideration, they could just give up for all he cared. So what if his relationship with them was confusing and felt deeper than it had any right to be? They were his first real friends. Nice track record, so far. He didn't care. He told himself he didn't care. And he didn't.
No, he was thinking about everybody else. The normal, innocent, unnamed people who had nothing to do with this intensely personal war.
Put others before himself.
To hell with himself.
To hell with anyone who wants to turn and run. To hell with those unwilling to be there for the innocent.
To hell with those who actively preyed on the weak.
To hell with her.
He made his choice and no one was going to change it, certainly not Oz's crazy murderous ex-wife.
To put others before himself, repeat that like the new mantra it was. He would lose himself for the others. And stubbornly ignore the fact that he had been doing that very thing since the very very beginning.
I really am just like you, aren't I? Then he squashed that thought. Ignored it and locked it away, because lying to himself was so much easier. And because if there was anything Ozma was good at it was shoving his own feelings deep down under layers of denile and terrible coping mechanisms, a skill Oscar had learned from the best.
How many times must he completely lose himself?
It didn't matter. He didn't matter in the long run. He was just there to be of use, to help everyone else.
Put others before yourself.
That's what it means to be a Huntsman.
That's what it means to be a King.
That's what it means to be a Leader.
That's what it means to be their Teacher.
That's what it means to be a Hero.
All things that he wasn't.
But it didn't matter much, anyway.
Put others before yourself.