Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The city of Mantle is, unequivocally, a dump.

It’s not just some passing, uncharitable thought; everyone knows it. The reputation’s spread far beyond Solitas’ borders, way on out to the furthest reaches of Remnant.

But it’s one thing to know Mantle is a dump in the factual sense, and another thing entirely to live it.

The potent reek of inequality, sewer gas, stale piss and antifreeze. Desperation hanging in the air as heavy as the Dust-processing fumes, a miasma of misery thick enough to choke on. Tens of thousands of lives, from the Crater slums to the outer wall sectors, all circling the drain in squalor.

So what does it say about high-and-mighty, Brothers-blessed Atlas above that there are people willing to shun all its riches and run? That for all its promise of prosperity, there are still people who fall through the cracks, who just can’t hack it, living the clean cookie cutter lifestyles of the wealthy and glorified? What does it say about Atlas that some people choose to leap from the city in the sky?

What does it say about you?

...

It probably says you’re a fucking dumbass, is what, for giving all that up. Giving up on riding the gravy train down an easy path to an easy future, even without a godsdamned clue where to go, where you’d end up, how you’d end up after you did.

How you’d end up dodging the community shelters, the soup kitchen, for fear of leaving a trail. How you’d end up in dank alleyways rummaging through dumpsters for scraps of edible food and essentials, memorizing which are the best odds at a good harvest, which will always be stripped clean, which will be locked down tight.

In this town, only the smaller, family-run businesses don’t secure these things anymore, and trouble is, word travels fast when a store’s got saints like that in their employ; they’re picked clean more often than the rest. Corporate policies from on high have the restaurant chains chaining up their trash bins tight, or dousing the trashed leftovers with bleach. Your stomach found that out the hard way, one night your first week wandering the streets.

You’ve found a few joints that toe the line in the past, hooking on the mandatory padlock, but conveniently forgetting to turn the key. The first three you’d hit today weren’t so convenient. Why the hell couldn’t the Academy survival classes’ve had a unit on lockpicking, huh? Grimm-killing skills alone don’t amount to shit for the day-to-day, and it’s not like you can leverage those skills for pay without a license.

It’s not like you can go back and get that license, either, try to finish what you started. You could, undoubtedly should, but just... can’t.

The school’s probably given up on you by now. Might’ve had more leeway to worm your way back in and explain your unwarranted absence if you’d wised up faster. But multiple months missing-in-action? Leaving your team in the lurch just a few weeks into your second year? Chances are they’ve already found a replacement from the reserves roster and filled the empty slot.

True, your team were total bastards anyway, with how they treated you, but Academy faculty couldn’t care less. Maybe if you’d put on a better showing at the practical exams back during Initiation, you’d’ve gotten on a better team to begin with.

Maybe if that fucking Rhodes girl hadn’t up and melted your godsdamned sword.

Seriously, who the hell does that during a warmup exhibition? Semester hadn’t even officially begun, the bar was so low, and in she steps, all: ‘Hey there, just gonna whip out my bullshit overpowered superheating Semblance to melt your very first weapon into a flaccid lump of molten slag! And in front of the entire freshman class! Oopsiedaisy!’

Like, what, was she trying to look cool? Assert dominance? Sure, the thing was funded with Mom ‘n Dad’s money – back when you actually had access to it – so replacing it was a drop in the bucket, but still! The gall of that bitch!

With that pathetic performance as a tone-setter, humiliation became the norm, never escaping your role as the awkward, emasculated, weakest link on your new team. Being three silver-spoon rich boys themselves, having someone even less macho to rag on was like striking a Dustmine.

Acing every solo exam, clobbering upperclassmen in pitched spars, getting hand-picked by Headmaster Ironwood himself for the Specialist Preparatory Course, not a bit of that could fix you in your team’s eyes. So they pushed. Pushed, and prodded, and heckled, and pried, until it all became too much, and…

And you really don’t want to unpack those memories again.

All that matters is that it landed you right here. Elbow-deep in a dumpster, in a dank, secluded alleyway behind Thistle’s Grocery, going through their garbage, not even getting anything good for your trouble.

Found a few packets of instant oatmeal, but you lack the equipment required for the complex alchemy of making it edible. You don’t trust trash-dairy, so the bags of deli cheese are a no, even if they’re still wrapped up. You think you’ve caught a glimpse of free sustenance – multiple boxes of graham crackers well past their sell-by dates, stale-but-sealed – underneath a cluster of used coffee filters, but you’d have to really displace a lot of nauseating mass to get there.

Not that you aren’t already feeling a little bleary, but because you’re such an optimist, you’d rather attribute that to the odor than the onset of extreme malnutrition. It’s a hell of a lot easier than acknowledging the bleak realities of the situation you’ve willingly waltzed into. That you’ve gone and fucked up to a nigh-fatal degree. Soon to have sunk from rich prodigy to dead in the gutter in a few months flat.

You’re going to need a bit more height if you want to get at those crackers. Otherwise it means leaning in with your dwindling body weight digging the grimy metal rim up into the flat plain where abs once could’ve gone. Next to the store’s rear exit, you remember seeing a few hard plastic milk crates you could use for stepstools. That’ll do. You withdraw your hands from the salvage operation, and perform the token gesture of wiping your gloves down with the oily rag you swear you’ll rinse off in some slushwater, next time you pass a heating grid node.

It’s when you turn your back and crouch for the crate that you first hear them: Footsteps. Sharp footsteps from the entrance to the alley, and click-clacking closer.

Your hand flies to your knife, its scored metal hilt still warm from the last false-alarm, and you slip it out of your pocket. Milk crate abandoned, you stand mannequin-still in the shadows. It could just be a Thistle’s employee with a key for the back door, shambling in for a shift. No need to get jumpy, this has happened before, this’ll happen again. Just wait it out.

Slowly but surely, the figure keeps on coming. As they pass into the light of the moth-addled lamp above the store’s back door, you can finally make out the details.

On second thought, you don’t reckon they work at Thistle’s.

The alley’s other occupant is an elegant, pale-skinned woman with immaculate honey-blonde hair; waist length, half drawn into a dainty bun in back as the rest hangs free, a very courtly look. Her eyes are a bright and enchanting turquoise, perfectly matched to the crystals over her sternum and waist-sash. The powder-snow white of her floor-length, sleeveless dress segues to a clean lilac at the hem, its hues far too light to fit with this filthy city and its backstreets, its cut far too breezy for this freezing climate.

Flatly thinking ‘shes not from around here’ does shit-all to rectify the fact that she is, in fact, here. Thus, your question of the day is: Why? She doesn’t look like danger, but these last few months have reinforced your gut instinct not to lower your guard so easily. Silk conceals steel just as well as kevlar.

Whoever she is, she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. It’s not clear just what she was after, what exactly she thought she’d discover down here, now that she’s stopped to survey the scene.

It is at this moment, right as you’re expecting her to turn and walk away, that the woman suddenly does something absolutely, patently alarming. Something impossible.

She looks at you.

“I don’t believe that will be necessary, young lady,” she says, smiling soft and serene, a single manicured finger pointing at your quivering knife.

Your heart stops flat, blood seized up inside. Your lungs concur with the idea; words and the air to speak them both fail you.

To summarize your jumbled, frantic thoughts, this latest turn of events is particularly terrifying based upon two crucial points:

Point One: To the implicit bias of the average observer, you appear nothing like a ‘young lady.’ From your lanky, lightly-masculine frame, to the ripped, hooded sweatshirt and track pants you’ve used to replace your Atlas Academy uniform, you look like a grimy, muddied, flea-ridden murder-hobo, a dirty orange scarf – at least, you hope it was orange to begin with – pulled high over your nose, and not just for the sake of stifling the stink of dumpster diving.

As the shock of being spotted sends you stumbling backward on two left feet, fumbling your knife, your scarf drops too, revealing the uncomfortable swath of peach fuzz stubble-shadow and sore red nicks across your lower face, your jaw, your neck.

No one ever taught you how to properly shave with a knife, but no one’s exactly throwing out clean, unused sets of disposable razors and shaving cream either, nor a nice, private bathroom in which to tidy up. Your shaggy, chin-length blue hair has suffered as well, so dry and dull, and your bangs are a mess. You’ve had to make do.

At the end of the day, the facts are these: You look, dress, move, sound, and arguably smell nothing like a conventional young lady-about-town.

Point Two: Your Semblance is the projection of Invisibility. As in, able to render you hidden from even the most advanced electronic eye on the modern market when in use.

And, y’know, you’ve been actively using it the entire time.

Ergo, you feel you’re amply deserving to know how the flying fuck she’s privy to these things! How did she know about you– About your tangled mess of an identity, about half of the reason you couldn’t stand the path life set ahead of you. About what you are, beneath it all?

You’ve never told a living soul on Remnant of those stomped-down dreams, those childish ideas from when you had the luxury of hope and fantasy. When you thought taking this reckless, self-sabotaging path might still lead you to freedom to live as someone you could actually stand being.

“H-how could you tell I was here?” Your voice completely fails to carry a threat, your body language screaming a fearful defensiveness, one arm braced ahead of yourself on guard, the other groping down to grab your fallen knife, fingers tight around the hilt, just in case, just in case. “How did you know I’m… That I was…? Just how!?”

Being interrogated by the ghost of a twitchy, hideous murder-hobo seems to not faze the woman one bit. She steps closer even, practically glides with the silky sense of grace she carries. The smile she shows you is something entirely foreign: Calm, caring, and maternal, a concept you only understand by proxy.

“Oh, you needn’t worry, dear. It’s due in part to my own… Semblance, you see.” An implacable twinge of distaste crosses her face as she tells you this, and then it’s gone again, flashed back to pleasantries. “To sense distress, to see the shape of a soul and all its strife. Fear and sorrow, hunger and hate and hurt, the yearning for needs yet unfulfilled.”

As she monologues about her power, you put together that your Semblance won’t do you any good for hiding, and you let the veil fall to conserve your Aura. That said, a thought skims the edge of your mind: It’s an uncanny ability she’s got, and one that sounds all-too-familiar.

Anybody with an iota of social grace’d claim it’s a crass thing to imply about a Semblance, about a manifestation of someone’s very soul, but in your twitchy, reactive state, your brain-to-mouth filter is faltering.

“Yeah, yeah, sniffing out people’s bad vibes, no need to butter it up. Sounds like you’d fit right in with the Grimm,” you grumble.

The mystery woman takes no offense; she actually laughs, fair and airy. “And you wouldn’t be the first to suggest as much, child. I, however, find it has a rather human touch, for finding those in need.”

So what if you’re needy? So’s the rest of this entire town. Still doesn’t explain why in the hell she’s talking to you in particular, why she’s chatting up a sketchy stranger as casually as discussing the weather (Incidentally cold and wet, as opposed to cold and dry, or cold deluxe).

You’d bet your boots another motive’s at play, here. Though you doubt she’s planning to mug you – the reverse is more statistically likely – there’s something else she’s not stating outright. Come on, your adolescence has prepared you for this, prying behind glossy words to hear what they’re really saying.

“So, you’ve got a Semblance, you gravitate towards damsels in distress... What, you a huntress, or something?”

“No, not quite. I am simply a woman of ample means, passing by on business, who then happened to hear the clarion cry of a complicated soul. It would be in poor taste not to extend that girl a helping hand, wouldn’t you say? You may call me Elphaba, dear. Elphaba West. A pleasure to meet you.”

Say what now? The hell kind of name is that? Forget giving her your own – that’s a tricky topic to start with – you give hers a quick cross-reference with your mental dictionary, trying to scry out any sort of colorful allusion as per the classical traditions, and come up empty-handed.

Maybe it’s just one of those dusty old prewar names that got grandfathered in; you’ve met more than enough stuffy Atlesian elites still clinging to the supposedly-noble names of a bygone age for it to stand as a reasonable assumption.

And she does look a bit like nobility, a tailored, statuesque beauty like you’d seen mingling among the ranks of the rich, back at all your parents’ lush parties. The type you’d watched like a hawk through gaps in the crowd, inadequacy and envy endlessly coiling over one another in your gut. What was the word she used, yearning? Yearning’s right.

“Look, enough beating around the bush,” you snap, “what the fuck are you doing down here?” Wincing at your own sharpness, you rub at the back of your neck and weakly append, “It’s just– you don’t really look like you belong down here… is all.”

“I could say the same for you, Little Marigold.”

For the second time in the last sixty seconds, you suffer the phantom full-body feeling of being slammed with a semi-truck made of shock.

She knows. Knowing what you were was already worrying enough, but the who, too?

It would have been so easy to throw yourself on the mercy of the community and steal a bed in the local homeless shelters, any time in the last few months. To shuffle through one of the soup kitchens for the guarantee of at least a single hot meal a day. But the problem with public resources is that they’re public.

Public means being seen, public means being recognized. And recognition comes easily when one’s family is a household name, your face well-known to the paparazzi, and the matter of your disappearance a recurring segment on the ABN nightly news. The last time you turned up your hood and skulked past an electronics store, eyes peeled for their front-window displays, you caught a blurb about your parents trying to frivolously sue the Atlas Academy school board for gross negligence, pumping up the Marigolds’ position in the public mindshare.

All those Missing posters may as well be Wanted posters. The standing reward of cold hard lien for information on your whereabouts hangs like a bounty on your head, and Elphaba here might just be looking to call in a claim.

So, a complete stranger knows you inside and out, and is undaunted by both the shiv in your pocket and the cumbersome, towel-wrapped, huntress-grade blade slung on your back. Yes, she’s got kind words to spare, but what if she wants to collect? You don’t see a weapon on her, and her Semblance seems to be soul-searching – even if she can cancel out your invisibility, it can’t do much in combat.

Okay, no need to panic. Avoid the topic of your family name. Spin it around, keep the focus on her, see what you can shake out.

“That’s – It’s not like I planned to – You didn’t answer my question. Why are you actually here?”

Elphaba clasps her hands at her waist with utmost poise. “I suppose one might call me a philanthropist. One who could offer shelter and sustenance for a night.”

Ah. A serial killer, then! Or a cannibal, cult leader, representative of a multi-level marketing scam, something to that effect. ‘Philanthropist,’ really, who even says that? Either she wants your parents’ money, your internal organs, or–

“...And more to come, in exchange for your assistance. As it happens, I believe I could have use for a girl of your talents.”

And there it is, the stinger. You’re well-aware a semblance like yours would be invaluable for less-than-legal work; the temptation’s been ever-present, pushing your boundaries a few inches further towards the tipping point each day.

The knife in your hand feels heavy, all of a sudden. You stash it away again. “I’m not gonna kill anyone for you, if that’s what you’re gunning for.”

“Oh, no. Nothing so violent as that. In fact, your timely cooperation would ensure no violence be necessary at all. But we can discuss details later, when we have some privacy.”

Okay, so, drug smuggling? Jewel thievery? It’s still something plucked from the big cornucopia of crime, right? To the layman, Elphaba doesn’t give the gritty impression of a local gang leader, but the raw presence she exudes is otherworldly enough that you might just second guess your gut. This is the type of woman who can talk winding circles around anyone, talk them into doing just about anything.

Apparently anything up to, and including, willingly following her back to her place, clueless as a lamb to slaughter.

“Fine,” you grit out, the enormity of this minor decision slamming a door shut behind you. You can only hope you’re opening another further on ahead. “Meal and a warm bed, I’ll hear you out, at least. But if I don’t like the sound of the gig, I’m leaving. Do we have a deal?”

And fuck it, if this goes screwy, you can always pick her pocket and bail, a tax for wasting your time. Or, wait, does her dress even have pockets? She’s not carrying a purse, where does she keep her stuff? Hell, where does she keep her scroll? You remember a few female classmates stored theirs in their–

Uh. Right. You jerk your eyes up from the busom of Elphaba’s dress just in time to meet hers, an unfathomable intensity swimming beneath their beatific softness.

“Yes, I would say we have a deal.”

Chapter Text

Over the course of your self-imposed exile, your efforts to scrape along and survive have sent you stumbling all across the breadth of Mantle’s myriad sectors, but never down into the Crater itself. The security checkpoints posted on the few public street entrances to the slums have always given you pause.

Whether put to use acing practical Stealth & Survival exams or helping you steal fresh garbage, you’ve gotten the gist that your Semblance can shield you from all modern Atlesian surveillance technologies to some degree, not to mention that the majority down in Mantle are probably a decade out of date, the city’s budget being what it is.

That funding crunch never seems to squeeze the Crater security, though; thanks to the generous contributions of the Schnee Dust Company, not to mention a particular prejudice against a certain species predominant down there in the ghettos, the toughest of the city’s security presence is often concentrated around these entryways and elevators critical to SDC shipping and worker transit. Here, rather than – oh, you know – over by the Grimm-battered outer walls.

Plus, the trash down there in the Crater’d probably be even sparser than what you’ve been rummaging through as-is, and even if you had a way to deal with the Lightning Dust-laced barbed wire at the top, anyone with eyes could still see the fences wibble-wobbling under the weight of a scraggly, underfed, invisible teenager trying to get up and over. They’d shoot first and ask what they’d even been shooting at later.

Miserable local politics aside, if there had been some sudden, state-of-the-art breakthrough in surveillance tech that could actually pin you down, these checkpoints’re the first place in Mantle they’d take it out for a spin, scaring you off from what always seemed like too much of a gamble, trying to get down there without good reason.

Coincidentally, ‘because a sweet-talking stranger with sketchy motivations told me to’ is apparently what constitutes a good reason, now. Quality life choices, Marigold. Really on a hot streak.

Upon your arrival at the crater-transit checkpoint – angry block lettering on the asphalt beneath signaling you to ‘STOP’ and signage requesting you have your identification ready for processing – Elphaba pauses at the street corner nearest the perimeter, and gives you an expectant look.

After checking both ways for witnesses and popping on your semblance, you reach a hand towards her, prepared to extend the invisibility field, only for Elphaba to shake her head and wave you onward.

“There is no need, dear, I have my ways. You hurry along first.”

Tch. Should’ve seen that one coming. Of course she has her ways; if her mysterious hideout’s down in the Crater, how else would she have gotten up here in the first place? Well, unless she has, like, a sneaky personal airship chauffeur, and they’d flown her up and dropped her off, or–

Or it’s all a steaming load of bullshit, and she’s running you through a live-fire drill to see if you’re even worth the effort.

N’yeah, makes you feel a bit dense that it took this long for the realization to land. Look at her, she’s no Crater-dweller, that jewelry alone could buy a mid-size condo in the residential sectors.

If you were a betting woman, and also not flat broke, you’d stake every last lien that she’s planning to call you right back after you’ve danced through the danger, then flag down the luxury airship she probably owns, and zip you away to her real secret lair uptown... Assuming you don’t get pumped full of daylight by a trigger-happy rent-a-cop in the process.

Whatever. You know you can do this. You’ve cheated top-of-the-line technology and wowed even a General before, this is a cakewalk. So walk already.

Willing your gangly legs to kindly get their shit together, you curve around the corner, pick up the pace and hustle right through the middle of the checkpoint. Security cameras swivel back and forth on their standard cycles, their linked autoturrets snoozing away. Cautiously you zig-zag your course between the gun-toting, corporate-mercenary meatheads on duty, neither of whom pay you a single glance. You might as well have been a light breeze.

Even as you reach the far side, you hold your Semblance steady. It might be nice to let it slip for a second to take a breath, have it stop gnawing on your paltry Aura reserves, but common sense suggests the guards might not presume total innocence if someone were to pop out of thin air so close to them, even one standing outside their designated killbox.

This should be enough to prove your worth, or at least the viability of your Semblance for stealth ops. You spin on your heel for the return trip, expecting to find Elphaba already waving you back over from a safe distance, ready to reveal thirty seconds too late that it was all merely a test.

Instead, you discover you’ve just lost that imaginary bet with yourself. Elphaba West does no such thing, because shattering your expectations is fast becoming her modus operandi. She’s not lurking back at the intersection, playing it coy, ringing up her chauffeur. She’s coming closer.

In a practiced motion, she snaps her fingers and pleasantly strolls, back straight, head held high, straight through the center of the cordon. The guards grow unnaturally still, and not one of them looks her way, nor does the gate slam down to stop her, nor does a single siren begin blaring over her failure to comply. You’re used to getting that kind of treatment from people, but only with your Semblance active.

Alright, so, situational update: what the fuck! Scrutiny from local security contractors is of no concern to the enigmatic Lady West, and her likelihood of being some untouchable criminal overlord is drastically increasing. How the hell’d she pull that off? Bribes? Cronies waiting in the wings? Was that her Sembl–

Wait, no, she already told you her Semblance: the bad vibes detector. Unless that was a lie, and mind-tricks are what she’s really got in stock? But, no, she had to’ve had a way to see you while you were invisible. So what, and how–

“Coming, child?”

Later. You can break this all down tonight, while you toss and turn in the bed she’s promised, provided you don’t get murdered in it. For now, keep your cool.

Elphaba doesn’t allow impatience to show in her face, but the hand she sets on your shoulder as soon as she reaches your side has an ounce of firm insistence behind it, asking you to match her pace.

“We are in no rush, though I couldn’t possibly imagine you want to linger out in the cold. You seem cold.”

Says the woman in the sheer, sleeveless dress. She’s right, though. Weeks spent sprinting towards the closest heating grid node come nightfall have staved off full-on frostbite thus far, but still allowed the deep chill to make its home in your bones.

What little pride you retain won’t let you admit just how eager you are to get indoors. “Eh, it’s Atlas,” you deflect, “Everything’s cold.”

“A paltry observation, but true on more levels than one.” Elphaba lets go of you to fold her hands behind her back, her stride no less perfect as the path grows unsteady, ill-maintained asphalt riddled with cracks and frozen puddles, descending along the curved ramp jutting from the crater wall. “Appropriate, that the most keenly ice-hearted of the modern Kingdoms was born here in the arctic.”

“Maybe,” you offer with strained neutrality. You want to keep her engaged, wring out whatever information you can, but can’t risk offending her politics when you don’t even know what they are, yet. “But it could probably happen anywhere with so much Dust, and so little regulation.”

“The wealth of the land does play its part, but I find there is a certain… unique cruelty to a society who turn their neighbors out into the frigid night, even as they warm themselves at the fire that neighbor built.”

All this talk about the callousness of Atlas is striking a particular chord in you. Maybe you’re not getting dragged into a life of crime after all; maybe this is all just a wonky recruitment scheme for some sort of secret socialist vigilante squad! That’s a thrilling thought. Honestly, you’d probably be a perfect fit for aiding a progressive political movement here in Mantle, a hell of a lot more suited than you are for a life in the cutthroat criminal underbelly. Fingers crossed.

“My parents always blew it off and said the Mantlers only needed to work harder,” you reply, no longer holding back the bitterness you foster for your birthplace, the society that couldn’t squeeze you into its mold. “That their own prosperity was proof of the Brother Gods’ favor.”

Evidently Elphaba finds that hilarious, if her outbreak of muted chuckling is any indication; it’s some of the strongest emotion you’ve seen out of her yet.

“The Gods’ favor? Even if the Gods yet watched over this world, even were they the fair and just beings as portrayed in legend, Atlas of all Kingdoms would be the furthest from their grace.”

She turns her gaze high, unimpressed with the facade of the floating city above. “They believe they are innately exceptional, congratulate themselves for the mere act of being born into a house of fortune. They decry Vacuo as a desert devoid of worth, when it was their own Dust-mining that irrevocably ravaged the oasis. They label Mistral an immoral jungle of thieves, then purchase their orphans as slaves for pleasure and profit. Vale, ‘lax and misguided,’ Menagerie little more than its namesake… They willfully neglect it is the bones of the Kingdom of Mantle upon which their own is built.”

Elphaba slows to a halt, just long enough to draw your attention.

“Do you know what I see?” she asks you, with a wide sweep of the hand towards Atlas Proper, ending on the dangling tethers and shipping tubes sprouting skyward from Mantle’s mines and factories, disappearing up into Atlas’ sub-level structures. “What I see when I peer up at this… crowning achievement, the vainglorious pinnacle of all human society?”

You shake your head.

“A parasite.” She resumes walking as she explains, a purely conversational tone, eyes fixed on the road. “Like a bloodsucking insect, bloated with its ill-gotten prize, yet gorging still from those who’ve none to spare. Perhaps, if it had stolen but a little, it would go without notice. A trifle. But in its arrogance, this one has taken too much, and all for naught. As with all bothersome insects, in time, someone will swat it down – all its inimitable majesty dashed across the barren landscape in a smear.”

It would be a sight, you have to admit, to see Atlas fall, to finally be held accountable for their hubris. Overthinking it brings the obvious pang of empathy, worry for those innocents who would be caught up in the mess – probably even yourself until only recently – but as a generalized, abstract concept, it would be all kinds of cathartic, even when you know it’s impossible. The more you’ve contemplated capitalism’s nightmarish endgame, the more it’s felt that the whole machine has grown far too big, too complex, too merciless for mortal hands to ever have a hope of bringing down.

Maybe Elphaba thinks she can, though? Maybe that’s her game, less ‘progressive, socialist vigilante’ and more radical anarchist? And that’s all assuming that she’s not simply a criminal mastermind with delusions of grandeur and a community college political science degree.

“We can only hope, right?” you joke, your laugh shallow in your chest. You’re breaking from the serious tone she’s set, and to her credit, she doesn’t respond with one of your parents’ sour, scolding looks. It’s pity? A pity which extends even beyond your momentarily-disheveled state.

“Quite. This Kingdom has failed its people, above and below. This Kingdom has failed you.”

As the street’s slow decline deposits you onto the first plateau of the Crater’s slums, a calcified guilt throbs in the back of your brain.

These people didn’t have a choice. The cluster of tired faunus, uniformed in sooty boiler suits, warming their hands and paws around the sputtering flame sheltered within an old oil barrel. The ex-miner, missing a leg, propped against a tavern wall with a crutch across his lap and a plywood sign beside, imploring mercy where the SDC’s insurance agents denied him. The children scattering away from their barebones stickball game at the stomping approach of a glossy white Atlesian Knight drone, scanning for unrest with rifle in hand, eternally ready for war.

So many of these people would rightfully kill to have what you did, the security, the comfort, and you consciously chose to be ungrateful, throwing it all away like a used tissue.

“Even if Atlas failed me, that doesn’t stop me feeling like it’s my own fault I ended up like this. I could have had it all, and had it easier, if I’d just…” Just gave in. Just surrendered.

Elphaba pulls you off the main thoroughfare, with its larger, sturdier houses, and down a snowy stairwell carved into the stone, shadowed by the lopsided silhouettes of shoddily-welded scrap-hovels. She never slips a step, even as you wobble to keep your footing in the absence of a handrail. It’s getting dark out – sunset already comes early this time of year, and a broad wall of stormclouds is bearing down on the city from the southwest.

“Could you? Could you claim to ‘have it all,’ when they would refuse you that which you needed most? Can you envision any future in which you strangle your nascent selfhood into silence, embody all they demanded of you, and are not broken under that yoke?”

Fuck no, you can’t. Elphaba’s right; in your parents’ good graces, you wanted for nothing. It's what you needed that destroyed you, things that they’d never deign to give.

Love – platonic or romantic – would you have ever found it inside the fine suits and champagnes of the family business, the false smiles and empty marriages? Or even the stodgy structure of the military hierarchy, if you’d turned yourself over to Ironwood’s ambition? No.

Respect – Would even a single relative be willing to look at you again, knowing you were the walking, talking antithesis to everything they stand for? For the crime of fostering progressive beliefs? For just plain being born wrong, your every breath a political statement? Not a chance.

A Name – Would you ever find one, that most basic fragment of identity? Would you ever hear a kind voice whisper it into your ear, reaffirming your worth, your very existence?

Since that fateful, miserable day you leapt from your former life, a sizable chunk of your brain has always berated you for your wasteful choice, throwing away a fortune just to gamble on a chance of becoming yourself. But in defiant contrast, the other half of your mind holds onto a fear coalesced into a fact: staying would’ve been the long death. Slower than starvation, colder than hypothermia, more gruesome than throwing yourself to the Grimm.

“...No,” you confess at last.

If Elphaba’s Semblance really is what she says it is, she must be getting blasted six ways from Sunday with the pitch-black feelings, tar-thick, sloughing off you in waves. She frames it all as inquiry, but her tone implies she already knows where she’s headed. Inside and out, she’s leading you down a murky, winding path, and you’re blithely letting her.

What use is it protesting her take on the matter when she can apparently already hear the pain in your heart? True, you don’t yet grasp the specific depth to which she can pry, but this talk is dredging it all up to the surface, like she’s the Hot Therapist from Hell. Maybe this is another live-fire drill; acutely reminding you why your life sucks shit, so some Grimm’ll come knocking to test your combat skills.

“They whittled down your faith in their world, and your hope to ever change it. The night they broke you, the night you fell – tell me truthfully. You did not expect to survive, did you?”

Too ashamed to speak and expose that truth to the open air, you slowly shake your head. Because you hadn’t. You considered it a possibility, but only in the abstract, a foggy, featureless path to purposeless existence.

Elphaba steps out in front to head you off, slowing you both to a stop. The clouds have begun to swell above, and the floating city doesn’t fully shield this sector. A few scattered raindrops fall on your shoulders before Elphaba’s fingers do, grasping you from both sides. You don’t want to look up, but the gesture relentlessly commands your attention.

“You stared death itself in the eye, and found it benign, but you could not yet reach it. Even bereft of all hope, the greatest strength of mankind, you did not succumb. Why do you think that is?”

Alright, this lady’s being far too damned poetic for what amounts to rehashing your pathetic emotional breakdown. Forget the political sciences, maybe she’s got a theater degree in there, too. Besides, she’s got it all wrong. You don’t just think – you know why it was.

“S’not like there’s much point to living like this, but… If I died now, it’d be like I’d never existed. Be buried under someone else’s name. Not even forgotten; never known at all.” You try to snort derisively, and all you manage is a wet sniffle. “How can someone die if they never lived in the first place?”

Unshakable as ever by the dire subject matter, the good Lady West gives you another of her distant, ghostly smiles.

“How, indeed? Such a ravenous wish you hold in your heart, that it sustains you through living death. You should be proud. Marigolds are quite the resilient, beautiful bloom, when properly tended. How fortunate for you, to have encountered someone with a place for you in her garden.”

She removes her hands from you, and for a fraction of a second, you lurch after them. Damn it. You can turn invisible, but you’re not trying to be that transparent. Your guide (employer?) reaches towards the sheer cliff wall to your left, and the weighty industrial slab of corrugated, rust-red steel, which begins to slide aside at her gentle touch, unveiling the doorway beneath.

“And how fortunate for us both… We’ve just arrived.”

Chapter Text

The industrial metal slab perched against the Crater’s cliff face finishes lurching over with a lethargic screech, clearing the tunnel entrance carved into the stone. Whoever installed this hidden door was a pro; you can’t even spot the mechanisms behind it.

You’re buffeted by the trapped heat from indoors pouring out only a second after the door opens, and it may as well be bodily yanking you through the threshold. Never again will you take proper central heating for granted, not after weeks denied it save for those scant few times you’d scrounged up enough lien to slip into a corner store for some cheap sustenance.

While Elphaba seals the door behind you both, you take the opportunity to scrape the slush off your shoes against the weathered doormat. You might be a vagrant now, but your years of etiquette lessons haven’t eroded away that quickly.

The hideaway’s brutalist architecture and wall-to-wall concrete construction teases a former life as a Great War-era military bunker, obfuscated by expansive redecoration efforts over the years. Mismatched red rugs chart a path through the fortifications at the entrance, myriad pillars and alcoves for cover, slat windows through which to aim in a theoretical firefight. Dark walnut-wood paneling begins replacing the matte gray walls the deeper you go, and the illumination of bright golden sconces overtakes the cheap, caged industrial bulbs overhead.

Just before claustrophobia can settle in, the narrow hall opens into a grand, semicircular central chamber, with candles dancing on a crystalline chandelier dangling from the lofty ceiling, scattering light across one finely-polished conference table.

There’s space enough for nine high-backed chairs to surround it, and behind the head of the table, chipped logs crackle away in a sizable stone hearth fireplace – An actual, wood-burning fireplace, not one of the Dust-fueled replicas littering modernized, middle-class residences. With lumber being a tricky commodity in certain parts of Solitas, the only people left regularly burning wood are the wasteful wealthy, and the destitute out-kingdom villagers subsisting off the boreal forests.

Scattered high across the walls above you are the subjects of a museum director’s wildest wet dream: trophies, relics, and show pieces of bygone ages and obnoxious rarity. Rusted poleaxes and spears once wielded by legendary huntsmen of eld, strange trinkets and bits of jewelry which seem to hum with an unnatural importance you can’t wrap your head around – the prickling sensation at the edges of your Aura is purely psychosomatic, you’re certain, but that doesn’t make it any less strange.

Flanking you on either side of the entryway, suits of armor from antiquity, both the heavier plate of Sanus and lamellar from feudal Anima, stand silent vigil, staring down blown-glass Grimm on the opposite end. You’ve seen more than your fair share of these replicas in the homes of your parents’ associates, both hideous, and hideously inaccurate, as you’d found after your old team’s first forays into the tundra with weapon in hand. Why they wish to mythologize the beasts baying at their doorstep, you never understood.

And is that– You remind yourself there’s a chance it’s merely a reproduction or forgery, but the glamour of the other works all around imply you might be staring at the original Dereliction of Divinity, framed high upon the wall in polished gold. A blasphemous painting which sent its artist into hiding from the Fraternist Orthodoxy nearly three centuries past, it depicts the Gods of Light and Darkness as negligent drunkards strewn over their thrones in the heavens, goblets overflowing. Carmine droplets of wine spilled from on high soon become a rain of blood upon the peasantry, as war and famine wrack Remnant below.

Last you’d heard – back in that mandatory semester of Art History at St. Camden’s – this thing was pinched from a gallery back during the chaos of the Great War, and never publicly resurfaced. It speaks volumes to whatever profound influence your hostess holds that it’s now fallen into her possession.

You’ve deviated off-course, you realize, wandering the edges of the room to examine the showcase, when Elphaba’s voice mere inches behind makes you jump.

“Rather garish, isn’t it all? Though, I must admit, that piece is indeed my favorite of the lot.”

“Uh.” You’re sounding very intelligent right now. Good show. Fortunately, your host doesn’t mind the lapse in brainpower, seemingly amused – why is she always so amused with you? – by your awe.

“Most of these trinkets were gathered by the prior tenant, if you were curious. A precious metals magnate from the city above, who dabbled in the antiquities trade. In the beginning, he fancied to fashion this place into a safehouse, to fritter away his final days in luxury, should public opinion or powerful rivals turn against him.”

That sure sounds like your average Atlesian bigwig, no surprises there. It begs the question of how many billion-lien bug-out shelters their kind has built just a stone’s throw from the huddled masses they’re bleeding dry.

“By happenstance, he stumbled across some of the more esoteric artifacts of the ancient world, and his interest became that of an addiction. For years, he squandered away these treasures, amassing a hoard to afford himself a vague sense of imperviousness.” Elphaba shakes her head. “It is a pitiable thing, but for all his efforts, his gilded sarcophagus did nothing to stay his judgment.”

“And then he… left it to you?” You ask, already doubtful, checking off a box on your list of hunches. “In his will, or something?”

“Not precisely; I merely reappropriated what once was mine.”

Cool. That’s even more confusing.

As you continue to survey the collection on display along the perimeter, you catch motion off in an unlit, adjoining room to your right, and Lady West turns as well.

A lean, mustachioed and mean-looking man with cropped black hair and a long gray overcoat – in his late thirties, maybe forties you’d guess – occupies the darkened space, illuminated in bluish tint by a trio of thick, outdated computer monitors, tapping away at an analog keyboard. There’s an echo of familiarity to him that you can’t quite place.

His breakneck typing speed lags as soon as he notices you both, tilting back in his chair and regarding you in particular with suspicion.

“Ah. Welcome back. I see that we have... company, tonight.”

The bracing way in which Lady West rests a hand on your shoulder is fast becoming familiar. Reassuring, but weighty enough to stifle wayward thoughts of pulling away. Her unreadable expression softens again as she regards you, refusing to break eye contact as she speaks, even after your own shy back down to your shoes.

“That we do. These visits to Atlas are always full of pleasant surprises.”

“Evidently so, if you’ve scooped up the missing scion of the Marigolds.” Having already lost interest, Mister Mustache turns back to clacking away on his keyboards. “Planning to hold him for ransom, then? It would fund our branch operations for years, with what his parents have offered for his return.”

Your composure fails, and you flinch. Elphaba’s grip tightens around you.

“She is an honored guest,” Elphaba states, burying spikes in every pronoun to make her message abundantly clear. You want to interrupt, to let her know it’s fine, that you’re used to it, that there’s no need to intercede on your behalf, but the words go stale in your mouth. “And if she agrees to help us, her Semblance will be invaluable in remedying your latest predicament.”

Mustache whirls back around in his desk chair, face swiftly cycling through bewilderment, contemplation, realization, and disgust. He bites his tongue, loathe to contradict his employer by voicing that opinion, but lets his eyebrows do the talking all the same. “I see. I sincerely hope…” The ‘stache twitches. “That they do not disappoint.”

Reeeeeal subtle, asshole. Must think you’re so slick.

The half-hearted surrender placates Lady West for the time being, and her gaze returns to you. “I do not doubt she will exceed my expectations. But wherever are my manners? I made you a promise. We’ll discuss business after you’ve had something to eat, you must be starving.”

Starving? Your stomach is a cavernous void, and your last meal was the discarded dregs of a half-eaten twenty-piece chicken nugget value meal. The mere insinuation of real food is enough for your traitorous stomach to growl gracelessly.

Over in his nook, Mustache mutters something acerbic about taking in mewling strays, while Elphaba signals over to another man stalking down the interior hallway.

No wonder these people have holed up somewhere with such high ceilings; there’s barely any headroom left for this guy. Big is an inadequate descriptor, this is a mountain of muscle with a beard. Whenever he croaks, you’d have to mash two coffins together to have a hope of packing him in. Man could break a Manticore over his knee.

Elphaba easily spins you to face him, with that gentle hand between the shoulder blades.

“Show Miss Marigold to the kitchens and ensure she’s eaten her fill, then prepare her accommodations. I will be with her shortly.”

She leaves you, then, in the custody of the Muscle Man, gliding her way towards Mustache’s computer room and addressing him in terse, hushed tones. Muscle Man stares you down, cocks his head towards the hall with an impassive grunt, and heads out without waiting to see if you’ll follow.

Not like you’ve got much choice, so you toddle along behind.

It doesn’t escape notice that the tactic of preparing accommodations preceding your actual acceptance of any job is an effective leveraging of feather-light pressure to ensure your compliance, without resorting to straight intimidation. Growing up around the Atlesian aristocracy left you well-versed in this kind of social rigging, but the last few months have left you too drained to give a damn.

Besides, Elphaba – Or Miss West, Lady West, whatever – has been strangely kind to you, one assholish henchman notwithstanding, and you’ll readily accept strange kindness over the world’s cruel indifference any day.

Muscles guides you into the depths of the bunker, past dingy, cobwebbed stockrooms and empty crew quarters, and one supremely-reinforced bulkhead you can only assume belongs to Her Head Honcho-ness. It’s not a very scenic tour, but there’s little of interest to see that isn’t tightly sealed away. The place feels a lot smaller than you’d’ve assumed a shady criminal organization or revolutionary movement would maintain; maybe the nine chairs at the conference table could actually seat the whole of the group.

One more right turn, and Muscles shoulders through a swinging door into a cramped, sparsely-decorated mess hall that wouldn’t look out of place in your average Atlesian military border outpost. He drags a chair out for you on his way through to crowd the kitchen nook in the rear.

“Here. ‘Fraid we don’t have any foie gras, or boiled goose, or whatever they feed you brats upstairs,” he warns, voice rough as a gravel backroad. “Boss Lady doesn’t have much of an appetite, but the fancy stuff’s stowed for when she’s in the mood. Rest of us scrounge from whatever’s left. Had a stew goin’ tonight, if that fits your fancy palate.”

You drop into the offered chair and automatically fold your hands in your lap, back straight, posture prim and perfect. The instincts are too far ingrained at this point, and it’s a test of will to let yourself slouch, put elbows on the table.

“Yes, that’s fine,” you mumble, voice tragically unpracticed for the higher pitch you’ve been trying to learn. When the silence stagnates, you try again, loud enough to be heard in the other room. “T-that’s fine! I don’t want to abuse the hospitality; Lady West hasn’t even told me why I’m here, so...”

Rounding the corner from the rear kitchens, the muscle-man snorts, bemused. “Lady West, huh?” he asks, as he slides you a tray bearing a steaming bowl of spicy, savory stew, spoon rattling around the rim, and a buttered breadroll besides. “Is that what she’s using out there? Been a while.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks.  “I thought her name was Elphaba–“

“Our Lady has many names. Be good, ‘n you might learn the real one.”

Well, that tracks. A shadowy underworld boss – if you’ve even guessed that right – isn’t going to go giving identifying information to random homeless disasters, especially when she hasn’t secured your assistance with… with whatever dubious deeds she needs done. Whatever constitutes ‘being good,’ and you’re certainly not about to get psychoanalytical about the odd pang in your chest the thought of being good for her gives you at this juncture.

More pertinently, it’s starting to unnerve you that everyone you’ve met today knows who you are, and you don’t know a thing about them. You can’t just keep calling them by bland, adjectival epithets forever, so you decide to go fishing.

“Right, I’ll, er. I’ll do that. Thank you, mister…?”

Muscles rests his bulk against a clear stretch of wall by the pot rack, burly arms folded over his chest. He’s not fooled by the casual questioning, and lets the question lie long enough that you start to spoon up your meal in awkward silence.

“Hazel. Just Hazel,” he clarifies at long last, once he’s got you sized up. “Y’already had the misfortune of meeting Watts.”

“Watts, as in– As in, Arthur Watts?” So that’s where you remember the bastard’s face from. A formerly esteemed boardmember of Atlas Military Research & Development, a narcissistic schmoozer of a scientist whose pursuit of glory lost him the General’s favor. Pretty sure he’d gorged on canapes at one of your father’s social functions years back, strutting amid the prolific and powerful like a featherless peacock. “But, the Paladin Incident, that was interkingdom news! Didn’t he…?”

“Die? No. Not everyone’s content to slip out the back door. Threw himself that flashy tantrum and faked his death. Wouldn’t’ve been our problem, except the Boss thought he might be useful, so… we’re stuck with ‘im, now.”

“My condolences.”

“Hmph. Appreciated.”

A brief aside? Not to detract from your crucial info-digging, but this stew is outrageously good. That could be colored by the fact you haven’t had a prepared meal since the school cafeteria the day before you dove off the side of your known world, but still.  You’re not nuanced enough to determine just what kind of venison has been diced up to form the bulk of it, maybe caribou? It’s exquisitely lean, and pairs nicely with the white wine splashed into the base, the tundra herbs forming a complex, but not overpowering flavor overlaying the vegetables.

The ingredients themselves taste so fresh, you consider asking Hazel whether he’d hunted them down himself, but that’s not conducive to your stated goal of nosy prying. You down a few more spoonfuls with a token amount of chewing, then pick up where you left off.

“So, you’ve got a disgraced, dead tech-wizard hanging around. I haven’t seen any drones, so what does he even do around here? Or, uh. What does anyone do around here, actually?”

Not your finest work of speechcraft, with all the surgical precision of a blunt prybar. Hazel just heaves a tired scoff. “Don’t push your luck. You’ll know what you need to, when you need to know it.”

You go for another bite, only for your spoon to splash in the dregs. You’ve really been wolfing it down, now even resorting to sopping up the last droplets with the remainder of your bread, not keen on missing a drop.

Here’s the issue: You’re still actually pretty damn hungry. Technically, if you remember right, Elphaba promised you food ‘for a night,’ no tricky stipulations to catch you if you indulged any further, but… Would it be rude? Get you a dirty look? Buried in debt for a bit more bread?

When you scrape together the courage to even glance up again, you spy a microscopic quirk of a smirk at the edge of Hazel’s mouth, finding humor in a born-rich brat being too damned shy to ask for seconds.

He refills your bowl, anyway.

“Eat up, ‘n get yourself a feel for the place. Got a spare room you can use, first left down the hall. Shower’s the next left after that, so you can scrape the dirt off. Don’t wander too far. Boss’ll find you when she wants you.”

Hot water. Holy hell, you missed hot water.

Homeless you may be, but you hadn’t let yourself become a wholly unwashed grime-glob. Whenever and wherever you could slip into a public bathroom with minimal traffic, you’d stomach the stab to your dignity over walking into the wrong side, grab a rag, and steal yourself a sink-bath, bit by bit. Even in the nicer neighborhoods, the water temperature’d never risen past tepid, and the dispenser-grade hand soap your only cleansing agent.

Here, though? Here, you’re free from the prying eyes of the general public, no need to rush. Here, you’ve got lungs full of steam and exotic floral soap scents, and an endless supply of warm water from up above that isn’t just a third-story Mantler upending a dirty washbasin into the alley. Forget the room that’s been reserved, you want to live here, now. This set of showers will be your new residential address, you’re going to mold yourself right onto the shiny indigo tiles.

Something else you missed? Razors, real ones. No more ham-handed knife-shaving for you!

Hazel’d swung back through before you hopped in, tossed you a plastic baggie of some basic essentials he wrangled up, including a razor and some shaving foam – ‘It’s not all pink and flowery, but I doubt you’ll make a fuss,’ he’d rumbled – which you’ve been thoroughly putting to work. You did still nick that stupid spot on the back of your ankle while shaving your legs, but your Aura’ll have that patched up before long, now that you’ve actually got a chance to rest and replenish it.

With some luck, which you’re surprised to say is in decent supply today, you might actually look halfway presentable when you’re through. Not completely passable per se, not in the way you need to be, but as close as you’re going to get right now.

Lathered, rinsed, and thoroughly repeated, you finally relent and step out of the shower’s blissful embrace once you start getting pruny. You’ve only just razored yourself down to bearable levels of smoothness, and you don’t want to be shriveled when Elphaba comes knocking again to explain what the hell you’ve been snagged to do.

Pulling a towel off the nearby rack, you give yourself a quick ruffle to dry off on your way to the sink, leaving it to hang around your shoulders. The mirror is completely steamed-over, presenting only the cloudiest image of yourself.

You’ve never been a fan of mirrors. In adolescence, from being sat in front of them and preened over by parents and house staff, always uncomfortable. Now that you’ve hit adulthood, they hurt like a gut punch. Leaving the mirror fogged up with steam is undoubtedly the wisest possible choice for your emotional state, but morbid curiosity prevails. After one last round of battling reluctance, you smear away the steam, and brace to face your own reflection.

Unfortunately, that’s still you.

Hunger has hollowed your cheeks, though with any luck, this whole venture’ll put enough meals in you to soften your face. Compared to the night you ran, your hair’s grown a bit longer, unkempt. Father already threw a middle-aged hissy fit when it it hit your chin. If he could see it’s inched just past that threshold, he’d do a whole lot worse than disapprove.

Your eyes, so often praised as golden, portents of a child destined for great wealth, have become tarnished in their dullness. Those heavy bags underneath are a staple, present as long as you can remember, and a single night with a real bed might not be enough to properly scrub them out. If this mysterious gig ends up paying off, you could stand to stock up on some concealer. Any cosmetics at all, really.

Before he’d returned to grinding people’s bones to make his bread, or whatever giants like him do in their free time, Hazel’d mentioned that you were on your own where makeup is concerned. Apparently, the Boss doesn’t wear any (bullshit, that eyeliner is weapons-grade) and the only other woman around is out tonight, scouting for ‘the job.’ You’re apparently liable to meet her tomorrow if you agree to help, so ‘nag her about it then, if you want.’

Wonder how she’ll react, whoever she is, since reactions to your existence thus far’ve been scattered across the board. Hazel is a gruff goat of an enforcer type who probably cracks skulls in his palm like stress balls, but he seems strangely tolerant of you? Watts is a pompous prick, but that’s expected for someone of his former station, and he clearly knew of you ahead of time, even before your disappearance made the news.

As for Elphaba, she’s being nice now, and of course she is; she wants something from you. It could just as easily be a put-on, telling you what she knows you want to hear… But it still makes you feel about as warm and weak-kneed as that steamy shower, so you’re just going to leave those danger detectors deactivated a little while longer.

Speaking of which, you should probably go wait for her in the room you’re borrowing, instead of standing around naked, stewing in disdain over your figure. Covering it up with some clothes’ll dull that ache a bit.

With your grimy hoodie and track pants put through their paces for several weeks in a row, the only other relatively-clean clothing you even had stowed in your duffel upon your arrival was your old Atlas Academy boy’s uniform, the one you’d been wearing upon your inglorious exit. Really makes you wish you’d been wearing the regulation pajamas, instead. Turning from the mirror, you go to grab your old uniform and squeeze yourself into– Huh.

So, that was not there before.

Suspended on a coathook over near the shower room’s exit hangs a luxurious black satin bathrobe, a short mid-thigh cut in the Mistrali wrap style, intricate whispers of lace around the sleeves and hem.

Ordinarily, you’d assume it left behind by one of the hideout’s other occupants, maybe even Elphaba, and leave it untouched. Except it wasn’t left behind, it appeared at some point after you stepped in, placed with intention right next to where you’d piled your ugly old uniform. Whose doing is that, exactly? You were a little preoccupied, but you like to think that you’d’ve heard the door opening, if someone was sneaking in!

It wasn’t Hazel, the man’s built like a Paladin mech in a skin-suit, and from what you’ve surmised, Watts would be caught dead before he did laundry duty for a degenerate, so… someone you haven’t yet met? Or your hostess herself?

A little over an hour ago, she’d demonstrated the ability to move undetected on a whim, passing unnoticed through the Crater checkpoint. Is it really so far of a stretch to guess she could slink in and leave you this slip of a nightgown? Your imagination might be running you off-course, but there’s a distinct, nameless sensation simmering high in your ribcage, imagining Elphaba’s hospitality extending so far as to even handpick your clothing for you.

You’re, uh. You’re just going to… slide this on, real quick. And if there’s been a mix-up, if you’ve assumed too much and accidentally poached someone else’s robe, then it’s merely an honest mistake, right?

It fits you like a glove.

The ambient noises of the bunker are unexpectedly relaxing, the ventilation system’s overture carrying forth the noble efforts of the furnace, banishing the chill of the rain and sleet far outside. The mild susurration of the other occupants passing by, all slow footsteps and serious whispers.

Though, you’re still puzzled by one of the intermittent sounds you keep catching now and again, an odd, almost organic click-click-clicking noise, further down in the distant halls. Not static, either; whatever made it was moving, bouncing down around the corners, yet faded by the time your curiosity warranted a peek. Maybe something wrong with the Dust conduits? It didn’t sound electrical.

Ah, well. It’s infrequent enough of an occurrence you can put it out of mind ‘til you’ve sorted out your room, and oh, how little you have to sort.

It’s not a luxurious hotel suite, by any means, much less your room back at the Marigold Estate, but with space enough to stretch your legs. What may once have housed four soldiers packed in like sardines nearly a century ago now leaves plenty of breathing room for a single occupant, refurbished with a workbench, equipment locker, and oh-dear-gods, a bed. Not just a crummy camping cot, not an air mattress, not even a trashy dorm bunk – an actual, factual bed, fully equipped. You have pillows, now! Imagine, getting to lay your weary head to rest on a pillow, and not a hard, lumpy duffel bag!

Speaking of which, you should probably unload that thing. In such a hurry to hit the showers, you’d taken one look at the room, tossed your extraneous physical effects onto the sheets, and scurried off. Though you remain unsure if you’ll inhabit this space larger than the span of a single evening, your old compulsions towards cleanliness are awakening from their long hibernation. You should sort your shit out, given you’re not going to want any unnecessary weight bogging you down on whatever job awaits you. Or if you need to high-tail it out of here in a hurry.

You’ve already unloaded your old uniform, but your new nightgown has overtaken their necessity, and you still aren’t sure about the laundry situation either, so your smelly old day-clothes can stay piled in the corner, separately.

Next – and you’ve been kicking yourself over carrying these around for so long – come the old school textbooks. The ones you’d been lugging with you like a paperback stack of regrets, repeating the mantra just in case, just in case, should you ever flee back from whence you came. To beg and scrape for a second chance at a life that was never yours. They might’ve been useful, once upon a time. Now, they’re only baggage. You unload them into the locker.

In a side pocket, you find your scroll, its battery run dry for weeks, now. Your charger’s packed with it, and this room’s got a set of outlets, so you could feasibly top it off. It seems like the sensible thing to do, until you realize the likelihood you could be tracked from the moment it pops on and pings your family’s CCT provider. Watts would be able to tell you if this place is shielded from basic signals, but the thought of talking to that guy makes your skin crawl, same as imagining the curdling look he’d give you if you strode up in your current attire. Gonna nix that idea.

For nostalgia’s sake, you’ll keep the scroll packed, dead but data preserved for dumping, should you ever get a replacement in the coming days. You’ll just have to keep trusting your gut to gauge your Aura levels tomorrow, if you won’t be using it.

Little else remains inside, save your old tactical knife and some refuse from your trash-scavving, so you’ll call it quits for now. Your almost-empty duffel thunks to the floor just next to the foot of the bed, and you turn your attention to the last bit of kit you’ve been carrying around these days.

Laid out across the workbench across from your bed is an elongated lump of rags and wrappings, all haphazardly bound up in a bungee cord. Unhooking the clasp, the cord snaps free – wrapped too tight, and for too long, it wings you on the hand as it flies open, and the bundle reveals its contents.

Your old sword. Not, like, your old-old sword – fuck you very much, Cinder Rhodes – but the replacement gunblade you’d cobbled together in the aftermath. A plain and uninteresting thing, little more than a broadsword augmented with a simple, semiautomatic Dust-DMR reconfiguration.

It’s been a bit since you’ve set it free from its confines. Without a license, you couldn’t even grab huntress work off the mission board to put food in your belly, and unsanctioned usage of a Dust-bearing weapon could land you languishing in a privatized men’s prison for years, doing slave labor for a half-lien a day. Limited as that left you, the thought crossed your mind more than once, to hock your blade at a hunters’ pawn shop, barred only by another critical necessity.

Living in Mantle, you’ve learned a hard lesson about just how long it takes the so-called authorities to intervene when Grimm assault the city. You couldn’t discard your weapon when push would sometimes come to shove, and the intoxicating aroma of your raw self-hatred made you a walking signal flare. Your invisibility can only obscure you for so long against a horde, until they decide to trust their base hunger for negative sentiment, rather than eyes and ears alone. For that reason alone, you’d yet to ditch it, despite your lack of attachment.

You were simply uninspired in its creation, could never tie yourself to it the way classmates would pour themselves wholly into their custom weaponry. One of the few times the inflexible instructors of Atlas would adopt a more Valish approach, encouraging pursuit of greater specialization through individuality. More often than not, you would sooner draw from the stock weapons allotted by the Academy armory, never satisfied in your search, always hoping the next style would finally fit.

That sense of rightness never came, your own weapon left undeveloped, unrefined. Thoughts of its upkeep pushed to the back of your mind at the best of times. You hadn’t even given it a name.

It’s a lot like yourself, really.

“Should you intend to tinker, do mind where you wipe your hands.”

Fuck! Elphaba! Okay, hello, hi?!

This confirms it; the woman derives a distinct pleasure from making you jump like a frightened doe. Startled, you jam your knee against the lip of the workbench hard enough for your Aura to sizzle in complaint, and stagger backwards to perch on the edge of your bed.

Your hostess pushes off from where she leans against the entryway, sealing the door behind herself, and moves to occupy the space you’ve just vacated by the bench. She runs a set of delicate, manicured fingers over the fuller of your rusted blade before she turns her appraising gaze to you.

“My apologies, child; did I frighten you? I simply would not wish you to sully your new garment so soon.”

You struggle not to squirm as her eyes languidly creep over you, taking their sweet time in places you hardly feel merit the attention. With anyone else, your Semblance would be handy here, to pop it and hide ‘til you can mask how flustered you’re feeling. No use here, not with Elphaba. She can already see right through you.

There’s no way this was an accident, but still, you muster up the wherewithal to speak up. “This was meant for me, right? As in, I didn’t fuck up a test by taking it, else you’d’ve planned to press-gang me forever, steal my soul, something like that?” you ask, cracking an off-kilter laugh. “Sorry to say, I don’t have any firstborn to hand over.”

“You needn’t be so fearful over such an inconsequential gift. Expecting that kind of deception, it almost sounds as if you believe yourself fallen into a fairy tale.”

She’s not audibly offended, far from it, and she’s taken well to your bluntness before. You may as well stop censoring this sarcastic edge so often brought on by your anxiety. Maybe she’ll even get a kick out of it.

“I might as well have, right? Let’s see: a mysterious, pretty woman with a strange Semblance randomly reveals herself to a miserable burnout on her last legs, offering her relief if only she’ll follow instruction, luring her away from her old life, completely in the dark…? If I learned anything in lit class, either you’re my fairy godmother, or a wicked witch that wants to eat me.”

“Let us not rush to conclusions,” Elphaba coolly replies, a glint of danger in the slight slant of her lips. “I could very well be both.”

Merciful fucking Maidens, this woman’s going to be the death of you, isn’t she?

“However, on that note...” Elphaba stares into the middle distance, taking a moment for contemplation. “Before we discuss your task – If you’ll kindly indulge me, there is a question I am inclined to ask those entering into my employ.”

You adjust yourself in your seat, knees knocking together, and clear your throat. “Oh. Sure, uh, ask away.”

“Answer me this: What is your favorite fairy tale, by chance?”

Okay, that’s a non-sequitur and then some. What does that have to do with anything, much less the sort of work she means to assign you? A psychological evaluation, maybe, or pure eccentricity?

The answer itself is a no-brainer, but embarrassing to speak for its cheesiness, and you chew on it briefly before you can finally admit: “It was, uh. The Girl In The Tower.”

A classic known to all, but not without its critics, and in some retellings, a tragedy. “I related a lot to her, I guess, even before my whole– the girl thing. Just… feeling so lonely. Trapped. No real future, on account of some greedy parent. Secretly crying out for help, hoping she’d be heard by someone who’d give enough of a shit to try and save her. Who actually could save her.”

The question had seemed so subjective as to lack a definitive answer, but from the fast-dawning intrigue on her face when you look up again, it appears you’ve somehow answered correctly. Other answers may have flown, but this, this was the one she was waiting for.

Whatever authority she holds really seems to supersede the concept of a personal bubble. Two steps, and she’s standing just before you, close enough for the fabric of her dress to brush against your feet. Your eyes want so desperately to shy away again, but there’s such an intense approval emanating from her own that you’ve got no choice but to stare, dumbfounded, as she grants you that addictive sliver of a smile.

“Why, Marigold dear…”

Her hands are contradictory, hot and cold, an inferno concealed behind a pane of ice. You’re less attentive of the one laid on the junction of your neck than the hand which moves to grasp your chin, and caress your warming face. The pad of her thumb ghosts across your parted lips, settles on your cheek.

“We’ve rather a lot in common, you and I.”

Chapter Text

It’s not a robbery, it’s a retrieval.

To assuage any moral misgivings, Elphaba made sure to emphasize that bit when she’d had her fill of teasing you last night, and had gotten down to brass tacks about your mission. Not an act of wanton thievery, per se, just, er… Just grabbing some necessities a certain scientist left behind in his lab before he put in his explosive zero-weeks-notice, and restoring a backdoor into the network he neglected to properly maintain during a recent security overhaul.

This only becomes complicated when one factors in his former workplace being a laboratory within the highly-secured R&D branch of the Atlas Military. If Elphaba sending you through that Crater checkpoint yesterday was a trial by fire, this is swan-diving into a volcano.

Doing a favor for Watts makes you a little ill, but you’re doing it in service to Lady West by proxy, and that’s an easier pill to swallow. He could stand to be more grateful given that, from what you understand so far, your first task is to bail his ass out of the proverbial grinder. This was his oversight, and now he tries to spit on you while you're cleaning his mess? If Elphaba wasn’t expecting results, you'd just as soon let him rot.

“You are only being extended this singular opportunity,“ drones the selfsame man through your earpiece, voice underscored by his incessant keyboard-clacking. “Fail to perform, and you’ll be back in the gutter you were plucked from, at best.”

“I heard you the first time,” you seethe, omitting the ‘asshole’ you bark back in your mind.

The encroaching cloud cover from the evening before has fully blotted the skies today, icy precipitation warmed into a rain just this side of freezing by the flying city’s artificial climate systems. It falls in pelting sheets, putting your polyvinyl rain poncho through its paces to protect the rest of your gear from getting soaked.

After waking from a dreamless sleep in a comfortable bed for the first time in months, and downing a late ration bar breakfast, Elphaba had given you a few more words of encouragement before turning you over to Watts.

She’d seen fit to order you be provided with some leftover equipment from the base, which you’d quickly hauled into an empty side room to squeeze into, whilst the hacker bitched and moaned about your sluggishness. But hey, nobody was telling you anything ahead of time! If you’d’ve known you’d be getting new gear in the first place, you wouldn’t’ve changed back into your grubby day clothes first! But then, it was probably silly to think they’d be sending you out to raid a heavily-defended research facility in a smelly hoodie.

You feel more like an action movie cosplayer now than you ever did back in your huntress training, skulking the city, weapon and gear strapped tight over an old, snow-camo infiltration suit from military surplus – a few decades out of date, laden for bear with more buckles and zippers than you know what to do with, and form-fitting in ways you can’t possibly believe are remotely tactical. It’s well-insulated, to your relief, and its magnetic clamps for back-mounting weapons were simple to adjust to your sword.

You hadn’t been sure about bringing it with you. Elphaba promised once more before your departure that no violence would be necessary if your stealth skills are up to par, and even if it were, for all your misgivings about the military-industrial complex, you don’t think you’ve got the stomach to skewer a random researcher or guard duty grunt just yet. At least if you were breaking into the base at the core of the city, you could get a few swings in before needing to pull punches. Geeks and greenhorns will go down with a jab of a toothpick.

Maybe if you’d been less afraid of getting called out as a coward, you’d’ve asked if the stockpile of war materiel had any nonlethal options laying about, but you’d delayed too long and been kicked back out into the Crater, with directions to the nearest airpad. Fingers crossed things won’t escalate so fast you’ll need to square up with someone.

They’d also provided you with a new burner scroll to replace the easily-trackable brick in your bag, and  the covert earpiece through which Watts is currently carrying on about your incompetence.

“Do pardon my lack of faith in the mental acuity of a deviant dropout.”

He’s getting on your nerves, and as far as you’re aware, Elphaba isn’t actively listening in, so maybe you can give him a little lip without insulting your boss. “If you’re so concerned, how ‘bout you stop clutching your keyboard, hike your own ass down here, and do it yourself?”

It’s ironic, really. If you had actually spoken to him at your father’s banquet years ago, your rapport with the man would be so polite, suited up in false smiles and ‘yes, sir, appreciate your attendance, sir, enjoy the party, sir.’ Instead, all your rigid, well-trained etiquette is being picked and bitten away like a fingernail.

“Tch. You are not the only infiltrator on hand. Only the necessity that this be bloodless keeps you relevant.”

Translation: ‘If you don’t do it, the nightly news block could have a thrilling killing spree to report.’ At least, that’s the worst case scenario you can imagine. Maybe there’d only be maimings!

Either way, it would be largely unnecessary. Aside from the heightened threat level of the AO, the parameters of the mission don’t greatly differ from the dozen practice runs you’d done during your time in the Spec-ops Advanced Placement class. Gotta bet that Headmaster Ironwood never expected, when he placed you on that fast-track towards becoming a Specialist in his back pocket, that you’d end up putting that know-how to work picking that proverbial pocket instead.

Currently, your itemized agenda is as follows:

1. Don’t panic.
2. Link up with the agent already on the ground for mission support.
3. Infiltrate the R&D facility without triggering a localized lockdown.
4. No, really, don’t panic.
5. Locate the laboratory wing Watts used to work in.
6. Pull his old workstation’s archived data drive from the wing’s local server room.
7. Stop panicking, Marigold.
8. Hotswap the drive with the dummy Watts gave you, bloated with a few digital tons of malware.
9. Forward Watts the new decryption key for Atlas’ security networks resulting from the hack.
10. Make like a fly, and bug the fuck out of there.

“I can keep it bloodless, unless you’re feeling keen to donate,” you snap back, pausing at a city crosswalk to check your surroundings for a certain set of landmarks. “Either way, I’m almost to the meetup.”

“When you arrive, I expect you will thoroughly remind her to turn on her scroll, and leave it on. This bad habit of hers must be broken; I cannot be expected to manage these operations if one operative in particular is routinely going dark on a whim.”

Your destination is the first level of a parking garage snugly squeezed between an office supply distribution center and a drone manufacture firm, just kitty-corner to the Atlas R&D East Campus. This other agent must’ve had a good view from the upper floors, keeping watch on the comings and goings.

No one’s waiting out in the open, and not behind or between the rows of vehicles you pass on your way to the far end. There are a few dumpsters here, but they’re barely in the same gene pool as those down in Mantle, the ones you’ve gotten indecently acquainted with over the months.

Gentrification is a concept that took you a while to understand as a daughter of the gentry yourself, but now, you possess sufficient understanding to attest that Atlas has, indeed, been gentrifying the concept of ‘dumpster.’

It’s like somebody contracted half the upper city’s waste disposal out to an up-and-coming tech startup, and now they’re all these bleach-white, soft-edged things you’d never expect to house rubbish. An obscene cleanliness that’s clearly compensating for something, only accessible by drones, otherwise locked tight as a crypt.

Copping a squat just behind the things is where you finally find your quarry – what you initially perceived to be a lopsided garbage bag piled against the wall grunts, stretches, and stands, gaining about an inch on you in height to transform into the subject of your search: an imposing woman in a hooded, gratuitously-belted, black snakeskin trenchcoat, dressed goth to the nines. You’d place her about twenty years your senior, even though she’s dressed like some of your less-scrupulous former classmates when they can ditch their uniforms and go clubbing. When she pulls back her hood, dark, straightened hair tickles her shoulders, tiny traces of hot red-orange peeking out at both the roots and tips from under the thick layer of deep black dye, like embers at the ends of charred firewood.

If you thought Watts was gaunt, this lady smokes him out, all high whetstone cheekbones over sunken cheeks beneath, her scattered freckles prominent across pale skin. Sharp, scouring honey-brown eyes bracket a long, narrow nose with the tiniest upward tilt, and a spear-tip chin. You’re starting to reconsider Hazel’s comment on whether this is truly a woman you want to shake down for makeup tips, based on the messy bar of dark, dripping warpaint across her eyes and nose bridge, her lipstick black as Grimm-hide. Might not be your aesthetic.

Those lips begin to curl, and her accent clubs you over the head as soon as she opens her mouth, a vibrant, North Valish brogue from up near the highlands.

“And here we are, now!” The woman croons with a satisfied smirk, “Here I was, thinking I’d be getting some fraidy-fresh meat jus’ come down in the last shower, but you’re all business, aren’t ya? Kitted up like that.” She chuckles to herself, tongue idly flicking her lip ring.

“You’re... who I’m supposed to link up with?” Way to sound like an idiot just for asking; she looks about as out-of-place up here in Atlas as Elphaba’d looked down in that grimy Mantle alley. “I didn’t, uh… I didn’t get a name.”

“Course you got one! And your folks went and fucked it so you shucked it in the ditch, didn’t you?” She winks, her eyelids getting some exercise under all that mascara. “As for meself? Ciara Bécuille, a pleasure ‘n all that.”

Is there a single person in this shady coven who hasn’t already heard about your issues? “You already know about that?! Who told you? Watts?”

Ciara makes a spitting sound, and you don’t care to check if there was a literal loogie attached. Must not be a fan of the man, either. “Not at all. Being nosy’s in my job description. You’ll get it in a tick.” She plucks an earpiece from her scroll’s case and fits it in, powers it on, and immediately proceeds to mute a certain scientist in the channel as soon as she can hear Watts winding up to whine about going off-network.

“And we best be about it; don’t have all day t’be chatting away, and considering it’s absolutely pissing out here, would love to clean this mess up quick-like.” She holds up her scroll and taps a thumb to smush onto Watts’ stern face for emphasis. “Man’s bout as useless as a chocolate teapot the rest of the time, but to give ‘im his due, he knows his way around ‘lectronics. Now we’re stuck protecting his job security.”

“So, you’ll be coming inside too?” you ask, skeptically. If so, you’d need to project a wider field to fit you both the entire time, and that kind of Aura burn’d be sharply cutting down your timer to get the job done. “Lady W– The boss only gave me so much information, and Watts is…”

“A hateful cunt? A walking bollix? A snide fuckin’ gobdaw?”

“Sssssure?” Not that you’ve got a clue what half of that means, but it sure wasn’t said with love. “Anyway, I didn’t get much from him except the target. Was under the impression I’d be running around on my own in there, only need to burn enough Aura to cloak myself, so I wasn’t… I wasn’t sure what you’d be doing?”

“Well, from your talents and that toothpick of yours–“ Ciara points at the scabbard on your back. “You’ve got any sneakin’ and stabbin’ handled. I’m a Dust mage, meself, though I’ve got no qualms knockin’ a man’s pan in if need be,” she explains, pulling a compact cudgel from a hook on her belt which, with a click, extends into a full walking stick. She proceeds to lean heavily on the thing, with a theatrical flourish.

Said stick – ‘Eadránaí,’ she quietly informs you as you gawk – is her weapon, a Dust focus taking the appearance of a stout staff, four feet high, dark metal graven and shaped to provide the organic flair of gnarled wood and spiky thorns. If you had to guess, the alloy itself’s been infused with Plant Dust, which might imply a Semblance attuned to nature manipulation? Your suspicions are only bolstered by the several etchings of old runic script, from ages long before the modern kingdoms were drawn and delineated.

“...But I’m not planning on putting anyone in the dirt today; my Aura ain’t what it used to be. Since Arty’s gone and royally fucked the pooch, I’m set to be your eyes on this one.”

Crude, but you’ll be happy to have a mission handler who doesn’t emphasize your flaws every ten to fifteen minutes. That said, Watts made it clear that the ongoing circumstances mean that tapping into the surveillance system – like Ciara emphasized, one of the only things he appears to be good for – was off the table, so for someone to be your ‘eyes’ on this run...

“Uh. How?”

“Keep tryin’ to ruin all of the mystique, why don’t you?” she sarcastically huffs, the mage hunching to haul up another one of those black sacks you’d mistaken as part of the trash, and shoving it into your defensively-raised hands. “Take this.”

It’s a small bag, but weighty and burlap-thick, tied loosely with some drawstrings at the top.

“You get in there, first things first, and find yourself one of the access chutes for their drones, the flighty noncombat buggers for ‘round the office. Drop it on in there, and give me a ring. Then we’ll have ya set up.”

The bag gets heavier the longer you hold it, like it’s just settling in, only just becoming real that you’re really planning to raid a military-funded facility, an Academy burnout thrown into the thick of it with cutthroats who seem to have plenty of experience in this line of work. What the fuck is even happening to your life, these last twenty-four hours?

Ciara’s eyes land on your hand, and the both of you notice you’ve been shaking. She takes that as an invitation to give you a squinty look while you fasten the creepy mystery bag to your back harness under your scabbard. When she starts again, some of that lively lilt is dumbed down in her voice, a touch more sincere.

“Páiste amaideach. Ease up. We’re practically partners already; I’ll not do you dirty.“ Ciara cocks her head at you, and her eyes seem to gain a mischievous glow in the garage’s fizzling overhead lights. She then rattles off something in that regional dialect of hers, almost an afterthought to herself, and gives you a tap to the sternum. “I won’t draw on ya in bad faith, ‘less you draw on me first. Cross me heart, hope to die, needles and eyes, you know how it goes.”

The mood’s sobriety lasts a few seconds longer before she crashes it into a wall.

"And with that touchin’ moment out of the way… S’about time we go'n pop your heist cherry!” Ciara cackles, and promptly drops into a squat back on the slippery pavement, folding her legs like she’s preparing to meditate. “Now hustle. You’re on the clock now, new blue.”

Getting in the front door is easy.

A crowd of arms industry reps piles through the research facility’s glassy double-doors while a labcoat-clad head researcher buzzes them in with a secure keyfob, and you invisibly cling to the crowd like a bad habit until they’re through the rigmarole of security checks.

Figuring out where to go from there is where this stops being child’s play. There’d only been an outdated map of the grounds to show you beforehand, without any ability to pry into the current patrol routes or building renovations in recent years. Renovations which had included the selfsame automated systems you’ve just been tasked with finding before you get to the meat of your mission.

The best lead you have is a short, stubby grey drone, some kind of interdepartmental courier, that almost clips your shin as it zips by in a frenzy. You fall into hot pursuit, ducking and weaving through agitated scientists, their doubly-agitated interns, and the odd military officer or two, one eye locked on the little bot as it zooms through the hallways with intent.

The odds were only fifty-fifty it’d be returning to base rather than taking you on a wild goose chase, but you’re in luck; the thing pauses in front of a maintenance worker’s supply room. That luck dies an immediate, whimpering death when you realize the damned thing’s got a little drone-sized doggy-door for ease of access, one you’d never have a chance of fitting through.

Stalling for time, you leap forward to stomp a foot down on top of the drone, which gives a digitized squeak of distress, tiny wheels and grav-thrust core both straining against the weight of your boot. Think, got to think, it’s not like you can pry it open with your sword, you’ve got no clearance to wedge it...

“Oh, not again...”

Pausing his trip down the hall, a harried-looking researcher with a coffee-laden cardboard cup-holder stops just a few feet away, frowning at the fussy machine and oblivious to its invisible assailant.

“What? What is it?” calls another voice from the adjacent office.

“Nothing, just a stupid drone bugged out of its door. Gotta be the third time this week. Cripes, if Maintenance would ever do their jobs right...” Transferring the cup-holder to the crook of his elbow, he grabs the ID card dangling from a lanyard around his neck and paces straight towards you at a fast clip.

Dropping back like an impromptu limbo champion with a foot still stamped on the delivery bot, you clear out of the way just in time for him to wave his credentials in front of the digital reader.

Pinging a friendly green, the full door is unlocked in the process, and with a groan of relief quiet enough for your Semblance to muffle, you hoist yourself to your feet by the open doorframe. Lifting your boot, the drone beneath skitters inside, and in the tiny window of opportunity you’ve won yourself, you slip through to follow your mark before the door seals again.

Surrounded by unmissable block print lettering, ‘DRONE TRANSIT’ and ‘STAND CLEAR’ in an oddly un-Atlesian neon yellow, a metal grill in the ground on the far side opens up, and you push past a few shipping crates and unmanned floor buffers to get a better look.

“Uh. Miss Bécuille? I’m at the–“

When your earpiece crackles back on, there’s a snickering from the other end, reveling in your unnecessary formality. You give her a few seconds to amuse herself before you soldier onward.

“I found a hatch. Now what?”

“The special bag of tricks I gave ya? Give it a toss down there and we’ll get you sorted.”

Reaching back to fetch the thing from your supplies – and you’d swear it’s even bulgier than when she gave it to you – you hold out that bag right over the hatch. And it writhes. Squeaks.

The fuck!

Emitting a cracking, high-ish pitched noise of alarm you absolutely will not acknowledge as a ‘shriek,’ you drop the thing in disgust.

Ciara’s snickering has become a hysterical laugh, because of course the mouthpiece picked that up. “Ah, here we are. 'Mon out, ya wriggly little shites."

The black bag bulges more, undulates, pops free the drawstring and hey um alright there’s fucking live-ass rats in there. That is a thing that is happening now before your eyes. Haha. What.

Unfurling from a tightly-packed, furry clown-car cluster, it must be a baker’s dozen of surly business-district rats, fattened up on years of office workers’ discarded brunch croissants, each with a wispy white glow streaming from their eyes. Rolling and scratching and sniffling, they untangle from each other and save for a few, begin to scatter, scampering down all four pipeways of the drone passages. Two hop out by your feet, and one stops to look dead into your soul.

“Give us a smile, lass! You’re on camera!” says the voice in your ear.

Not literally, you figure, because that is absolutely not a lifelike robotic replica. That is one whole entire rat.

“That’s your Semblance?!” you ask the rodent, unprofessionally loud for even an amateur spy. “Rat… brainwashing? Rat-vision? Rattomancy? Fuck am I even looking at, here?”

“Course it ain’t only rats, but they’re easy to find! Oh, I do miss Vale and Mistral; I’d be able t’make do with a stout vine or a branch, a pretty bird, they’re all over the feckin’ place, saves me the legwork. But do the people in this town respect a good tree what’s not some private park topiary, half-dead on pesticides? Not a chance. A rat’s got its uses! Nobody thinks twice about a rat bein’ where it don’t belong, ‘cept to shuffle it out. Don’t expect a rat’s got a mate riding shotgun, havin’ a gander through ‘is eyes.”

Those beady eyes blink at you, but the unsavory light from inside them shines through the backs of its lids.

Disturbing as this all has been, you’ve got the knowhow to see the logistical merit in having a handy way to jury-rig a closed surveillance network inside a hostile area that doesn’t rely on existing security.  “So, I just… cop a squat, let them run the maze, and that’s all? You’ll be able to see everything?”

“Nah. One more thing before you’re back at it.”

“What?”

“Unzip your top a bit.”

By the power of Semblance-charged vermin, your mission reverts back to cakewalk territory.

So reliant are the researchers on their drones to fetch coffee here, deliver a sample there, shoot a trespasser or two, that pop-up panels into the drone passages line the facility practically every five feet.

It’s just a bit of a bitch that, in order to always retain a pair of eyes from your point of view while she works, Ciara needed you to provide escort to a passenger. One currently stuffed down the front of your infiltration suit, head peeking out above the zipper over your nonexistent cleavage, little legs scritching against your chest.

It’s under Ciara’s control now, but your brain won’t drop the expectation it’ll turn and bite your nose off at any second, even after you’d plied it with bribery by feeding it that old packet of dry oatmeal you still had in your duffel from yesterday’s trash-run, while waiting for the rest of Ciara’s ‘little shites’ to scout the next floor.

And gods, is it weird to have her in your ear and in the rats all at once; after you’d split up for your passenger to run and pickpocket a keycard from a scientist in the nearby breakroom, you’d almost felt proud enough of the little pest to give him a pat on the head in thanks, only for Ciara to croon over the comms, ‘I can feel that while I’m channeling, just so ye know.’

From that point, you and the rat had been strictly professional, scrapping your prospective idea of naming him Gruyere – strictly for efficiency in distinguishing him from the rest, of course. Nope. It’s all business now, you and this rabid rat crammed down your top.

And hey, it’s gotten you into the labs Watts used to haunt, so this collaboration wasn’t all for nothing. The other research wings you’ve snooped through were bustling, but this one’s infinitely more low-key, only a few soldiers posted in the hall and a single scientist actually clocked in today.

Doesn’t seem like he’ll be a major issue for your mission; the guy’s far on the other end of the sprawling workshop from the computer room entrance, tinkering and welding on some prototype drone chassis while narrating notes to a cheery digital assistant in his terminal.

On the other hand, while he’s distracted, discretion is the better part of valor, and for a middle-aged man with some grey in his curls, having to throw down with him might not end well for you, on account of the ominous, half-unplated mechanized, multi-legged… spider-chair? That he’s perched in?

Whatever it is, it straddles the line between potential mobility aid and potential military weapon, and you’re not interested in testing the kick-strength on those robo-arms; you’d rather take your chances with the guards outside, if you had to.

Just… means you’ve gotta keep your cloak up a little longer, shutting out the groaning of your dwindling Aura. How long’ve you been at this? No time to check your scroll, you’re almost there.

The server room is uncomfortably sweltering, and yes, you’re well-aware of the jokes about Atlas girls and their aversion to warmth, but still. Air conditioning units maintain an ongoing rumble-hum in harmony with the whirring of various slotted data drives being accessed from across the building.

Watts, the douche, isn’t half-bad at directions now that you’ve actually gotten to his old stomping grounds, and you find the terminal easily. Now that the hard part of the day’s dealt with, you fall into a calm, competent execution of phases in the plan. Check terminal, plug in dongle – ha, dongle – to spoof a local workstation password, consult storage record, pull drive, slot drive...

The timestamps in the records point you to an archived drive consistent with a few days after Watts’ supposed death, and you skim down the list of research directories within. Project PALADIN, Project PENNY, Project SHADOW, Project TYRANT... It all seems to be here, the files you were told to confirm. Out she pops, stuffed into your pack, and in goes the virus-slathered dummy drive.

It all moves at a steady clip until you’re waiting for Watts’ boobytrapped payload to take root in the system. Tapping your foot, fingers drumming on your arm in anxious tandem with old data drives click-whirr-clicking as their disks spin up in the readers.

For such an excessively-funded facility, it’s funny what facets of normalcy slip through the cracks, like the collection of colorful sticky notes littering the otherwise sterile cubicle. You’re pretty sure you’d’ve found the local password scrawled out in marker if you bothered to look, and hadn’t been in a hurry.

The whole plan’s hanging on these tense but tedious minutes waiting for this stupid drive to finish, staring at Remnant’s slowest, chunkiest progress bar illuminated in an old analog monitor on the wall, sandwiched between modern hard-light readouts.

Just have to hope this goes smoothly. Your Semblance isn’t meant for staying cloaked this long, and it’s beginning to do that thing again when you’re spaced out and strained – your fatigue fucking with the field’s ability to duplicate light instead of just passing it through, and instances of momentary blindness are not what someone needs in the middle of a delicate heist.

And it really is basically a heist, isn’t it? Tactical gear, private comms, an assistant crawling through the vents, heisting important data, hacking the mainframe… shit, are there any other action fantasy tropes you can hit while you’re still in here? Does the facility have a big red self-destruct button you can mash, while sirens blare and steam pipes explosively erupt through the walls at random during your escape?

Unfortunately, no, you’re actually good at your job.

The screen flashes a chipper TASK COMPLETE to signal you’ve officially fixed Watts’ fuckup for him, forwarding the remote access key he’s ordered. Leaving everything as you left it, you power off the terminal, and take your leave in silence.

Even with the alarms still sleeping thus far, an above-ground escape is unwise.

Slipping through the endless access tunnels forming concentric circles at the core of the floating city, and the criss-crossing grid that connects them, you cut a path to your pickup. There was no telling how you’d have to improvise to get there, but your final destination’s always been set.

In one particular concave crack in the floating mass that is Atlas, there sits a secluded, open-air landing pad near the edge of the disc, exposed to the elements. Its use has been deprecated, replaced  with the larger, heavy-duty hangars over the decades, but for now, it remains a quiet, barely-patrolled outlier.

The scent of rain is heady and inviting as you wander out from the caves, the dingy rock and dark iron stormclouds a welcome break from all that constant white-white-white inside. You don’t bother to pull your wadded poncho back out from your bag; you can warm back up down in the bunker, have a steamy hot shower to compensate for the cold one you’re stuck standing in while you wait for your ride.

Eyes peeled and ears open for your airship exfil, you’re soon startled by the sound you least wanted to hear: A muffled voice doubled through the tinny speaker of an armored guardsman helmet.

“What in the hell is... Hey!”

You freeze. You hadn’t seen any guards on patrol as you passed through – its low security presence part of the reason why Watts had picked this place for extraction – but some grunt must’ve sought out a quiet place for a smoke break, and stumbled across something strange.

Though you’d yet to drop your invisibility field, much to your near-drained Aura’s dismay, you’re instantly reminded of one of its minor flaws. Someone attentive enough might notice the faint silhouette cast where the raindrops sketch out the watery shape of a ghost, disappearing before they even hit the ground. Something suspicious enough to shoot at, if your trigger finger’s got an itch.

“Cap’n, this is patrol O-73, I think I’ve got someth–Hrk!”

Thud.

Um. So, a ‘hrk’ and a ‘thud’ aren’t noises one typically wants to hear in conjunction. You whirl in place, your strained Semblance finally flickering out in your state of distraction, revealing you to the world.

The armed Atlesian guardsman that had been approaching from the exit tunnels lies prone on the ground, groaning and gurgling, his fallen assault rifle skittering across the slick cement. A tall, dark shape stalks out from the shadows behind him, a pale man with a messy brown braid, crisscrossed scars marking the skin his vest exposes. A deadly-looking scorpion tail retracts from the guardsman’s lower back and playfully coils as the man looks your way, wearing a smile of sadistic satisfaction, the sort you’d expect on the killer clown in a B-tier horror flick.

Before you can get a better read on him, much less draw your sword for defense, the building roar of an airship engine in the distance hits its crescendo, as a sleek, long-distance troop carrier soars into view from around the cavern’s open edge. Landing gears furl down to skitter across the puddles pooling on the landing pad, and the ship settles onto its haunches with a hydraulic whumf.

The main cabin door lifts open, gullwing style, creating a small pocket of partial shelter from the weather. Meanwhile, the landing ramp descends, revealing Ciara already aboard and sending you a casual, two-finger salute. Gruyere – er, the rat – pops out from your chest and scampers up to join her in the ship. Through the fogged, rain-streaked glass up at the fore, you think you can see the bulk of Hazel clogging up the cockpit.

Watts, as serious as ever,  steps down the landing ramp, extending an expectant hand and regarding you impatiently. “You have something of mine.”

This douche literally couldn’t wait twenty seconds until you’re all aboard? The thought of being beholden to you so long as you’re in possession of something he needs must be agonizing him something fierce. “You want me to whip it out right here. Highly-sensitive electronic components. In the rain. Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”

Interrupting his snide retort before it can begin, Elphaba herself exits the airship next, blissfully unaffected by the drenching rain, and comes to a stop at Watts’ shoulder. “Marigold. Very well done,” Elphaba praises, unconcerned with your last-minute flub with the guard. “Tyrian, I trust your task was much the same.”

So that must be the scorpion guy’s name. With long, but measured steps – one ‘accidental’ kick to the head of the downed guard in the process – he stalks towards the growing group, staring you dead in the eye.

“Such a spoiled little thing… Is its blood as blue as its hair, I wonder?” he purrs, stalking a circle around you, his toxin-dripping tailtip snaking up to graze against the length of your forearm in passing. You can swear he’s sniffing you– Is that a prejudiced thing to say? It’s not like you’re saying all faunus do that kind of thing, or that all atavistic faunus behaviors are linked t– Nope, this man is, in fact, literally sniffing you as he stares you down, his eyes just as gold as your own, yet stained with a threatening malice.

“Why do we need this one?” he irritably begs of his boss. “This one is weak!”

“This one is different,” answers Elphaba.

Tyrian remains unconvinced. “But will it last any longer than the others…?” he ponders aloud with a sneer, finally pulling away from your personal space and boarding the transport. “They’re all so easily broken.”

Disregarding you for now, Watts turns to his employer and asks, more sedately, “Might I now inquire as to the reason for this all-hands evacuation? I take it the investigation bore unwanted fruit.”

Eavesdropping being her hobby, it seems, Ciara butts in from her spot by the cabin door. “The Tin Man’s got Winter locked up tight as tits, but at least she won’t be wandering, and we’re in no rush. Got her doped up and drowning in doctors; that bird’ll keep a few years yet.”

There’s flicker of worry in the edge of your brain, soon deemed a false alarm once rationality responds. The ‘Winter’ in question is absolutely not your former friend and confidant from childhood; Winter Schnee’s across town sitting pretty in the Academy at this very moment, probably frowning and griping about ‘immature conduct’ while the rest of Team HGTS harangues her into a glyph-powered pillow fight. She’s fine. She’s safe.

She probably thinks you’re dead.

“It is as she says,” Elphaba nods towards Ciara. “Whilst it remains too costly to move on her at present, we now possess the exact location and – with young Marigold’s timely aid to restore our flow of information – condition of Winter for the foreseeable future. However…”

Elphaba briefly turns to stare inscrutably at the darkened skies, and her momentary calm is embittered somewhat by a wariness as she continues. “This information came at the cost of drawing one of the wizard’s eyes.”

“Bandit trash,” mutters Watts. “The drunkard or the butcher?”

Back on the ship’s loading ramp, Ciara snorts. “Ha, ‘mon now, Arty, they’re bandits. Y’think that’ll narrow it down?” When she fails to get even a cruel smirk for her wisecrack, and finds the Boss waiting for her to finish her interruption, she concludes: “Nah, s’the drunk.”

“Though the alert has not yet been raised in earnest,” Elphaba explains, “it is only a matter of time, and to remain any longer would be to risk revealing our hand. We will recall our circle, and revise our strategy. Arthur?”

The inflection Elphaba adopts is slanted and scolding. There’s a discomfort in the twitch of Watts’ stache.

“It would do you well to have both patience, and faith. Marigold has restored the access you allowed yourself to lose, so make use of her efforts and ensure security will not impede our departure. Go. I must speak with her alone.”

Clearing his throat and – as do all of his social caliber – simply pretending his gaffe hadn’t been noticed nor even occurred at all, Watts stalks off up the ramp. That’s Ciara’s cue to slip away, too, leaving you no company but Elphaba and the storm, a storm which seems to quiet in the space around you, enough that she needn’t raise her voice to be heard.

“Young Marigold… This unexpected turn of events has given you an important choice. Though I must depart this Kingdom for a time, you are not yet a factor in the eyes of our enemies, and have leave to stay in relative safety. Should you see fit, I will order Watts to arrange a key for you; the compound in the Crater will be yours to inhabit, its remaining contents at your disposal, however you might wish to employ them, until the day of our return.”

You do one little smash-and-grab, and you’ve won yourself an entire self-sustaining underground bunker? If you were doing this kind of work for Ironwood’s sketchy new Ace Ops program, the most you’d get is a stiff nod and a gold star sticker on your Secret Police report card.

You hadn’t even explored the full breadth of the bunker before you took off today, there have to be dozens more rooms you’d yet to see, enough stockpiled rations to keep food in your belly for months, even years to come. You’ll never have to hold your breath and hoist yourself over the lip of a dumpster again. You’d never freeze at night, you’d have your pick of beds, you’d always have a safe place to hide.

“However…”

And there is a hell of a lot hinging on that ‘however,’ in the way Elphaba’s tone becomes imperious and enticing, it curls around you like smoke, weaving a web even though her fly’s already caught.

“In exchange for this simple task, I promised you sustenance and shelter, true. But I can offer you so much more – a chance to see, to learn, to become so much more. You have quite a great potential, child. At my hand, you will have that which you desire most, that which your old home has denied you. A new home awaits you in service to me. You need only follow.”

Same as ever, Elphaba continues to be extra as all hell, leaving you grasping at straws about her intent. So, you can sneak real good – That’s a given. But there’ve got to be thousands of stealth-semblance wielders in the world, and most all of them less awkward, less fragile, less inexperienced, and Elphaba could simply reach her dainty hand into any old dark alley and pull them out by the dozen. Why you? What ‘potential,’ even?

It’s not tricky to see what she’s implying she can do for you, either, the subtlety’s in tatters. How she can help to fix you, what broken shards of your self-expression she can mold back together better than before. But if raiding a high-security research facility was just the test-run to secure your invitation, what exactly is on the menu if you say yes? Is it just more thievery, or are you going to bloody your blade? How much are you willing to do, if she can offer you all you need? And how often will you reevaluate what you won’t?

If you step forward, here and now, onto that airship ramp – if you take the hand extended, it will mark the first time you’ve ever left the Kingdom of your own volition. The few business trips Father had dragged you on to acclimate you as the heir apparent had shown you little of the foreign lands, outside their finest hotels and banquet halls. They couldn’t be counted as a real adventure, not when it felt like you’d never left home in the first place. Not like this. This would be untethered from the trappings of Atlesian aristocracy. No golden parachute to save you should you stumble, no familiar faces to which you can turn.

Thus far, there’s always been that last, thin thread connected to your old life. The oxygen line for a deep-sea diver, the last thing linking you to the surface as you roll in the deep. It would hurt, carve into you with guilt and distrust, and they’d pile on pressure to punish you for ever having tried to run at all, but you could still go back. Back to the Academy, back to your parents, back to Atlas at large.

If you leave now, you have no idea when you will ever, if ever, return. And if you do, will you be the same person as when you left?

Thunder rolls over the western mountain range.

“I’ll – I’ll do it.” Your voice cracks, quakes, as the world you’ve known falls away around you, that tethering thread snapped for good, your future now lying up that ramp.

Elphaba knew. She probably already knew she had you from the moment she appeared in that dank Mantle alley. All this buildup, this trial run, it wasn’t for her. It was all for you.

She smiles then, just that little bit broader than usual. “Come,” she orders softly, and a weight is off your shoulders. Your steps are light as you follow.

The engines rev, the hum of Gravity Dust in the lift core mixing with the telltale roar of Combustion fed into the thrust. Roused from its brief respite, the airship shakes, rattles, rises, and carries you with it, still standing on the retreating ramp.

As the landing pad disappears beneath you, lifting you high enough to see the cityscape, you take one last look at the Academy spires stabbing the skyline, the sprawling business district, the Hard-light Dust glowing in the city’s barrier wall. At the familiar, clustered clots of private residences for the rich and powerful, at Schnee Manor, the Lednik house, Salisbury Place. At the Marigold Estate, sinking and shrinking out of view.

And you turn your back on it all.

The ramp fully retracts, and you step into the cabin, to the smug and skeptical looks of your new cohorts. The bay door seals behind you, world plunged into a rumbling darkness before the dim internal lights kick on.

Goodbye, Atlas. Thanks for nothing.

“Oi. Brat. Wake up.”

Grousing under your breath, you crack your eyes open and prop yourself upon an elbow. Ciara’s poking your leg with that staff of hers, and though you’re clearly acquiescing to her demand, she gives you one more thump to grow on.

About an hour into the venture, the pricklings of anxiety gave up right-of-way to your exhaustion, and permitted you a nap to replenish some Aura. You’d curled up spread across several seats in the transport, duffel for a pillow and poncho for a sheet.

“We’re not too far out. Gonna be landing soon, lass, let’s be on your feet.”

“Where’re we even going?” you ask, recalling you’d never bothered to do so beforehand. If not Atlas, where does the leader of a shady, unspecified-but-powerful organization kick up her feet? “Mistral?”

“I wish. Still got loose ends there, 'n haven’t had hands on a proper bottle of baiju in donkey’s years.”

“Vacuo?”

“Nah, and good riddance. The heat there’s a bitch besides.”

“Vale, seriously?”

“Three strikes, kiddo.”

“So… So what? Menagerie?” There’s only one faunus in the group you’ve seen so far, so that was the last on your list. But that doesn’t sound right either; you’re about to touch down, and even the fastest airship of this class flying full-blast would be nowhere near making it to the faunus homeland by now.

She’s probably pulling your leg as much as she’s been poking it, but the fun from picking on you must be wearing thin. She jabs her staff at the interior hallway, leading to the back of the ship. “How ‘bout you go play yer twenty questions with ‘Lady West’ instead? She sent for you while you were snoozing.”

And Ciara didn’t think to tell you upfront?! You give her a rushed and half-hearted word of thanks, jumping to your feet to dart out of the room, politeness an afterthought to potentially pissing off your new boss.

The rear cargo bay isn’t a large one, this troop transport that they’ve commandeered being on the modest end, and Elphaba makes it seem even smaller; her presence seems to fill the entire room, even as she stands, silent, facing the hatch. Even as the airship banks and rattles, she remains entirely unfazed.

You reach for one of the grab handles jangling overhead to keep from falling on your face as the ship hits a clump of turbulence. “You, um. You asked for me?”

“And you promptly came; a good precedent to set. By this point, I presume one of my followers has already informed you that Elphaba West was but a convenient sobriquet.” She doesn’t yet look your way, and if that’s not clearly done for dramatic effect, you don’t know what is.

With your free hand, you fiddle with one of the buckles on your chest harness. “Yeah. They, er. Hazel said you’ve gone by a lot of names.”

“I hope you will pardon me this act of discretion; I realize it was rather inconsiderate. After all, I was at liberty to know of your deeper identity long before I announced myself to you. I find it only fitting, now that we’ve established trust, that I extend you the same courtesy.”

This is a very significant moment, not just in the day, but in your life’s arc. Therefore, you’re doing your best to give Elphaba your absolute attention, an effort hamstrung by the unpleasant sensation of being watched. You’d heard approaching footsteps just behind the door suddenly cut short, and the urge to check is an itch you can’t ignore.

Your paranoia is validated when you look over your shoulder; creeping around the edge of the porthole is Tyrian again, eyes sinking daggers into your back. He must take his work seriously if he still hasn’t abandoned his orders to shadow you at a distance, despite this inexplicable grudge he seems to have. Your acceptable performance today probably denied him the satisfaction of violently silencing you if you’d gone rogue. Once detected, his expression becomes worryingly sedate, and he skulks back down the corridor into the main cabin, out of sight.

“Do you not agree?”

Shit. Focus. “I – Yes? I mean, I agree.”

Elphaba lifts a pair of fingers for a light flick in the air at her side, and both of the heavy locks on either side of the loading bay doors ssssshunk free. With a hydraulic hiss, the bay yawns open as the ship makes its final approach towards your destination.

One look tells it straight: You’re not in the Kingdoms anymore.

An unfamiliar, dark violet landscape of sprawling crags and burbling pits of ichor stretches vast in all directions under an angry sangria sky. The broken moon looms unnaturally large above this place, like it’s grown too heavy for the heavens to prop up. Pockets of untapped Dust tuck themselves into the deep crevices and ridge lines, occasionally sparking, thrumming, lifting orbiting clouds of gravel.

In one of the many pits, there’s a sloshing at the shoreline. A gnashing muzzle pierces through the surface, then a clawed forepaw, as a fresh-spawned Beowolf fights its way to land. As it clambers up from the dirt on half-formed legs, an ear twitches, and its head snaps up to track your airship’s passing. Its soulless howl is your harrowing greeting.

Pools of Grimm in such high concentrations, total unending emptiness in every direction? There’s no documented landscape like this that you know of, not in all the developed regions of Remnant; even the barren tundra of your birthplace is more vibrant than this. There’s only one checkbox left on the list. You’ve entered the Land of Darkness.

For centuries, no Kingdom has come close to colonizing this place. No adventuring party has ever ventured here for long, not if they wanted to return home to tell the tale. To this day, even Atlas’ most highly-trained expeditionary forces barely make it a few miles inland from the coast, and their aerial drones not much further before they’re ripped to shreds by Razorwings and Ravagers the size of which are rarely seen on the inhabited continents.

You receive a full panorama of the badlands as the airship rotates, slowly spinning as it descends to line up with a landing pad. That’s your first glimpse of your true destination; rising high from the midst of it all and growing closer by the second, an imposing castle – an actual castle, for gods’ sake –  built straight into a mountainous crystalline spire.

“Though I did not deem it such myself, my circle have taken to calling it ‘Evernight.’ A fitting choice, I find, for this sunless place.” Elphaba extends a palm towards the fortress ahead. “It has been my home for many years. And from this day, it is yours as well.”

Content with the level of dramatic foreplay she’s achieved, your hostess finally turns to face you, raising a hand to her heart.

“And my name, child… My name is Salem.”

Around her, the air shimmers like a heat-haze, the desert mirage one desperately chases in hopes of an oasis. Languorously, in a line from head to toe, the glamour magic fades. Fair golden hair goes stark white, like the color is dripping away from the roots. Skin already pale follows suit, not sickly but deathless, mortal vibrance leaking out from her every pore until they disappear entirely, her perfect features now sculpted from an artist’s marble. The light and airy silhouette of her dress becomes sharp obsidian.

Deep veins of thrumming black and red rise and thread across her arms, her neck, the corners of her face. At her brow, a singular diamond-shaped marking sits like a third eye. When she opens the real pair beneath and sets them upon you again, those eyes burn like blood ignited amid the void of black sclera.

Your throat feels dry and sticky all at once, and you swallow thickly. You can tell you’re sweating. Deep in the recesses of your mind, discarded in a wire-mesh trashbin, a crumpled shred of your rationality screams ‘Grimm.’

How right you’d been at that first chance meeting, backhandedly comparing her to the beasts, even if you were wrong about everything else – this isn’t some crime-boss, crazed cannibal cultist, or political agitator. This is a woman commanding forces who fear neither Grimm nor the greatest military in the world. This is a woman holding power that seems to go even beyond the scientific understanding of a person’s singular ‘Semblance.’ This may well be the most dangerous woman on Remnant.

She is the woman to whom you’ve just entrusted yourself, and sworn your service.

She is great and terrible to behold.

Her name is Salem.

And she is beautiful.

Chapter Text

There’s the laughter, again. Raucous laughter, razor-sharp.

“Holy shit, he was actually gonna wear that?”

“I told you dude, I fucking knew it! I knew he was a queer!”

“Izzat why he’s always bending over simping for the HGTS chicks?”

“Yeah, like it’ll rub off on him or something!”

“I knew he was a pussy, but I didn’t think he’d try and pretend he’s got one!”

Smack. A rustling of fabric.

“Go ahead, Marigold! Don’t stop, put it on for us, world’s waiting!”

“How much d’you think his parents would pay to keep this quiet?”

“Prob’ly a couple hundred-thou if they’re feeling stingy.”

“They’d flip if they – Yo, Blaze, y’gotta call Henry, too! They’re cousins!”

A whump against the polished metal wall.

“Hey, move the camera, Del! I can’t see!”

“Nothing to see, the little prick went invisible!”

“Well, don’t just let him bail!”

“Come on back and give us a show, ███!“

Thud.

“Was that him!? I hit something!”

“Ow! You seriously lost him? Where’s he going?!”

“You don’t think he’s try’na go snitch, do you?”

“███! We were just havin’ fun!”

A rush of cold wind and the din of a city at dusk.

Deep in a pocket, the ear-splitting buzz of a scroll set to silent.

“...do you think you’re doing, prancing around like a...”

“...family will be a laughingstock at this year’s...”

"... allowed you to attend that school to make a man of you and this is how you repay our…"

“...did not raise my little boy to be...”

"You will come home at once, ███, and we will have words; no son of mine will..."

Beep.

Boots on asphalt become boots on cement become boots on metal.

Thin metal fencing jangles, surrenders to the climber.

The warbling sound of high-tension cables that tether a city in the sky.

Frostbitten wind roaring from beneath.

Falling through clouds and cold and sleet and smoke.

Stale tears blurring two cities’ lights into a sea of stars, above and below.

Falling so fast and so far and– 

Your spine complains at the sudden snap to a 90° angle, and groaning, grasping at air, you claw your way back into the waking world. Rubbing the sleep-sand from your eyes, you blink them clear to get your bearings, brain still sludgy and slow as gruel.

Being as that’s a mattress beneath you rather than cardboard and towels, you’re not in a Mantle alleyway, and being as there’s no flat, metal roof a scant few feet above, you’re not in your Academy bunk. There’s no butler banging on the door and politely insisting you attend breakfast with your parents, so you’re not back at the Marigold Estate.

Instead, you wake to a smallish, dimly-lit room. Gray stone walls are intermittently broken up with jags of purple crystal, and a network of random faded rugs’ve been thrown over the cool tile below for a modicum of comfort. The morning sun outside is too faint to pierce your thick maroon curtains, your room left darkened save for the low glimmer of two dozen tiny tealights spaced throughout, dancing with their enchanted, ever-burning and smokeless flames on shelves and sills.

Your new home, bizarre as it is, here in the Land of Darkness.

Rising from your bed, you grope around in the alcove on the wall for wherever you’d lain your scroll and turn off your alarm, before it startles you right out of your efforts towards a calm morning. Time to face another day beyond the pale.

Clad in nothing but that same nightgown you’d been gifted back at the bunker – it is infernally comfortable – you work in a quick stretch and shamble your way over to the window. Pulling back the curtain, you lazily wipe condensation from the glass in its stately wrought-iron lattice.  It reveals little that isn’t shrouded by the thick, pea-soup fog outside, and the trails of steam from spattering rainwater failing to mix with the churning, smoldering Pools of Grimm in the valley below.

It’s a calming fog, truth be told, not like the dense, Atlesian city haze. Almost makes you want to curl up in the windowsill with some hot chocolate, or a good mug of coffee.

Speaking of which… you should go grab some here in a minute, once your brain wakes itself up enough for basic cognitive function. For now, you’re content to lean in, fold your arms on the sill and stare out at the valley below, reflecting.

That dream again.

Sadly, it’s not the first time you’ve been forced to relive that night, and your gut’s all-but-certain it’s not the last. You’d hoped your brain could cut it out by now, and especially now that you’ve put some notable distance between yourself and the Kingdom where it happened, living out here. If you let yourself get sucked back into the memory, you won’t be getting shit done in the present.

Acclimating to the new lodgings has been slow-going, but over the last few days, you’ve made progress, if not a few plans to personalize when you get the chance. From your guess, you’ve been comped what once’d been servants’ quarters, based on its placement near so many of the rooms associated with menial medieval chores. Still, the bed’s new, or… at least, from the last century, and supportive enough that you’re not riddled with aches – at least, nowhere but your brain. Maybe you need an aspirin. Wait, coffee first. Coffee and aspirin? Hey, what if you brewed them togeth– Gods, no, that’s stupid, you really DO need to wake up.

Pushing off your perch, you go to get dressed for the day, noting as you pass that the small, chipped plate you’d left on the floor near the crack in the wall has been cleaned of its leftover bread crusts and bits of dry cheese. Gruyere or one of his skittery comrades must’ve been by for a visit.

The old mahogany armoire creaks a complaint as it’s drawn open, revealing your rather pathetic wardrobe, tiny as it is.

When Salem’s crew bugged out of Atlas, someone – smart money’s on Hazel – had thought to bring everything you’d left behind in the room where you’d crashed that night, just in case. The smelly shell of grimy street clothes you’d been wearing when the Boss found you, now clean, your tangerine trash-scarf – miraculously, still orange even after washing – your Academy uniform, and even the thick old schoolbooks you’d planned to ditch for good. Dropout you might be, but they’re still handy reference material, and were thrown up on the nearby, otherwise-empty bookshelf to make the place look a little more lived in.

Besides that, you’d gotten at least a few fashion loaners from Ciara ‘til you’ve filled your stockpiles, but your disparate frames mean it’s mostly billowy old shirts and leathery outerwear, the majority of it an edgy black which you… suppose you’re going to have to get used to, now, even if you try your hardest to make do with the remainder. You pull down a basic white blouse with a depressingly roomy chest area and drape it over your arm, followed by a chic belted vest – what is it with that woman and belts? However, when it comes to your lower half, your hand pauses.

The girls back in school might’ve gotten the luxury of skirts simply for puttering around in class and looking pretty, but combat skirts were never so common for real-deal military huntresses in Atlas. Not that you’d had much hope to ever get the chance to try them, but even when your mind wondered ‘what if,’ you’d’ve had to agree; whatever free gender euphoria they might’ve offered in feeling the breeze on one’s legs is mitigated when that breeze is a freezing blizzard in an arctic hellscape.

However… you aren’t in Atlas anymore, are you?

You grab the skirt.

You’re still in the process of developing a mental map of Evernight. Growing up navigating the estates of the wealthy have given you a headstart on knowing how to navigate a castle.

There’s no need to set a hurried pace after you’ve shut the door to your chambers behind you, tightening the sword scabbard on your back. While a few events in particular will require exacting punctuality, your agenda’s otherwise pretty loose. Get some food in you, get some exercise, attend a meeting for the members of an ominous Grimm-cult, receive private lessons in the secret history of Remnant from the leader of said cult… It’s all pretty cut-and-dry.

And considering you woke up bright and early at the hour of… noon-and-a-half, apparently, you’ve still got hours to go before you need to shape up and attend your boss.

Those first few days, you’d felt so supremely underdressed, walking amid great stone columns and black marble balustrades in outdated military garb or that flimsy nightgown. Sure, you’ve cleaned up a little, but at this point it’s beginning to sink in that you’ve nothing to fear in the way of fashion police, with the castle’s denizens so few and so spread out that bumping into one another outside the main chambers is rarer than you’d’ve thought.

First things first: snagging some manner of late brunch from the kitchens, just beneath the Great Hall. Remembering the grisly stone gargoyle carved in the archway over the intersection ahead, it’s time to hook a left. You duck around a hanging curtain of cast-iron pots and bundled, drying herbs, then head inside.

The kitchens of Castle Evernight are, in a sense, morbidly hilarious. You’d genuinely laughed the first time you passed through, a confused and breathless thing rippling from the edges of your lungs.

Just the juxtaposition of it all; giant, ominous castle in a wasteland of death, and it still has its once-expansive medieval kitchens and larders retrofitted with a refrigerator, with sinks and plumbing, with a cheap microwave someone dragged in a few decades ago.

It’s a hell of a thing to slump out of bed and shuffle groggily to the kitchen, hastily dressed, eyes half open, and autopilot locked onto the coffeemaker, all the while a Literal Creature of Grimm casually chops onions on the stone countertop a few feet to your right.

You lock eyes with the glowing beads of fire in the Imp’s long-horned skull as you grope around an overhead cupboard for a tin of ground coffee.

“So... Good morning?”

“Hzzzzzsh.”

“At least the onions’ll never make you cry, right, bud?”

“Zzh-cli-click…”

“Riiiiight.”

Fuck, that’s unsettling. By the time you’ve found your prize and pulled it down, the ghastly creature’s returned to its mechanical motions. Chop-chop-cha-chop.

Nothing could’ve prepared you for discovering this place comes equipped with a skeleton crew of Grimm actually behaving like a half-baked castle staff. No one’s given you a straight answer on how-and-why they aren’t just snarling and lunging for you at first glance, compared to those elsewhere in the world or caged in the holding pens off the training rooms. Y’know. Like Grimm are supposed to do.

It’d help to know whether it’s simply because you’ve been taken under Salem’s wing that’s changed how they see you and they’d be just as lethal otherwise, or whether these were bred differently. Perhaps being created with intention imparts some bare-minimum level of intelligence, compared to the roving Grimm autonomously spawned from the Dark Pools spattered across the world?

Although, the word intelligence is doing a lot of heavy lifting there; the ‘domesticated’ Grimm don’t seem capable of higher-complexity tasks or operating many modern utilities, but otherwise perform their assigned roles restlessly – cooking, cleaning, couriering steady as clockwork. It’s like something out of a cartoon; you can practically see a chef’s toque on the Imp dicing vegetables, maybe a frilly servant’s apron tied around the jellyfish bulb of the Seer, who gathers up a tray of Valish Breakfast Tea in its spindly tentacles and floats it away up a stairwell in search of Watts.

Hazel hadn’t been lying the other day when he told you Salem doesn’t have a huge appetite; she doesn’t need to eat at all. But the rest of you inferior beings certainly do, and while it might be a relatively simple task for Salem to conjure up foodstuffs from the ether, it’s better to have a steady supply on hand. Can’t go begging the boss to waste some of her valuable reservoir of unfathomable magic every time a mortal gets the munchies, and her subordinates – yourself included, now? – have been assigned more productive pursuits than messing around in the kitchen, and thus… Grimm doing most of the godsdamned cooking.

But meh, who cares? Your coffee’s done, and you still need to check the morning news. Pouring out a mug, you take a sip, infusing your system with the dark, bitter drink and its sweet caffeine payload. You spin to lean on the cool granite of the counter, mug left warming one hand, fishing your scroll from a pocket with the other.

Another surprise that shouldn’t have been one: there’s actually CCT reception out here in the barrens, courtesy of a rigged, patchwork tower just off one of the main castle spires. It’s a rusty and aging thing, built from the same archaic blueprints as the first towers to go up after the Great War. It’s been here longer than Watts, but the hacker has taken up its maintenance since he’s come aboard – and to varying levels of success, based on the fact a newbie like you had to bail him out to restore his backdoor into Atlas’ comms. Since the CCTS broadly runs on Atlesian tech, that’s your gateway to the network at large.

Biggest news blurbs for the day are nothing of note: Some shake-ups in the interkingdom Dust shipping routes, a celebrity blackmail scandal… Some rich Valish family’s mansion caught fire, boo hoo. You’d peek at that one, but the article’s behind a paywall, and you’ve got no money to your name, nor a way to tap your old family credit cards without setting off alarms. Are you even going to get paid for this life you’re living now, or do you have to go tug on the hem of Salem’s dress and ask for an allowance?

Speaking of begging for things, you close the CCTS browser and flick through some of the files hosted on the castle’s secure network to the spreadsheet marked ‘Requisitions & Amenities.’ You quickly jot down that the kitchen’s out of protein bars; you’ve just torn open the last one.

Watts can call it ‘Requisitions’ to gussy it up all he likes; the thing’s still a glorified grocery list of supplies and luxuries to have hacked delivery drones haul back undetected, or field agents to find on their journeys, further attesting to the macabre domesticity of the place. It almost reminds you of home; money is no object, so long as it first meets approval. The only real difference is you’re contending against Watts’ passive aggression rather than your parents’, and anything here will be stolen or bought with shady cash just the slightest bit more ethical than your family’s vieux riche billions.

You go ahead and underline your requests for some more clothes while you’re at it, assuming Watts doesn’t shoot you down when he catalogs the next batch of supplies out of spite.

The guy’s still unbearable, but you can’t deny living out here might get real miserable real quick if it weren’t for the modern technological conveniences his network allows. But then, if he’s an evil sci-guy, who did the non-technological retrofitting to this place? Did Salem, like, enlist a shady mercenary plumber and sewage technician into her organization once upon a time, to set up the washroom with modern baths and toilets, sinks for the kitchen? Unimportant mind-bogglers like that fill up a lot of your exploration time.

It’s been your primary pursuit in your off-time the past few days, exploring the castle, and though you’ve only scratched the surface of the whole, it feels like you’ve gotten the most important chambers down.

The preliminary blueprint in your brain points you towards another turn and a long stretch littered with other, older living quarters, unlocked and unclaimed, but their late owner’s effects still cluttering the place. They weren’t the most sentimental or vain; no photographs remain, no ‘selfies.’ The only way to find a window into the sort of folks that fell in with a group like this before you came along, is reassembled through the mementos you find.

A few rooms are straightforward – an excommunicated vicar, who traded in the cassock in favor of a new faith. A weaponsmith with a penchant for Vacuan death metal, going by the mixtape you found in a dusty old walkman. Some kind of zoologist, or maybe a safari fan, complete with pith helmet and a tub of dried-up faunus tusk polish.

Others are a mind puzzle, like the musty room that belonged to either a watchmaker or a pirate, or some bizarre combination of the two. Maybe they were just deep into the steampunk style? Whoever they were, they’re definitely not in need of their corsets anymore. Yoink.

There must be dozens upon dozens more chambers scattered around the castle that you’ve yet to find, but right now, you’re only concerned with one of them.

You put some oomph into cracking open the heavy wooden door and swinging it wide, stepping into the healer’s room. Or, the ex-healer’s room? There’s no doctor in sight, so the place is a glorified medicine cabinet, overseen by an old medical diagnostic drone in the corner. Blocky and low on points of articulation, it’s a woefully outdated model, with manipulator claws instead of hands, and chipped paint on its chassis the unfriendly off-blue of medical scrubs, but darkened with worrying, brownish splotches of stain. Deactivated without any pending emergency to advise upon, it judges you silently through it’s black visor as you rifle through a shelf of unsorted bottles for anything resembling an aspirin.

It’s more of a challenge than you’d like, while dealing with an incipient headache, trying to find which bottles are modern pharmaceuticals, and which are aging herbal poultices and tinctures and poisons. Much as you’d love to smother those bad dreams, you wouldn’t trust the sleeping draughts as far as you could throw them, though you have a pretty good hunch where they all came from.

Off through a doorway to your right, a short tunnel cuts across to an impressive indoor garden, a greenhouse lit not by industrial grow-lamps but an an artificial, magical sun. The floating orb can’t be bigger than a baseball, you could easily fit it in your hand, but that same scientifically-impossible fire that keeps the castle’s candles lit has it beaming fresh light down onto rows and rows of…

Well, the plants’re all dead, but not for want of sunshine. Nobody’s looked after the place, not even any of the servant-Grimm coming in to water and tend the soil. It’s a shame; you’d gotten a crash course in botany by way of survivalist classes, so you like to think that some huntress know-how could come in handy if you had any material left to work with. You won’t need to become an apothecary today, though; your careless shuffling uncovers a plain, no-nonsense white pill bottle, packed with… Ah, expired ibuprofen.

Close enough.

Having haphazardly battled your way up to a bare-minimum level of basic human functionality, it’s about time you stretch your legs a little. And your arms. And anything else a pitched spar might work out, for that matter. You’ve got an hour to kill before the Boss calls you all in for this big meeting she’s planned, and you’ve still got a lot of rust on your sword arm from living the homeless life.

The castle’s central corridors are imposingly decorated, both in anticipation of, and to dissuade, unwanted visitors. As you double back around through the intersection archway, you soon find yourself flanked. There’s an army’s worth of embossed steel armor, full suits of heavy plate and chainmail mounted on standees in alcoves spaced every six feet, clutching tight to their greatswords and halberds.

You know they’re little more than empty suits, but the knowledge of just how many Grimm you’ve got for roommates allows the nonzero possibility a Geist might slip into one and grab you from behind. You’ve never fought an Arma Gigas before, and you’d rather keep it that way, thank-you-very-much. Internally, you kick yourself for being so damned jumpy – acting like you’re back at the academy, sneaking the halls after curfew. You live here! This is your home, you can go wherever you want, whenever you want! Er, almost anywhere.

It was odd from the start, strangely, suspiciously so, just how much freedom to roam you’d been given. To allow an 18-year-old Academy dropout to wander their group’s – or can you officially say ‘your group’ now? – your group’s secret headquarters unchaperoned. Only a few areas were directly declared off-limits: the uppermost floor where Salem keeps her personal chambers and study, the laboratory for the sake of not disrupting Watts’ highly-tuned equipment by accident, the artifact storage so as to keep you from incinerating yourself on accident with occult items, and… these doors.

As you pass into the antechamber just off the great hall, you cross them again, rising to your right: a hulking pair of iron doors, studded and chain-wrapped – maybe even enchanted for all you know – each emblazoned with Salem’s eye-shaped emblem in a deep red crystal. Two of the largest sets of armor yet are posted to flank it, feeding its air of significance, as do the dozen or so stone Grimm statues scattered erratically across the room, all rotated to face it.

They’re all so much more hauntingly lifelike – if such a thing can even be said about creatures whose defining trait is un-life – than those statues aristocrats like your parents so loved to slap down in their mansions, like those at Schnee Manor, or even at Salem’s old Great War bunker. Those all showcased some level of artistic license, by sculptors who’d be fortunate to never see such a beast in person. With these, a simple coat of paint could fully convince you they’re real – Snarling Beowolves and roaring Ursai carved as if rearing up on their haunches and spontaneously frozen midleap.

Gives you the jitters, is what they do. Just one more reason to keep your distance from those doors. So far, you’ve only seen Salem herself using it from time to time, undoing the half-dozen layers of protection with a single wave of her hand and slipping inside. You weren’t at a good angle to get a glimpse around her, but the scents of Grimm and a coppery tang were thick, and the bestial roars from within were smothered as the door sealed.

An educated guess says it’s where the Boss does her experiments with the creatures, and you aren’t keen to get anywhere near that, for your own peace of mind. Realizing you’ve stopped short to stare while lost in thought, you shake some cobwebs from your brain and keep crossing the hall to the far side, idly flicking one of the stone Beowolves on its muzzle as you pass.

The main training halls, your destination du jour, are efficiently housed between the castle armory and the forge workshop, a series of spacious chambers, and minimal obstructions out across the floor, give or take the occasional series of tatami mats for tumbling onto. With the high ceilings and stained-glass windows, the main room almost looks like a bastardization of a temple, or some other place of faith. Its next-door neighbor is bleaker, darker, a circular arena linked to the Grimm pens – there are plenty of beasts caged up and ready to go, from whelping Grimm abandoned by their packs, but no less thirsty for the Aura of the living, to the failed byproducts of Salem’s experiments, tossed up here to become cannon fodder or a harsh life lesson.

Not that you’ve got any inclination to fight Grimm for fun, today. You just want to get some exercise in, maybe with a living person. Because really, what else are you going to do around here? You don’t want to give your hostess a bad impression if all you do is sit around on your scroll back in your room! It sounds silly now, but you’d sorta figured you might be stuck doing some chores on a daily basis, or immediately be assigned a mission, or a posting, or a specific, cut-and-dry regimen. No such orders came down.

Instead, you’ve thrown the middle of your days right back into training, intently turning off your brain as regards just what you’re training to fight, when you live in a place where the godsdamned Grimm are doing your laundry. It’s almost like you never left school at all, now graduated from an intense, heavily-curated course with direct oversight, to more of an independent study project. So long as you meet Salem’s expectations in the long term, whatever those may be, it doesn’t seem like she’s going to loom over your shoulder all day.

Distraction with your thoughts drastically cuts down on your situational awareness. Turning the corner into the training hall, a shoulder smacks you right in the chest, sending the rest of you smacking down hard on the cold, granite floors. Your scabbard is wedged uncomfortably into your spine.

“Tch, so clumsy. I don't know what our Goddess even sees in you. Clearly not your nimble footwork.”

Clicking his tongue as he glowers down from above, Tyrian regards you like a pesky carpet stain waiting to happen.

Behind his legs and swaying tail, you can see into the training hall, and the dissolving remains of a Lagartodile, sooty smoke spilling from the violent slashes marking the crocodile-Grimm’s carcass. It’s dying pathetically on its back, indicating that pulling its presumed prey into a death-roll didn’t pan out the way it had hoped. There are other voices inside, other sounds of activity you can discern, but that thing is very much the scorpion faunus’ handiwork, attesting to an outright depraved enjoyment of battle.

“You’d best keep on your toes, you know,” he sneers casually. “I would never claim our Goddess to be fickle, but she does tire of her lesser toys so quickly. Might want to start making a splash around here, before Her Grace’s patience wears thin, and she decides to dispose of you. Oh! Maybe she'll even let me do it. Won't that be fun?”

Tyrian swings his tail around front, probably to threateningly waggle the stinger in your face again. Frankly, you’re not in the mood for this, you’re nowhere in the vicinity of the mood, and you grab him by the chitinous joint just before the tip.

Denied his fun, he retracts the appendage and skulks off, hissing an ultimatum over his shoulder. “If you threaten her great works, I will not hesitate.”

Last scary line delivered, he clomps on down the halls and vanishes around a corner, off in search of someone else to menace.

Of all the castle’s current inhabitants, that guy was the least-warm welcome; if Watts merely thinks you’re a degenerate and wants you to keep out of his way, Callows genuinely wants you dead. It didn’t take long to figure out the petty reason, either. The guy’s just ticked that his ‘Goddess’ is giving you more attention these days – the older brother who goes sour and surly after the family gets a new baby.

You don't call her a Goddess. Not like him, addicted and frothing at the mouth, subject to act upon every electrochemical impulse his brain has on the matter. Salem’s just your Boss, now. Maybe, maybe your Queen if you’re feeling formal, but you’re dead certain you’re never going to sink as low as that guy. Sheesh. Talk about shameless.

Standing and brushing yourself off, you readjust your sword’s sheath and head into the main training hall, where the Lagartodile’s down to a meager pile of black ashes, the last of its remains evaporating into thin air.

“Now now, new girl,” Ciara jeers brightly as you enter. “Didn’t yer Mum teach ya to play nice with yer friendly neighborhood serial killer?”

Kicked back with her boots on a table someone’s dragged in, her chair tilted precariously on two legs, Ciara takes a swig of something carbonated and caustic from a large can, a whiff of which singes your nosehairs. All the while, Eadránaí is twirling in her other hand, the runes nearest the club’s head glowing the verdant green of activated Plant Dust.

A few steps further, and you can see why. On the other end of the table, a small Creep squirms inside a web of thorny vines, one leg deceptively allowed to liberate itself, only for the Dust Mage at the table to channel her Semblance, and possess the vines into giving an even tighter squeeze.

The Creep’s cry of frustration is soon drowned out by a cacophonous banging from the workshop, a fiery roar, a less fiery shout, then an unnerving silence to follow.

Ciara spots your concern and waves her can of foreign something-or-other until she catches your attention. “Ah, don’t worry ‘bout that. Rainart’s having a go at playing handyman. What brings you back to the kingdom of ass-kickings?”

Didn’t sound like any repair job you’ve ever heard of, but it’s none of your business what goes on in the workshop. You’ve been bouncing around a few ideas for your weapon for the first time in forever, but they need a while in the oven. In the meantime:

“Do you wanna go a few rounds? I’m still used to practicing with people, so it’s weird only having a bunch of neutered Grimm to whale on.” You jab a finger towards the Creep. The Creep growls the Grimm equivalent of a piss off.

“Naw, lass, no mood for a real scrap. Aura’s still knackered from yesterday’s, just doing me a bit of endurance work here. But hey, if you’re still lookin’ for a donnybrook, you could have yourself a go at the big man.”

Gods, when isn’t her Aura ‘knackered?’ And where does she get off acting like her Aura took a thrashing, you were the one who almost got punted out one of those high windows!

Before you can politely decline, the braced steel door to the workshop swings open, carrying a hot gust of wind reeking of smoke and metal, and a very sooty Hazel along with it. His ‘resolutely pissed’ face mellows out to ‘dry and disinterested’ when he sees you, but Ciara seems intent to undo the progress.

“Well, speak of the devil and – Ha, no, I suppose she’s upstairs, isn’t she? But speak of this heaping slab of fuck and he’ll surely appear! And he’s probably a bit cranky and looking to put his fists into something. He can give you a proper fight!”

Can, perhaps. Should? Hell, no. Will he? Hazel does that… that thing he does where you can feel him rolling his eyes, even if they never shift. “She doesn’t want to fight me.”

“’Course she does! Don’t you?”

You turn to Hazel. “Do I?”

“No, you don’t,” he politely informs you.

You pass the message along to Ciara. “I don’t think I do.”

“Nonsense! Look at ‘er! All rarin’ to get her hide tanned! Little schoolgirl here needs herself a good education, do ‘er a kindness and kick her ass!”

Through a complicated, exasperated look, you and the big man telepathically resolve that the only way to shut the loudmouthed mage up is if you indulge her, and at least throw down one round for posterity. Or for her entertainment, which is seeming increasingly likely the more you think about it.

Moving to the far set of mats away from Ciara’s Grimm-strangling exercise, you and Hazel take up opposing positions from one another, your Combat Class memories putting you on autopilot, following the rigid placement.

Other than shucking off his coat, Hazel doesn’t seem to need any other preparations. He doesn’t go for a weapon, and you haven’t seen him using one yet, so maybe he’s trying to give you a handicap? So be it. If you’re going to cut it here, you need to get people to stop underestimating you. You slide your sword free of its sheath and keep to a casual, maneuverable one-handed stance to start.

“Just remindin’ you that you coulda called this off,” Hazel grumbles, one hand in his pocket. “Don’t complain if you break a nail.”

You examine your uneven fingernails, nibbled down to the nubs in fits of anxiety. "Oh, har har," you drone.

And then the bastard stabs himself square in the side with a sharpened, quarry-fresh Fire Dust crystal, and nobody’s laughing anymore.

Hazel officially called it quits whaling on you a while ago, since the both of you needed to be able to walk to make it to the meeting, but you’re still sore as hell. You’d’ve been reduced to a colorful abstract art piece on the wall if not for your Aura, and what little you have left is steadily working off the bruises with its telltale tingle.

Speaking of tingles, the hairs on the back of your neck raise again as you enter the castle’s formal conference hall for the first time. There’s a good chance they’ve never stopped being raised since they day you arrived.

The room is elliptical in shape, its walls stacked with elaborate ceiling-height windows, patterned with wrought-iron. Nestled in the nooks between each are more decorative formations of the selfsame violet crystal that both forms, and obscures the castle’s exterior, each topped with the familiar ever-burning candles. At the absolute furthest end is an ominous amethyst altar covered with a smattering of the same. And in the center of it all, a lengthy crystalline table stretching the room, several chairs hewn from deadwood spaced around it, with Salem’s grander seat at the head.

The others all brush around you, angling to be seated themselves and get things underway, and that’s when it hits you: a piercing, inescapable reckoning that strikes at your very core.

You have no idea where to sit.

No, but seriously, though – All the other members of this ramshackle group of threatening people are all gravitating instantly to one seat or another without having to look, implying a sort of familiarity your background associates with a standing tradition or protocol to which you’re completely blind. Oh, gods, it really is like you’re back in the Academy Cafeteria that first day of school, your uppity Atlesian rich-kid ass too sheltered to know the implicit norms of a setting with blended social status, and too unnerved by your team to presume you could dare and simply fall in with them from the start without getting your ass verbally handed to you.

Irrationally, that same uppity Atlas brain is nagging at you to now adhere to those old, burned-in bylaws, but you’re missing so much information! You don’t know the order of precedence, or what the relative ranks of the other members are! Would you be going by Valish tradition, or Atlesian?

Eventually, you’re done a mercy. Seeing you frozen up and shuffling your feet, Salem meets your eye and wordlessly beckons you over with the crook of a finger. You’re not going to turn down the life preserver that’s been tossed to you; playing off the momentary hangup as intentional, you put some of that aristocratic confidence in your stride as you round the table, avoiding the eyes of others lest you utterly blow the facade.

Arriving at the head of the table, just to the right of your hostess’ crystal throne, you fold your hands to keep from anxiously picking at the sleeves of your blouse and look to her expectantly, patiently waiting for her to finish her unspoken thought.

So instead, she starts the meeting.

Without a care for the propriety of seeing you seated, Salem clasps her hands at her waist and calmly greets all in attendance, including yourself, but does nothing further to place you anywhere – not even pointing you to the empty seat just a few feet away, the one you can see once you turn inward to partly face the table, and keep both the Queen and the other members in your line of sight.

Did she want you to take initiative and just steal the chair, or is she testing your willingness to put up with an indignity? Or does it simply amuse her that you’re waiting on her to clarify her directions? It kind of feels like you’re playing a game of etiquette chicken against a very dangerous lady, and one you’ve no intention of crossing if you can help it just yet, so… here you are. Still. And hey, your feet might be a bit sore, but it kind of makes you feel important to be up near the head of the table, courtesy of all that miserable aristocratic social conditioning and rigid Academy discipline that’s been beaten into you, the same that made you panic about this from the start.

Though, for such a long table, only four – five, if you count the spot that could be yours – of its twelve seats are occupied. They might want to think about redecorating, if they’re going to keep having so many vacancies. Keep your boss from having to shout to be heard.

Since your arrival at Evernight, the longtime inhabitants had mostly been scattered across the castle, for one reason or another too busy to attend and given a free pass for the pursuit of their work. Today marks the first time the order’s truly come down for all hands on deck, and it’s still as sparsely-packed as ever.

Salem must think so too, given it’s the topic of the day. After some lengthy preliminary topics are breezed through – assessing the state of the castle after a long absence – she steeples her fingers and casts a look at those assembled.

“With the addition of young Marigold, we’ve taken our first steps to rectify the dwindling of our numbers in recent years. We are yet far from full strength, however, and must act accordingly. Restructuring will be required, as will scouting for further potential. Those who may be trusted with the knowledge inherent to this inner circle.”

“There are a disquieting number of empty seats, moreso than when last we were summoned at once,” Watts concurs. “No doubt a concerted effort by the wizard to thin our ranks. That last silver-eyed rabble-rouser he loosed on us left us stripped of several vital skillsets in particular.”

Based on the displays of power you’ve witnessed so far, it’s hard to imagine just what constitutes a ‘thinning of ranks’ around here; Who did the ‘wizard’ send, anyway, that their eye color’d be the only defining trait to be discussed? A year ago – hell, even a few months ago – you’d wave off the thought of the old superstitions about silver eyes without hesitation. Now, you’ve already seen enough to wonder if there’s some stock in it.

“Think we should finally bring in Merlot?” Hazel asks in a deadpan, and Watts looks like he’s just sucked on a lemon.

“Absolutely not. That man and his mutants are an unprofessional blight on the academic–”

Salem speaks right over the fuming hacker, who snorts derisively, but goes silent with his pouting. “Merlot has proven himself unprepared for initiation, through his mishandling of Mountain Glenn. We will observe how he continues to fare in the solitude of his island. Necessity is the mother of invention, and there is a chance his ingenuity will be stunted should he bear witness to what feats are possible through magic alone.”

Even a sheltered Atlesian native like you had heard about the disaster of Vale’s Mountain Glenn, and Merlot Industries one of Vale’s most pioneering – or profitable, as was your Father’s take – development firms for next-generation artificial intelligence and gene therapy. From what scraps you’re putting together, they’ve been keeping tabs on the guy responsible even after he vanished off the face of Remnant? In hindsight, that tracks; Watts is supposed to be dead as well, and actually, so are you.

Somewhere over the course of the conversation, Ciara has stolen the tweed flatcap off Watts’ head, now spinning it lazily on a finger. “How ‘bout Hathi? He was always fun to have on a manhunt.”

The Queen’s tone takes on little emotion save disappointment. “Contact was lost in the Menagerian outback, consistent with the movements of another of Ozma’s Warriors. Should he fail to respond to this summons in the coming days, he may be presumed a casualty moving forward.”

“I don’t see the Boar anywhere,” notes Tyrian, sharpening the tip of his tail against the tiles in long, loud scrapes. “Was he roasted as well?”

“No. With Ciara’s deteriorating Aura in consideration, I’ve arranged for him to oversee affairs in eastern Mistral in her place. Kuchinashi remains a slow boil, but one which must not be left unattended.”

Hazel tucks his meaty, tree-trunk arms across his chest. “We’ll need someone to see to the forge; that Geist hasn’t listened to a damn thing anyone’s told it since we lost Vulcan.”

“Could be doing with a doctor, while we’re at it,” Ciara tosses in, grinning like a shit when Watts clears his throat. “Nah, mate. A real doctor.”

The meeting goes on following that vein for a considerable while; shady people you barely know talking about other shady people you don’t know at all, plans to go to shady places, and the shady things they’ll do there.

There are no such bold and blatant words like ‘kill,’ or ‘steal,’ or ‘stalk,’ only polite suggestions about problems that need rectifying, resources that require procurement, figures who warrant observation. If it weren’t for a poignant sense of significance in the air, you could mistake it for one of your father’s business meetings, all so clean and above-board, disguising threats on the table beneath all their slideshows and flowcharts.

In the end, though, you’re still not sure why you’re even here. You can barely follow the names and locations that keep cropping up, you still have no mission, you’re practically a decorative standee next to the lady in charge.

You get little and less information to work with the further they descend into technical details on maintaining their network of shadows, but the names that stand out all seem to tie back, one way or another, to a wizard, or to Ozma.

The very same name from the tales Salem’s been telling you in private, tales which did mention a mage, and tales which she’s informed you she intends to finish when she calls you up tonight. You were already raring to go, hungry for any kind of answers, but this tease of an appetizer has only left you more famished. You’ve just got to be patient, just have to wait a few more hours, and maybe finally you’ll know why you’re here.

When satisfied distributing tasks to literally everyone else but you, from busywork at the castle to plans for long excursions, Salem adjourns you all with her conclusion.

“We have suffered a recent loss, this is true, and one which imposes no small amount of hindrance. It is, however, but a glancing blow in the grander scheme, and in landing it, Ozma has grown complacent in his confidence. In the years to come, we will grow, consolidate our strength beyond his reach, and when the stars have aligned to strike...”

Out of the corner of her glowing crimson eye, Salem pointedly glances at you.

“...He will never see us coming.”

Chapter Text

These last few evenings, now that you’ve been settled in as a resident of Castle Evernight, you’ve upheld a standing order from Salem herself: to attend her up in her private study come nightfall.

Put into practice, the real difficulty’s been avoiding showing up too early – routinely chastising your overeager feet for rerouting your aimless wanderings back to the base of the great spiraling stairwell, and the several hundred timeworn steps that will take you to the Queen once again.

Tonight, you’ve done your waiting, and with the sun fallen well past the horizon, you ascend – hand bouncing along the bumps of the ridged ivory handrailing, boots scuffing out a squeaky murmur as you climb. Not to be a whiner, since a few flights worth of stairs aren’t enough to leave you winded after a year of Huntress training, but for all the other modern modifications to the castle they’ve had squeezed in over the years, was an elevator really too much to ask?

No, scratch that; it’s probably a feature, not a bug. Anything this high up is the Queen’s domain, and even in those instances where she’s liable to summon someone to her side, you’d bet she wants to give them a good long time to stew in their thoughts. Well, mission accomplished, ma’am.

As you hit the highest landing in the shadowy stairwell, you sidle sideways through the steeply-arched doorway to dodge a passing Seer, bobbling through the air at waist-height on its mindless return course to the lower floors.

The highest floor of Castle Evernight – that you know of – consists of a single, straight, imposingly long and scarcely-lit stone hallway, the carpeting down its middle dyed an even deeper red by sconces of that enchanted, purplish fire posted throughout. Marking the very end is a set of hulking double-doors whose ornate engraving of Salem’s emblem would put any carvings in your parents’ place to shame, and more imposing than a flat slab of metal on hinges has any right to be.

That thing screams ‘private bedchambers of a powerful witch’ as loudly as it does ‘will reduce you to ash if you so much as breathe on the handle,’ so your curiosity will have to learn to accept the loss; there are just some rooms here you’re never going to see for yourself. Now, the more modest arched doorway two-thirds down the stretch? That’s the one which carries the promise of not immediately vaporizing you for loitering too close to the threshold.

It's been a few visits already, so you've already picked up on a certain trend; it's only a fondness for the ritual that compels you to raise your fist to the door with every intent to knock, whereupon a dampened, dramatic "You may enter" slips through the cracks before your knuckles even land.

And so you do.

The study in the castle solar is the only room on the top floor to which you’ve yet been given entry. It’s a smidge over triple the size of your own living quarters here at Evernight, longer than it is wide, and still manages to come across as cozy and lived-in despite its spaciousness.

Unlike the ancient stone or crystal-cracked walls making up most chambers in the castle, the study serves as at least one outlier: clean panels of deeply-hued Mistrali rosewood affording the room a sense of contemporary class. The wood only ends just beneath the ceiling, where the stone curves inward, and creates a sturdy frame for the broad, ovular skylight capping the room. The day’s gloomy fog has dissipated at last, leaving a clear view of the shattered moon and its surrounding stars above.

Several rows of lofty bookshelves both line and jut from the walls, stuffed with sealed scrolls, leatherbound histories and hand-illuminated tomes, inscribed on vellum in immaculate calligraphy. Salem had once given you permission to poke about while she finished some intimidating work over at her alchemy table, but you were too fearful a single touch of your unworthy fingers would crumble the old goatskin paper to tatters on the lectern.

Salem stands at that same lectern now, brow pinched as she scrutinizes another arcane text, and one hand traces out complex shapes that burn short-lived, sizzling carmine lines into thin air. She only regards you with a half-look from her work, and her tone is kindly to compensate: “Make yourself comfortable, child. I’ll be but a moment, and we may begin.” She gestures towards the room’s other end, and you comply in a slow and rigid posture, all in the interest of keeping your elbows from knocking over a priceless urn or rack of eerie crystals along the way.

Two baroque, bronze-lined chaises longues lay opposite one another in the sitting area, a lavishly-embroidered ornamental rug decorating the space between. All this frames the feature built into the wall to your left, an iron-framed fireplace, a full stock of tinder crackling in the hearth. It’s enough to lend a healthy warmth to your pale, Atlesian skin, perhaps even to the Grimm-pallid tone of your hostess.

Ambling your way over, you’re also discovering in real time one of the gravest downsides to typical skirtwearing, the prominent lack of pockets in which to stuff your fidgeting hands. The ones on your borrowed vest fit fine for stowing trinkets like your folded scroll, but they’re too high and too shrimpy for hiding your hands. Now that you’ve found your seat, sinking onto this museum piece of a couch, you set your hands clasped in your lap and silently demand they cool their shit.

And then your leg starts bouncing instead. Wow, thanks.

It seems your Lady has already provided you a saving grace; you’d been blind to it during your fussing on the way over, but placed on the dainty end table beside the couch is a loaded tea tray just in arms’ reach, and by the gods, if your heritage has failed you in all other respects, it’s still taught you how to occupy yourself with a tray of expensive tea.

So engrossed do you let yourself become with preparing yourself a cup, that you’re deaf to the Queen’s approach until her pitch-black skirts rustle through your peripheral vision. Your perfect pour falters, and a tiny puddle forms on the saucer as the cup’s overfilled.

Some few feet away, the Queen has slowed her pace to watch you with a skeptical eye. Oh, hell, was this meant for her? It’s quite possible – it does smell like some very fine Goji-brewed Pu-erh.

“Should I–?” You offer clumsily, gesturing two fingers between the witch and the teapot you’re holding. “Did you also want…?” No, idiot, she’d’ve just called in another Seer for that, right? And you’re the guest here; maybe you were supposed to wait for the hostess to handle things? Does she think you’re being rude? Does she even care about Atlesian social protocol?

The pause percolates, then Salem smirks to herself as if privy to your internal monologue. Before the reactive apology starts to form in your lungs, she decorously seats herself in the center of the opposite chaise, fingers steepled.

“I hope you’ll pardon my amusement. Truth be told, it has been an age since I’ve enjoyed such an offer from a sapient being, not a Grimm.” Salem extends a hand to the tray with a flourish. “By all means, my young Marigold, indulge me. Given your bloodline, I would have presumed you far more accustomed to receiving such service than providing it.”

She’s not wrong. For all you’ve rebuked it, you were grown and spoiled in that environment. Unlike your peers, you couldn’t stand the pageantry, and yet you suffered through it all the same.

As you fall into the motions of putting together a much cleaner cup for your employer, you let your mind wander, to wonder why she hasn’t been putting her prior recruits up to the task whenever she feels that rare urge to eat and drink like the average mortal.

Could she ask Watts? He’d have the refined palate, but… no, too snobbish, he’d phone it in. Tyrian? Too unstable, might attempt to violently murder the cup because it dared to touch his Goddess’ lips. Ciara? Nah, likely as not she’d unload the task onto her rats and bats and gods-know-what-creatures with a dearth of opposable thumbs. Hazel? N’okay, Hazel would give it a fair go without complaining, but the man’s hands are like bulldozer scoops, and these teacups are made of bone so thin they’ll crack if they feel like you’re judging them.

Oof. You really are the best option.

“Yeah, I…” you reply after a lull. “I never much liked being waited on like that, back at the Estate. I’d ask them to bring the pot up, at most, but I’d fix the rest myself.” On cautious, flat feet, it feels like you’re walking a gymnasts’ balance beam these few feet across the rug, carefully steadying a fragrant, steaming ivory teacup on its saucer, and bending to offer it to your boss.

“Thank you, child.“ As you return to your side of the fireplace, Salem takes a long, graceful sip to let the complex taste linger. Her reaction is a muted enjoyment, understandable of a woman who has partaken of these luxuries countless times already, though not entirely absent. “In any case, we did not convene tonight to speak of your history...”

With a sharp snap of her fingers that fills the room, the long and myriad shadows cast by the crackling fireplace and burning braziers become fluid. They bend unnaturally to her will, stretched and cast across the far wall opposite the hearth, to be shaped into silhouettes of places and figures from her tales, in a shadow-puppet show the likes of which you’d never seen before meeting her.

“Now, where did we leave off…?”

That first night she’d called you up here in hopes of catching you up to speed, you’d learned the rather embarrassing truth that your hostess was the protagonist of your favorite childhood fairytale. One about which you’d already effusively, emotionally gushed, and straight to her face, at that. No wonder she’d enjoyed teasing you so much that night at the bunker.

The next evening, you’d watched the dancing silhouettes of Salem and her noble savior, Ozma, with whom she’d hoped to eke out a happy life in her freedom from imprisonment in her father’s tower. Just as soon as you begin to think it a love story, sickness strikes, and her lover taken from her. Historians did always say the version of the tale that ended in tragedy was the more accurate reading, and you suppose they were right.

And as for tonight… Though she claims there are yet greater, more relevant myths and legends that she has every intention to one day disclose, the recollection of her history, highlights across millennia, has finally caught up to the modern day. The eclectic Headmaster of Beacon Academy – you’d seen him once in Atlas, visiting your own old Headmaster – is actually an ancient warrior-wizard from time immemorial and the current reincarnation of your employer’s asshole ex-husband.

However, that morsel of knowledge is nothing compared to the one revelation that’s shattered your illusions and left you staring up through the skylight at the broken moon, and all its widely-scattered shards, mouth agape.

Remnant’s got myths up and out the ass about the moon and its shattering, and you’ve heard plenty in your time parroted by priests and other figures of faith, that it was a sign of a cosmic struggle the Brother Gods fought for humanity, or even a simple testament to their power, and nothing like the reality: an eternal sign of their complete abandonment.

Upon your arrival to the Land of Darkness, you’d almost given yourself to the belief that Salem could very well be one of the recurring figures from the Fraternist Orthodox Canon, the archetypal Lord of the Grimm, the Devil, the Dark Brother’s substantiated avatar upon Remnant, who – depending on one’s church denomination of choice – either created the Grimm to punish sinners for their crimes, or to test the faith of the righteous, or even out of a naked hatred for all things ‘good.’

But Salem was not the source of the Grimm; they’d been here all along. Even if she had never existed, the murderous hordes of monsters would have already been birthed to pointlessly slaughter the living – and what, all for one sadistic God’s sick, creative amusement? And then! Then, the God of Light simply allowed this of his Brother, and never made erasing the Grimm a factor of their truce? As if that wasn’t bad enough, their arrogance and hypocrisy reaches its zenith in Salem’s latest story, their abdication of responsibility over their creations and the choice to wipe all sapient life from the face of Remnant.

“And they just… murdered everyone and left?!” You demand, as soon as you’ve recovered from your fugue, enough to hammer out your righteous indignation into words. “The Gods let this happen and never came back, never tried to intervene and fix it, nothing?“

Salem makes no comment about the broken teacup between your feet, and her tone is as serious as plague. “No. They have not.”

“But why?! Why would they…?”

“That is a question I have carried with me over the ages, and not once have I arrived at a satisfying answer.”

Some would think that having direct confirmation that all the world and its woes are based on the spiteful acts of uncaring, absentee gods would have more of an impact, like a great cosmic revelation that drives one to gibbering insanity.

In reality, you’ve already fallen so far in your life, this last disenchanting truth is simply snipping the string that held you up but an inch from the floor. One last little inch to fall, a quiet thud, not a bloody crash. And much like hitting that floor, it’s unexpectedly bracing having it all beneath you, now. Knowing you’ve well and truly hit the absolute boundary of existential ennui. There IS no further to go but upwards and outwards, and no question to ask but ‘what the fuck?’

Salem hums, and you realize you’d whispered that last bit out loud. Oh, well, it’s still the truth of how you feel.

“I speak from experience and offer you a word of warning; not one of these questions will bring comfort. Any time in life you’ve asked yourself, ‘why do the Gods allow suffering,’ ‘why would the Gods let the cruel prosper,’ or…” She gives you an incisive look. “Perhaps, ‘why would the Gods make me this way?’ Know that it was wanton neglect. They built a broken world, then washed their hands of responsibility.”

“So, there’s… really no chance at changing their minds, somehow? Not even over the long term?”

You look to the last figures Salem had displayed on the wall with her shadow-bending: the Gods themselves, in their horned hominid forms, turning their backs on their myriad creations. When you regard Salem again, she shakes her head, jingling the red teardrop gemstones weaved into her hair.

“Optimistically, there would be a way – but optimism is a young fool’s blessing, and I am so very, very old.” Salem’s teacup – which was not shattered on the rug in shock like some peoples’ – is lifted to her lips for another swig. When she runs dry, rather than ask you to handle it for her, she makes a flick of her fingers and levitates the pot over to herself. This disappoints you for mysterious reasons you’re too otherwise-frustrated to analyze. “The Brother Gods made it clear in their ultimatum; they wish no contact with their abandoned children unless they’ve fallen into line – a line so straight as to be impossible – else they inflict another bloody purge as punishment.”

“Uniting the people, then?” you ask, words carefully chosen and ordered, lest you sound in favor of the enemy. “Not that it’s right that they demanded so much, but is it really not possible to meet their terms?”

“Oh, it has been tried, by myself and many, all in our own ways: through reason, through fear, through faith, through martial might…” On the wall, the shadows bend to punctuate each point, a library, a Beowolf, a cathedral, a warband. “Any peace achieved was never widespread, nor did it last. Such efforts can only ever be a salve to fresh wounds, but the real wound is in our creation. It’s a failed experiment, humankind. One of the gods responsible said so, himself.”

If you were back in Atlas and feeling pedantic, you’d ask if that means faunuskind are exempt, but you keep a lid on the sass. So, the Gods are unreasonable, fine, but you have to wonder if there’s still another angle.

“And… what about Ozma himself? Are you sure he’d never agree to a truce? Not even to just– To just get rid of the Grimm and tell the world the truth first, unite people, then settle differences?” You don’t even need to look up from the floor, you can imagine her elegant take on the quintessential expression of ‘Duh’ in your mind’s eye. Ozma’s demand of unrealistically flawless praxis for ideological brownie points, rather than options that could lead to meaningful, material benefit for the mortals of Remnant, doesn’t do him any favors.

“This, we tried as well, countless times. Reconciling regularly throughout his earliest reincarnations; on for some years, off again for centuries. Such truces were shorter- and shorter-lived until they ceased entirely.”

Salem is pensive as she brings back the shadow-puppet of the man who was once her beloved savior, alongside her less-corrupted self, meeting in a passionate embrace.

It’s strikingly bizarre – While you’re touched and torn by the tragic story and its ramifications for Remnant, you are also effectively watching the near-equivalent of a vengeful goddess mashing her dolls together to make them kiss.

The pair upon the wall break apart, silently arguing with violent gesticulation, as Salem continues in her usual tranquil affect.

“Ironically, there once was an age now ancient, in which I had nearly rallied the whole of the living populace under one banner – war amongst the mortals done away with, the old biases and hatreds abandoned by the wayside, the very sort of peace for which Ozma claims to tirelessly labor.”

A Shadow-Salem with an ornately braided hairstyle stands tall among throngs of her faithful on the wall’s left end, gesticulating as if giving a rousing speech, as the masses clap and thrust fists in the sky.

“...All but for one crucial detail. My banner represented unity against the only true common foe of all beings – figuratively fashioning spears against the Gods themselves... And peace born under such a banner, Ozma could not abide. He lashed out, shattering the so-called harmony his own Gods-given quest demands.”

From the far wall’s right enters the Ozma of that age astride a warhorse, sword and staff held aloft. Salem’s Kingdoms, who had lain down their arms against one another to prepare for a more esoteric battle against the divine, are deftly crushed by the martial prowess of Ozma’s crusaders, leaving nothing but the silhouettes of fallen bodies and spears.

Salem sighs, disappointed to even be retreading the failure, it seems. “Think of all the cruelty to which you’ve borne witness in your life – all the indignities, inequalities, every horrid thing a sentient being could enact upon another. Ozma would see that play out in perpetuity over his misguided efforts to restore things to the way they once were, bring the Gods back, beg for their love.”

Upon the wall, Salem’s defeated shape disappears, while the victorious Ozma beckons the draconic figures representing the deities in question, who descend upon masses of joyous believers with arms outstretched.

“But I ask you, Marigold; what use is this when we know them for what they are, arbitrary and capricious? Should Ozma triumph completely, Remnant prostrating itself before the Gods, who return to dwell among us… what then? How long until it all happens again – until another heartbroken waif beseeches their aid and bruises their divine ego, and the planet is mercilessly scoured of life once more. Since the beginning, there has been a blade to the throat and gun to the crown of the world, all of creation held hostage, and under such despotic circumstances, the only victory is to refuse to play their game.“

Try as you wish, you can't readily refute her logic. How many other mass extinction events driven by spiteful gods need to happen before it stops? How many innocent lives lost? How much pain and struggle all for a freedom held out of reach?

“...And you want to flip the table.”

The Queen discards her tea to the side and settles back into her chaise, unfazed for someone acknowledging their goal to rage against the heavens’ design at all costs. “Quite so. When the board was rigged from the beginning, when the rules were written wrong, can one do any less?”

“Oh,” you say dumbly, and then: “Well, okay...?”

Salem watches the gears turning behind your eyes for a time, sporting that silent amusement of hers, before she adds a lighthearted note, and lets some of the tension bleed into the background.

“For such a wary young woman, and a skeptic of this world and its ways, you take me at my word as I speak of unbelievable things and incomparable plots. It’s quite endearing; many of this castle’s inhabitants demanded grander spectacle... Hazel, the poor brute, sought evidence of my undying nature with his own bloodied fists. Sating his need for proof was a simple task, but inconvenient, to say the least. I am pleased you’ve proven more receptive than that.”

Embarrassment, mild but unavoidable, smacks you upside the head. It’s a bit humiliating to realize – somewhere along the line, you’d stopped considering that she could be flat-out lying to you. She has an old agenda, and zero qualms about buttering you up, and you’d never lost sight of that, but… It feels true. Every word she says, whether carefully curated to be complimentary or not, seems to ring right in your mind.

A chill briefly drips down your spine, lifting goosebumps. Magic can arguably do things no Semblance known to science could, so what if she put a spell on you to make you this agreeable? You don’t think you’re under the influence of any kind of enchantment; everything she’s said has made sense as-is, but there’s no way to be certain. Are you, sitting here right now, the same person as when you arrived at the castle? If not… is that really a bad thing?

Still, other than the ghost of a blush laying across your face and a murmured affirmative, you let that topic lie, before she calls out some other shameless thing you’re doing. Instead, you shift topics in hopes of sating your curiosity.

This woman is older than recorded history, even older than scholarly processes can accurately date. It’s a bit less like standing in front of a person, and more like a personified facet of nature itself. It’s rude to ask an older lady her age, but your nosiness wins out.

“How long has this been going on…?” you ask. “How long since the Shatter?”

“After the first few thousand years, one ceases to consider their age,” Salem responds with a minor lilt you’re beginning to associate with mirth. “Time begins to blur over great stretches, too dull in repetition to remember specifics. I’ve dedicated decades, here and there, to honing spellcraft in pursuit of a means to shed many of those most terrible recollections that haunt me still.”

Salem has seemed so unshakable since you first met, it’s a daunting prospect to imagine the sorts of shit that must ‘haunt’ a woman who’s seen the worst atrocities and embittering failures Remnant has had to offer. You’d assume most of them were personal. The rage of her husband-turned-nemesis, the loss of her dearly beloved children.

Tonight, you’ve seen wisps of remorse and sorrow on the face of your hostess, and can’t imagine many have done so and lived… At least in this epoch.

“...Alas, continuity is an integral component of identity. Of life. The Gods, in their precision cruelty, did take this into consideration; such memory-altering magic is of limited use upon myself, lest I attempt to escape their bonds in such a fashion.” She shakes her head slowly. “Just another form of death denied to me. But, I digress – as to your question, I’m afraid I cannot give you an answer. So many of those years were lost in fog, drifting the surface of this blighted planet when the debris of the broken moon had yet to settle, before Dust itself had begun to crystallize, when this planet was truly bereft of light and life.”

Cool, okay, two crucial details to play with: Firstly, you’re speaking to a woman that could be a million years old, and that’s terrifying in its own right – even if her skincare regimen is on point. Secondly: The Gods of this world are absolutely douchebags of unparalleled caliber.

“I can’t wrap my head around it… Much less why anyone would want to worship them, after what they did.”

“The people wouldn’t have known,” Salem explains. “How could they? The era when one could walk up a mountain and speak plainly to their local deity had ended. By the time humans and faunus had evolved out of the ashes, the heavens were vacant – your ‘Dust’ and your ‘Semblances’ a mere vestigial connection to the old world. Still, it is a habit of sapient life to venerate and mythologize their creators, no matter how cruel – The child endures much from the unloving parent, still seeking their love when there was none to be given. This is a lesson with which I believe you are acutely familiar.”

Isn’t that an understatement.

Jaded as you’ve become in the last few years, you see in the not-too-distant past your shameless ploys to turn lead into gold, parental indifference into welcoming warmth. To be the Marigold Heir, the Good Son, the Respectable Family Scion… To turn a deaf ear to all the grisly cracking and snapping as you contort and cram and stuff yourself into the shape they’d always meant for you to fit, a proper young man.

But now you’re living beyond the edge of the charted map at the beck and call of a Primeval Witch while wearing a leather skirt, so look how that panned out, Dad.

You shuffle in place, twisting and scuffing the heel of your boot before remembering the rare and ancient rug you’re standing on. You’ve already gotten it stained with the dregs of your broken teacup, so you’d better cut your losses and flinch back to focus. Since you don’t imagine Salem’s interested in playing therapist and whipping out a clipboard as you lie draped across the couch and venting, you take the conversation down different tangent.

Something had pinged your notice when she was speaking, the almost derogatory tone of dripping venom she’d taken when regarding Semblances, like they’re something pathetic. She’s clearly so powerful herself, and demonstrated nearly the same ability as you back at the Mantle checkpoint, so… it all comes back to wondering why you’re even here.

“I… I still have to ask something.” The words still find their way out, even as your voice quavers. Your body does, too. “Why me? The other day, you said I had ‘potential,’ and you’ve– you’re showing me things you’re keeping from people you’ve had with you for years.”

Your fists clench up on your knees, bunching the hem of your skirt. The rising statistical odds of being incinerated for impertinence are not something you’d like to calculate, but you need to know. You have to drag out some kind of clarity tonight or your brain is going to burst.

“...Even if you needed someone with a Semblance like mine, no matter how weak or ‘vestigial’ it is,  There were still a million others you could’ve chosen, there have to be others, so why me and to do what? You haven’t given me any duties the whole week, other than coming when you call, but that doesn’t explain the – What’s my place here?”

Salem’s brow narrows, and she stares straight through your skin for a time, tries to pry something from your averted eyes. And then she laughs, brief and muted, but with an amusement out-of-place for an ancient grief-stricken immortal.

“I apologize. Again, it’s intriguing the ways you differ from your kind: It is not often a daughter of the aristocracy asks where she stands, rather than to intuit herself a place of importance by right. But you are correct, young Marigold.” Salem looks to the wall and waves away the shadowpuppetry, the phantom shapes finally flickering away and returning to their rightful positions cast by firelight. Salem then points at you a two-fingered gesture, and curls it up. “Stand, come here. I will tell you what your place is.”

Your ass is ejected off that couch like it was coated in Lightning Dust. You’re on your feet and clearing the space between you until you’re standing at attention just before her comfy chair – stupid Academy-trained rigidity in your posture, which you let slacken as soon as you catch yourself.

The Queen steeples her fingers and speaks with conviction. “The strong destroy and devour the weak, and The Gods are the mightiest of all. This is the natural order of this world... And it is wrong. As I have shared with you, the only liberation from this cycle is if the strongest of we beings below turn against the foundations of the world itself. As such, to facilitate the swiftest resolution, I require the service of the strong...”

Still doesn’t answer why you’re here, only any good for running and hiding.

“...And you are strong, young Marigold – do not presume to contradict me in your mind, I can feel your uncertainty – and I will only make you stronger.”

Shit, okay, scary voice when she’s irritated, this has been noted. Cool. Your bladder control has been tested and found bank-vault strong for not simply pissing yourself when her words abruptly grew colder than a glacier.

“It was no coincidence that I found you. Arthur enjoys keeping himself apprised of the high society gossip in Atlas. Word had reached him of the recent disappearance of a disaffected family heir, with partial Huntsman training and a Semblance invaluable for subterfuge. Such vaunted high houses are well-known for fickle morals, and the wayward heir could likely-as-not be coaxed into compliance with promises of wealth, or notoriety. Should he have still lived, he would have made for a convenient pawn with minimal self-preservation, the loss of which would be of no great import...”

It’s clear she’s building to something with that dramatic pause, but damn, great to know that’s the box you were placed in before you even met. All you wanted was to climb out of that box and see what there was to see, and look where it’s landed you.

“But the playing piece I found there, waiting to be collected and placed upon the board, was not a pawn. I heard the salient grief of your soul – I heard a woman who could subsist without hope. To know the ultimate truth of this world’s history is, in essence, to be stripped of all hope for a greater fate. Most would be rendered broken by this; some have fled for the safety of death’s embrace, others deny it, drown themselves in drink or harden their hearts. You, my child, persist.”

“That’s… one way to put it,” you groan, still a bit unsure how to feel about receiving praise for both failing at life and at death, and slugging along as the sort of woman that subsists on the refuse of others. It’s not that she’s wholly wrong about that ember at your core that refuses to die, even as you’re dragged down into nihilism by horrible ancient truths, it’s just… strange.

“You seek acknowledgment, but not prestige – not as Arthur covets. You despise those who have wronged you, but seeking revenge is secondary to your goals, unlike Hazel’s vendetta. You thrill at the thought of supplanting those who would deny your existence, but you do not revel in slaughter as Tyrian does. No… you crave higher things than these. My great strategy requires the aid of a loyal young woman possessed of so many traits you share, of such potential as yours, and for that, I have chosen you to enact my will.”

Finding no reason not to nod along in acceptance as Salem reads you like a book with perfect diction, your thoughts wander a bit; that list was comprehensive, but not complete, and it leaves you curious just why Ciara ended up here. It had to have been for more than to get drunk and play around with vines and vermin, slinging foreign insults at passersby and cackling to herself. Was she this potential ‘young woman’ once upon a time, or was she only acquired long after she’d no longer fit in that box?

As for your own pursuits, your parents had always wanted you to find a ‘more respectable’ career than heading for the Academy to become a military huntsman. Where does ‘Spy in a millennia-old shadow war’ rate in comparison?

That is, assuming Spy really is your new career; you’d just assumed, given your skillset and the fact this place doesn’t so much have a Grimm problem that needs taken care of as much as it is the Grimm problem. It won’t be taking huntress contracts that’ll get you any closer to your Queen’s goals, and you’ve been ignoring the Megoliath in the room for long enough.

Your blade weighs heavy on your back.

“I’m going to have to kill people, aren’t I?”

“My, how bold of you.” Once again, Salem appears to enjoy your bluntness, and returns it in kind. “Yes,” she answers tranquilly, the single syllable a kick to your chest. “But not so heartlessly as you fear; you are not some bandit tribe foundling, the sort of woman who will kill in my name the instant I put a blade in your hand, a target in your mind, and coin in your pocket. Neither are you a huntress in Atlas’ control, and no doubt, you’d have taken lives had you continued on your original path, as well – protesters and ‘political agitators.’”

It’s actually a weight off your chest to admit, “I think I knew, back then, that’s what the Specialists were really for. The kinds of things they were teaching us, it wasn’t just what you’d need for putting down Grimm and terrorists. They were going to have us–”

“Rest assured,” Salem interrupts, “if and when the day should come that you spill blood at my behest, it will be in accord with your own judgment. You will comply, but you will do so because you believe in the virtue of my goal above all else. Tonight, I have shown you the greater truth, that which I only divulge unto to those whom I presume capable of conducting my will unimpeded by the gravity of the revelation, nor by misconceptions of other lingering loyalties.”

The Queen narrows her gaze, an imperious look that rakes the sharp of an axeblade over your skin, loosing a cool bead of sweat down your neck.

“And you would never imply that I misjudged your obedience – you would not claim I was incorrect, would you?”

“N-no, ma’am,” you answer truthfully, for several reasons; fear and rationality have signed a truce.

“No, of course not, but it pleases me still to hear it affirmed in your own voice. As I’ve implied, I do have a greater purpose planned for you, a greater power, and one which I will entrust when the time is right. But first, you must become ready to accept that gift. In the interim, there are other topics to address, things I have promised you. One in particular comes to mind before all others.”

Holy– Is this it? Are you finally going to talk about that? There’s never been a good time to bring it up, not without seeming greedy and ungrateful for what you’ve already been given. Standing at attention through all this monologuing is paying off.

“You had a handful of reasons to shed your history and walk away with me, that day in Atlas. Many were practical, the simple logic of survival, but it would be dishonest to deny that at their core lay that noblest pursuit of the self. The pursuit which sustained you even through the coldest nights, that which you wanted in spite of the world, and in so doing, you allowed yourself to endure without hope. Even now, knowing the grave truth of this doomed world, the futility in its every facet, the pointlessness in this goal’s pursuit, that want has yet to die in you.”

As usual, that’s a lot of fancy, formal words to gild and glorify your scrounging, your meager existence after you bolted, too stubborn, too cowardly, and too unlucky to die. It’s still accurate enough to have you nod in agreement.

Salem uncrosses her legs and looks at you dead-on, dragging her fingers through the air to gesture at the whole of you, toe to tip.

“You wanted to change,” Salem states evenly. “To be reshaped to quell the ache of your yearning heart. This wish is within my power to grant, but first, I caution you; the process will be long. It will be painful. Its efficacy is dependent on your dedication, and its outcome is never a guarantee.”

“It was never going to be,” you mutter, hanging a heavy head. “No matter what I did.”

“And you’re certain, then? For what you are about to begin, there is no turning back.”

Are you certain? Truly?

“I am.”

In the winding labyrinth of your life, another door slams shut behind you.

Salem nods primly and reels in her right hand for a moment. The pale forefinger of her left darkens, extends, and grows as sharp as a Nevermore’s talon, glinting dangerously in the firelight. This makeshift scalpel she neatly draws straight across the flat of her open palm. Tiny blots of inky liquid seep from the incision, until a dark pool coalesces in the center of her hand. It doesn’t gleam with an oily sheen in the light, just the solid black of empty space in the absence of stars, like a tear right through the world.

This hand she holds out towards you, cupped low and steady. She steals your gaze again with a bewitching smile, and issues a single command.

“Drink.”

Oh. So this is the kind of thing you’ve gotten yourself into, huh?

In hindsight, it was childish to assume she would wave a magic wand and poof you right. That the magic she wields would be like that of the watered-down, child-safe storybooks, and not the grislier legends upon which they were based, legends you’re fast finding to be true, legends which came to life and personally hauled you out of the gutter.

This is a phenomenally bad idea. You should turn her down respectfully, and walk away.

...Is what you should’ve been thinking a week ago, in that chilly, litter-laden alleyway, before the weight of unrelenting truth was unloaded onto your shoulders – a weight with which you could never hope to climb back up to your blissfully ignorant life in Atlesian luxury.

That being said, as you take stock of yourself, you soon find it’s primarily surprise, confusion, and the understandable undercurrent of fear which stall you now, not those fleeting thoughts of fleeing outright. What kind of idiot would you be to renege and reject the rewards of what’s being given, even knowing the risks?

Like, it’s still a phenomenally bad idea. You’re no toxicologist, but you’re fairly certain the LD100 on Grimm Essence is ‘any at all, ever,’ and that strong odds are leaning towards Salem cleaning her floor of one (1) dead Marigold coated in her own bile here in a few minutes. Everybody’s heard the stories of opportunistic criminals, homeopathic hippies, and die-hard cultists trying to bottle and sell the ichor straight from the Pools, with few-to-no survivors.

On the other hand, your logic counters, this offer is coming from the single most knowledgeable woman on Remnant where Grimm are concerned, a woman with millennia of experience up her silky, voluminous sleeves, and one who has yet to do you wrong. Your incipient loyalty to that woman is the frayed tightrope you’re set to walk to your destination, and you now know there are no Gods who will hear you pray for it not to snap.

Fuck it, you’ve already come this far – In for a lien, in for the lot, and your Queen said drink.

You drop hard onto a knee at the foot of the chaise, like a knight for her lord, like a believer taking holy sacrament, and reach for the palm she’s offered. Salem must see your own hands trembling. She doesn’t speak a word of it.

In the back of your mind, you know you’ve already been steeped in bias, you’ve only heard one side of this story, you haven’t truly seen Salem at the height of her destructive power, the full extent of her wars with Ozma, all those simpler lives caught up in her raging against the Gods, but–! But as you take one more fleeting glance up from your newfound angle at Salem’s patient anticipation, your conscious brain still wonders how anyone could see this woman as anything less than benevolent.

Your lips touch her pallid skin with a shy reverence, cold for all that it ignites a burning pink flush across your face, and you begin to drink of her.

From the instant it touches your tongue, you’re torn – regret and manic delight, your mind hitting a fork in the road around this lake of black blood. It’s awful, it’s wonderful, it’s like sugar-sweetened charcoal and candied tar and the sulfurous sap of a tree from the dawn of time. It coats your throat like burning pitch as it flows down, thick on your squirming tongue, your stained lips, absorbing life from you just as you’re absorbing it.

The witch hadn’t lied, the process hurts already, and somewhere in your clenching gut, you know this is just a precursor, that you’ve not even yet arrived at the pain she’d foretold. That same gut is wildly waving red flags your way, and you’ve pointedly ignored them, drawing down for more of your Queen’s offering as soon as you’ve caught your breath. Heavy and acidic, you begin adjusting to the sensation as it saturates your system, the searing feeling becoming a backdrop.

Time has gone sluggish, the world around you nebulous and indistinct, irrelevant. It only reaches your notice long after the fact how the crackling fireplace has gone out, every magicked sconce extinguished, the room plunged into the dim – with the lunar light through the window above and the carmine glow of Salem’s gaze the only illumination that remains. It’s like your brain had forgotten you even had eyes to look around with, until you half-heartedly remembered the concept of processing visual data.

Maybe this is what getting into drugs is like. Maybe this is what getting into religion is like. Either way, she has you wholly hooked.

Another split-second eternity passes while you drink, before you take notice how your Aura, that typically-reliable shroud of vitality at the edges of your being, has temporarily drained away. Your self-preservation instinct has now completely run out of hands with which to hold all these red flags; they’re piling on the floor in a heaping mass behind you, though you can’t say you feel like turning around. Why would you? Salem’s palm is over here.

Were you less occupied lapping away at its twin, you’d have plenty of emphatic feelings about the hand you feel petting your hair with tender attention, or the way it soon roams southwards past your ichor-smeared cheek. Another long finger tickles the edge of your bared throat, sharpening at the side of your neck, where your pulse thumps erratically beneath.

You barely feel the puncture as it pricks the skin.

Only the twist of pressure as it begins injecting a drip-feed of its unimaginable contents directly into your bloodstream. You don’t cry out in pain, and another hand pats the small of your back in recognition of your resilience. Despite the dwindling stamina of your limbs, you hold fierce to your posture, anything to stay in your place, to drink, to have more, be more, be fixed, be right.

A new hand rubs your bicep. The next clasps your nape in a grounding grip, the next after patting your sternum. Another still is… somewhere. Your temple, a hip, neither, both? Yeah, it’s both. How many hands are holding you again? That spurned voice of rationality tells you the number’s higher than there should be, but it’s grown far too dark to see. Are your eyes even open?

You’d rather not open them and look, regardless; if you do, the touch might vanish, it all might pull away. Your Queen might pull her gift away. You graciously take what you’re given, by a figure who claims you have some worth in a meaningless world, who sees you for who you are and all you could be, thanks to her. For her.

The muddled porridge of your thoughts is growing too thick to stir. You’re actually quite exhausted. How hadn’t you noticed that before? Your knee trembles, and your back sags, but your Queen ensures you’re still held strong. How kind of her.

As the veil of sleep is drawn, you fall gently, body wrapped in the cocoon of the thousand arms’ embrace, mind wrapped in the final, undeservedly fond utterance of your Queen.

“Good girl.”

It all goes dark, and you welcome it.

Chapter Text

Silent footsteps soon begin to echo off walls taking shape around you, as the nothing beneath becomes solid.

You grow incrementally aware of your own consciousness without any memory of how you’d arrived here, no clue what you’d been doing prior, what led you to wander here of all places through the pathless dark.

What you do have is a loathing for your surroundings as strong as their familiarity – the monochrome blue-white-grey corridors and grandiose lecture halls of Atlas Academy span out for miles both ahead of you and behind, its architecture unmistakable, even struggling to adhere to the confines of conventional geography.

Eeeyup. It’s looking like that dream again. Damn it.

It’s beginning to feel as if you’ve wasted more time haunted by the copycat Academy in your dreams, than you actually spent attending the physical school itself.

You’d already been having dreams retreading your steps on that day you were pushed to the brink for those couple of months before your new purpose came knocking, even before Salem began your treatment. Maybe you’d hoped that with a new life they would vanish altogether, but they always crawl back to haunt you, in a routine warped just that little bit further each time.

Looking down at yourself, you do not discover the mens’ Atlas Academy uniform, grateful you’re not wandering these hallowed halls wearing the same bland grays in ill-suited masculine cuts. Instead, you find your broken-in leather knee-highs, navy winter leggings, and a comfy, coffee-colored, cable-knit sweater dress you’ve adopted for cold days at the castle.

Whatever cruel clot of pissed-off grey matter plays the director for your dreams has begrudgingly begun to sample from your newer, real-life wardrobe back at Evernight, ever since you broke away from walking in first-person lockstep with the dream-self still stuck running the loop, and instead began to drift behind her while events played out of their own volition.

Speaking of which, you’d better go and hurry this show along. You power-walk down the familiar-but-featureless hallway, which grows in clarity and detail as you go – now, no longer alone, generic students and soldiers litter the halls for visual texture, passing through you like a ghost.

Even after running this maze a good few times, the most lucidity you’ve cobbled together is that of immediately recognizing the bad dream, but never to meaningfully change its course. After all, it’s a born of a memory, and you’d only be lying to yourself if you bent that night towards a happier ending.

Although, as you pass the Academy’s east-end medical wing, something rips your attention away from this well-established routine before you can begin in earnest – something different, something new, which is always disorienting in its own right.

The fact you’ve lately seen more and more minor variations on the day’s events was one thing, given the major beats and endpoint’ve always been static no matter your efforts, but this is different: familiar voices from far further along in your own personal timeline, familiar places, things that’ve never materialized here in such clarity.

Through the sliding double-doors, the glossy whites of the school’s medical intake room – which you pass every time you run this stupid gauntlet – are nowhere to be found. Instead, you’re stunned in the middle of the hall, and you divert from your usual course into the dank and musty confines of Castle Evernight’s unkempt healer’s room, now grafted right onto the school blueprint with a brazen disregard for spatial physics.

To see one of your newer memories bleeding into your older regrets would already have stolen your attention, so that goes double when the new set piece warrants its own cast of actors, of which you are a member. What, now there are three you’s running around this dreamscape? Figures.

Not that this new other-you is doing much, other than grunting and thrashing frantically in Hazel’s arms as he bears you over to the long, rusted examination table. Piling into the room in short order are your Queen herself, as well as a rubbernecking Ciara and a surly Watts, who’d made the mistake of barging into your room to complain about the screams in the first place. The wet splotches of black vomit on his slacks were his compensation for the trouble.

Oh, right. The morning after that very first dose of darkness. It’s strange getting to see clearly what your subconscious recalls of that day, because for all intents and purposes, your active mind had been out to lunch.

Salem had rounded the table, summoning a Seer away from its tasks at the adjacent herb racks. “This will do. Lay her down here.”

“She’s kicking pretty bad,” Hazel husked as he encountered difficulty in merely setting you down across the table without your bucking off of it. “Almost tried t’bite me.”

Which, really, is absolute slander; you did not almost bite him. You’d simply been convulsing in pain and gnashing your teeth in a fashion that could, understandably, be misconstrued for trying to bite him. You’d really never bite the guy; probably be like chewing a hairy tire.

That night when Salem had shared the tragic truth behind Remnant, after your Queen had finished administering the first dose of your ‘medicine,’ you’d eventually been ferried downstairs and tucked into your own bed to recuperate.

However, your body apparently took umbrage with your life choices – like the contrarian bitch that it is – and decided to throw a tantrum by attempting to evacuate your internal organs out through your various bodily orifices. Or something to that effect.

Look, all you remember is the screaming and searing and puking, so this months-old material from the back of your brain is predominantly fresh new footage to you.

“I have her quite handled, Hazel. You all may go, if you wish.” Salem pointed at the wobbling Seer, a complicated three finger gesture, and a pulse of magic augmented its dangling limbs. Some of the tentacles tangled over and around to tether your thrashing self down to the bed, with its bulb wedging beneath your head as a gooshy pillow. Others compressed thick bone spikes until needle-thin, then pierced deep into pressure points under your shirt, alleviating the seizures down to a constant shudder. “Few possess the nerve for such delicate work.”

In the fingernail-thin wisps of consciousness you recall, you’d attempted to ask if the others could please give you privacy – Salem had just strapped you down to a table to examine you, after all; a scenario about which almost anyone would be feeling pretty self-conscious, even amidst the churning agony of ‘hey-I’m-potentially-knocking-at-death’s-door.’

Still, when you tried to shoo the others, the only words you could formulate consisted of nothing but warbling A’s, drawn-out U’s, and sloppy G’s. Ink-black spittle was involved. You might’ve also been going a tad blind. Ish.

Watts, looking queasy himself, was the first to take the excuse to vacate the premises. Irrespective of your gurgled insistence for everyone else to kindly scram, Ciara bustled up around the departing Hazel and leaned over you, squinting down at two delirious amber eyes, with a hand planted heavily on your sternum. She winced down at you, muttered more arcane whispers in that regional tongue, then shot a look at your collective boss.

“Now just outta curiosity, what – and I am a’course meanin’ this respectfully – in the fuck did you do to the lass?”

Salem was, as ever, unfazed. “Only that which she herself requested.” The witch procured two bottles of desiccated herbal reagents from the shelves, and began emptying them into a bowl with a splash of caustic solvent.

“She what?” spluttered Ciara, fingers shooting off of your chest like a child’s off a hot stove. Table-you groaned at the jostling, and current-you can still relate to her struggle. Hang on, sister, because the next day’s gonna go to hell in a handbasket. Spoiler alert: after the burning comes the freezing!

Salem cupped a hand overtop the bowl of ingredients, and flickers of sickeningly-pure prismatic light burned out from the cracks between her fingers and the rim. Blending with the scent of ozone, a smoky, acidic tang joined it by the time she pulled her palm away, revealing a brackish tonic. She ordered the Seer to lift your head a ways, gently pinched your chin to hold it still, and tipped the brew between your lips. Some spillage was to be expected, and even if it tasted like sucking on a battery soaked in swamp mud, your seizures began to slow.

“Young Marigold asked for this,” Salem reiterated, with a gentle stroke of your spasming bicep. “And took to it quite emphatically, I might add. She faces an arduous journey in the coming years, one especially fraught in these months to follow. I will be seeing to her treatment personally, as I am able. Could I offer anything less to my newest subject?”

The mage’s unease was palpable as she pulled away and made for the doorway you’ve been loitering in, her words carried on a shudder. “Tch. Newest test subject, more like. S’just a wain… No more’n a bleedin’ wain…”

Though you physically feel nothing as she passes right through you in this liminal state, goosebumps crawl down your body on centipede legs, carrying a pang of dread. Maybe this really was what sparked the change, seeing you like that.

For as kind, crass, and cozy as Ciara’d been with you in those early days at the castle, there was a distinct shift you’d copped on to as soon as you were spending more days conscious than not – an air of suspicion, maybe discomfort, worry, jealousy? – that briefly put an end to the smarmy wisecracks. For a very short while, the local loudmouth so quickly became a woman of few words, terse when she had to talk, scarce when she didn’t.

And sure, things’ve regained equilibrium in the time since, as the pendulum swung back to the loud, unprofessional candor, but it was still a rude awakening coming back from your days-long darkness comas to realize just how alone you can feel out there sometimes, with Salem your most constant companionship, and yourself hesitant to pester her for attention.

As the sounds of your own pained groaning begin anew, you turn and put some distance behind you and the castle’s wayward healing room, getting back on track jogging through the clean Academy hallways.

Total non-sequitur of a detour aside, at least it’s given you your bearings within the school – relative to the medical wing, you know exactly where you need to turn, a right-left-straight that should place you on an intercept course with the dream-you still stuck in that dark day.

Perhaps a more literal intercept than you’d intended, too; as you cross the intersection just ahead of the weapon forges, you run yourself right through a shuffling student lagging behind as the last in their group of four, a dejected slouch with ground-bound golden eyes and shaggy blue hair.

You spin on the spot and fall into hot pursuit. The fact you were so miserable back then makes old-you much easier to stalk, treading slow even as the rest of the group disappears around a corner. Everything horrible to happen that day came after formal combat classes – the classrooms for which you’ve just now passed – and if things stay stable, the next right should be angling towards the gymnasiums and training halls.

With a little more confidence in your coordinates, you don’t worry too much when the you-with-shittier hair vanishes behind the corner, from which drifts familiar, unfriendly voices, running familiar, unfriendly dialogue.

“Will you all hurry it up!? It’s like you turned into a bunch of fuckin’ snail faunus overnight, I swear.”

“Not too fast, or we’re gonna lose Marigold.”

“Wow, big whoop. We’ll glue a blue mop-head to a volleyball and nothing of value was lost.”

Such endearing people you were made to associate with, in those days. Such delightful spirits, pure of heart, jerk of face, and ass of hole. Salem claimed having zero luck with memory magic on herself, but you’ve gotta wonder if she’d still be capable of blasting any trace of these human skidmarks off your brainscape like a Grimm-infused power-washer.

Alas, you can’t let them out of your sight for now. You hit the turn and make your way around, only for reality to reassert itself as irrelevant.

Seemingly possessed of a desire to remind you you’re at its mercy, the dreamscape warps; one moment, you’re hooking around the corner to keep trailing younger-you through crowds thickening as the day’s basic classes come to a close, and the next? The next, you’ve got no trouble at all minding Marigold-the-younger, thanks to this new, disorienting bird’s-eye view.

The downside to the fact that you are, apparently, on the ceiling is this: Atlas Academy has some high fucking ceilings, and it’s gonna be a whole production to get back down.  Zig-zagging through light fixtures and thin skylight windows, you build up a pace and lock back on to younger-you.

Dense as the foot traffic has grown, it’s still hard to lose yourself – in this context, at least – partly due to your distinctive hair color, but more thanks to the boys you’d been trudging along behind, crowds parting to avoid their elbows and bookbags, carelessly swung as they cut a path.

Up at the head of the pack, a brawny boy with slicked-up ginger spikes cocks his head back to shoot younger-you a scornful look. “What’s he cryin’ about now?” gripes Blaze.

“Probably that we’re missing dinner for no good reason?” says the stocky brunet with ocean-blue highlights. Delmar always got fussy if the team missed scheduled mealtimes, likely the only reason he’d even dare imply agreeing with you.

Blaze is having none of it, though. “Sack the fuck up, the both of you.” He turns, swinging an arm wide and nearly clocking the grey-haired guy in glasses – Floyd – with the motion. Blaze points at the lineup of doors to the many training halls just across the way, like he can see the foe awaiting him with X-ray vision. “This beatdown’s been a long time coming.”

Beginning to unshoulder their bags and lose their uniform ties and berets, the group collectively disappear one by one into the mens’ locker rooms – one of the last places you’d be willing to set foot again so long as you live. Since your brain hates you, it’s often made them a mandatory stop on this bile-churning scenic tour. Things aren’t likely to proceed until you’ve gotten back on the team’s trail, and to do that, you’ve got to get a little less… on-the-ceiling.

Without your weapon, without access to your burgeoning Grimm-blessing-in-progress, and without the spontaneous deus ex machina of a grappling hook in your pocket, there’s nothing for it but to climb. Pounding across the smooth ceiling into a sprinting leap, you splat onto the face of a lofty statue commemorating a long-dead general, and your thoughts idly drift whilst you undertake the methodical process of scrambling up (down?) his torso, to give chase to your old team.

Team RAMM was a doomed proposition from the jump. All the automated, over-engineered ‘skill analysis’ and ‘compatibility algorithms’ through which the faculty feeds students’ initiation performances must’ve thought otherwise, but even the most state-of-the-art AI has yet to sufficiently account for the foibles of human douchebaggery.

Blaze Roscoe, Delmar Amaretto, Floyd Masthead, and… you. The feeble ewe among mighty bighorn rams, surrounded by three spoiled trust fund babies who saw Academy graduation as a springboard straight to the level of cushy military officer’s commission where they’d never see another Grimm in person for the rest of their lives.

All humans, all Atlesian purebloods, all rich young men to serve as your bizarre reflection, the you-through-the-looking-glass, the You your family always wanted to see: steeped in arrogance and self-importance, with no pesky opinions on identity and social equality, only on mid-century wines and investment firms.

It never helped that they hated your guts.

They’d all seen how humiliatingly Rhodes had disarmed and dropped you in record time that very first day, and no matter how you strove to overcome that first impression, they never let it go. You could outscore them all on exams, scrounge extra credit from the most stodgy professors, physically out-maneuver them in athletic training, and it wouldn’t matter at all – the sight of Cinder melting your sword was the only mental image of you they kept on file. In order for their egos to thrive, they had to feel superior to someone, and once they’d chosen you, there was no mobility up that soap-slippery social ladder.

The team’s combat tactics were collectively shock and awe, scorched earth, with stealth considered a weakling’s crutch. Your invisibility Semblance was a waste of Aura, your own partner refusing to ‘hide in your little bitch-bubble,’ as Blaze so eloquently coined it. After all, how could they show off to hot chicks watching from the observation rooms above if the girls can’t see them flexing? Your Semblance was, clearly, the only obstacle standing in the way of them and Getting Some, as it couldn’t be their sterling personalities.

As soon as you tap a foot to the floor, gravity reluctantly gets its act together again, though once you’ve slapped down both, you tilt and lean and pinwheel your arms just to prove it’s not a fakeout. Down is reliably down once more, and steeling yourself with one last breath of stale, recycled air, you sidle through the door and directly into a tangible shield wall of stale bodyspray.

In punching through the blockade, your nose soon becomes a martyr, and you solemnly respect its sacrifice for the greater good. A skeleton crew of half-naked huntsman trainees all mill about the lengthy, flat, oppressively blue-grey confines of the male students’ changing rooms: some rooting around in lockers, others hitting the showers, some staring at the wall hissing and drooling venom and hold right up a second–

It remains apparent you’re not yet out of the woods on weirdness; the lion’s share of your formerly–fellow students filling the gyms are no longer human or faunus. A Dromedon’s head snakes out from a thick Atlas Academy-branded tracksuit, the camel-Grimm chewing the cud where it sits on a bench by the locker rows. Its hocked-up gobs of acid-spit glop to the floor, decaying the tiles at its feet, with little delay before it hocks up another.

Leading away a bored clot of students already wrapped up for the day, the combat coach you’re accustomed to shuffling past – tablet under one arm, whistle dangling from around his neck – is having trouble keeping his horn-rim glasses on over the bone mask fused onto his newly-Beringel face. They click and clack and never stay put, the coach at last succumbing to holding them there with his free hand as he marches his nonplussed pack of trainees away.

Moving as you gawk, you knock elbows with a half-human, half-Boarbatusk entangled in its t-shirt, unable to successfully wrench the garment up over its wide tusks. So absolutely pathetic is its grunting struggle that you almost reach up to offer the thing some help, before remembering that (A): who cares, it’s a dream, and (B): you’ve got a timetable, here.

You’ll be the first to admit said timetable is a bit more loosey-gooey timey-wimey than cold, hard reality and should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when your ichor-laced medication’s made even more a mess of the place than usual.

However, having wasted some time wandering through the humid cavalcade of hybrid jockbominations and come up dry on any sign of your team, smart money says they’ve already moved on to the next phase of the memory. This phase, you’ve lovingly dubbed ‘Getting Your Ass Kicked, Part I.’

Getting Your Ass Kicked, Part I is, like many franchise openers, considerably more palatable than the sequel. It has a fight scene, attractive women, attractive women participating in the fight scene, a real all-around crowd pleaser.

Whereas the more macho elements of your team (to wit: anyone but you) had been packing the proverbial powder keg as early as the start of first year, the stubby fuse for that dark night had been lit during the debriefing for this afternoon’s combat classes – leading to a doomed, after-hours team scrimmage, born from this completely pointless and long-running rivalry: RAMM versus HGTS.

The fact that you and Winter Schnee were well-off childhood friends had nothing to do with the passive-aggressive grudge that seemed to sprout between your respective teams, and everything to do with Blaze’s bruised ego and betting problem – stemming all the way back to losing that first innocuous, Ⱡ50 bet back at initiation.

He’d gambled on whether Robyn Hill would actually come out in style with a capable, all-girl team who could crush the competition. Come out in style she did, with Joanna Greenleaf, Fiona Thyme, and Winter trailing behind. That set the snowball rolling down the mountainside.

Team HGTS embodied just about everything that RAMM wasn’t; low in snobbery and high in estrogen.  The name itself was a misnomer, such mountainous, snowcapped ‘Heights’ a poor match for a team primarily comprised of Mantlers, and one of them a Crater-dweller at that, compensating for the aristocrat in their ranks. Robyn often bemoaned the fact they were just one letter swap divorced from landing HSGT – ‘Hellsgate’ being an infinitely more entertaining name for a merry band of hellraisers, and a chance to force the too-formal faculty to reference profanity every time they’re addressed.

Escaping the muggy confines of the locker rooms, you duck out the interior exit to Training Hall Gamma, grateful that the specters-of-what-once-was can’t hear you huffing that tasteless Academy air like ambrosia. When you lift up your head again, you can confirm that shit is not yet in the process of going down, but is still being set up, all the players gravitating into their places.

Training Hall Alpha had been shuttered since the start of the semester for a complete hard-light overhaul: supposedly a computer-rigged grid of cubes and structures, all lined with the Dust and rearranging rapidly, automatically, all at the press of a button. A real item-of-note on that year’s budget, but a long and arduous process for the construction drones, meaning Training Hall Beta took on the bulk of legitimate schooling use ‘til its own turn comes along.

All this to say that scrappy idiots with scores to settle were typically relegated here, all the way down the line to Gamma. Last in the long line for refits, you’ll freely admit the training hall in which you stand-and-stood was maybe still on par with those of the less-wealthy Academies, and even – not to insult your immaculate Queen’s domain –  a fair shot fancier than Evernight’s.

It still feels old, though; a drab gray rectangle with walls made more of cement than the few panels of cleanly-polished steel. The rickety light fixtures overhead collectively sound like a choir of cicadas all buzzing their wings off at once, and there is a not-insignificant amount of flickering. The grounds they illuminate are primarily smoothed-out with old, tiny, half-torn flecks of colored duct tape and baked-in adhesive where professors and combat coaches of eld once attempted to mark out different zones for their drills. Even the finest janitors of both man and machine have still been unsuccessful at peeling that shit back off.

Various spaces in the corners of Hall Gamma have their own features for aiding lessons: walls both waist-high and full-height for training in climbing and use of cover, the boxier among them lined up for acrobatics, a single sunken pit area with stairstep sides, the works. Along one wall remain a short set of bleachers, enough to accommodate one class worth of students while their peers slug it out, and mirroring it across and above, the upper floors connect to a few observation boxes overlooking the blandest hall of them all.

It’s the feature in the very center that’s the real action: a broad square of mats on a slab elevated a good four-to-five feet high, with only a narrow set of steps up either end. No barriers, no ropes, as plain an arena as one can get. You hop your way up into the bleachers to get a better vantage, whereupon you walk straight into another weirdness landmine.

You hardly need to question whether Ciara had been splayed sideways across the plasticky seats that day, handfeeding slices of pepperoni off her frozen pizza to a bat perched on her head. That’s just a misplaced relic of last Tuesday, shaken out of the jumbled storage bin of your mind. Maybe you’re just hungry back in the real world? You have had a heavier appetite since you started the infusion process. Growing girls need to eat, or so they say.

Ciara’s not the only spectral spectator that’s turned up. Way in the back of the hall, a certain Little Miss Melts-your-shit is running her dual-shortsword drills on a reinforced training dummy, even though you know full well Professor Pumice had wanted to see the teacher's pet after SpecOps AP to talk about extra credit projects that day. Cinder’s supposed to be half a building away, not furtively eyeing the lowliest member of RAMM as if to say, ‘Don’t worry, even if you could escape humiliation today, I’m here to finish the job!’

Salem herself sure hadn’t been overseeing that day, either, else she’d have such a poor first impression she’d’ve left you in that alley and picked someone else to be her cherished right hand. And yet, there she looms, hands folded, chin high, staring down her nose at the dream-you from the observation box overhead. Honestly, how does she always manage to look so captivating?

Er. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. While you’re obviously far from averse to dreaming of your Queen, the sight of her here puts the fear of – well, of her in you, and she’s got terrible timing.

A few disinterested students genuinely had been milling around and filling seats to kill time that day, and at least one having a looky-loo from the aforementioned box seating, but otherwise, there’s no official observer for this charade. No professor, no proctor, no coach, nothing but the sleepy eye of some poor soul stuck watching monitors back in the security booth to ensure no prospective graduates are turning up dead after getting dared into a duel.

The very pointless duel that sees you – the other you, exuding a miasma of crushing, unmedicated depression – and your meathead teammates taking positions on the mats to mirror the women of HGTS. Face to face, four in a row on either side, captain to captain. The arrangement placed you staring sunken-eyed into the face of an equally-enthused Winter, the both of you communicating through eyebrows and head-tilts alone that you’re wasting perfectly good coursework-cramming time for this circus, and you two had plans!

“So, you chicks actually decided to show up,” gloats Blaze, with flagrant disregard for his own tardiness. Not one to let this stop his chest-puffing, he brings the head of his axe to the mats with a resounding pwumf, and affects a bicep-flattering pose leaning onto the handle. “Y’all that desperate t’get spanked and sent home to mommy?”

This is, evidently, the most hilarious thing Team HGTS has heard all month; even Winter cracks a smile tempered with the scolding glare she levels at her jovial leader before Robyn can verbally murderize him. Winter keeps it classier, instead. “As I recall, you flunked our Psych elective, but there’s a concept known as ‘projection’ you’d do well to brush up on.”

Younger-you cobbles together enough shards of social wherewithal to interject with a shot of acid: “We’re going to lose, you know that, right?” She brushes the unruly bangs out of her eyes to properly side-eye your would-be leader. “It won’t even be close.”

There’s a gnarly, half-aborted snort of laughter from the other side of the ring. “Hey, send Moodygold over here real quick?” jeers Robyn, lilac aura flaring up and down her fingers as she gives the team a sarcastic, Semblance-laden salute. “Have ‘im run that by us again; we can settle up here ‘n now, get over to the caf before they’re out of anything decent.”

“They’re serving crudo tonight!” adds Fiona, helpfully.

“Crudo, Roscoe. You really gonna pass that up just to give me and the girls an ego-boost?”

Blaze growls wordlessly, stomps a boot into the poor mats below, and hefts his axe.

Joanna lifts her staff to match. “We’ll chalk that up as a ‘yes.’”

A flat monitor mounted from the ceiling, ten feet at its widest, blips to life with the preparatory information for the scrimmage. Rudimentary Aura readings neatly pop into place alongside Academy ID info as the system syncs with your scrolls and the local biometric scanners.

No matter how many times you see your deadname plastered beside your portrait on RAMM’s end, it still bites. You’ve successfully fought down from a pained cringe to more of a nauseated grimace. Younger-you, still protected by the thin armor of her cracking eggshell, takes minimal notice of the name you’ve grown to loathe. She just unslings her broadsword and checks its edge, its Dust magazine.

Combat-wise, you’d all squared off against one another in various configurations before, back in first year’s classes, but never the full four-to-four. Snorting a line of hubris, Blaze got himself convinced it’d be a total steamroll – Robyn Hill’s team had a schoolwide rep for being crafty and cunning, but at the end of the day, was only packing one battle-oriented Semblance between the four of them, in the form of Winter’s glyphs. Three combat Semblances is more than one, and that equals an instant victory, guaranteed.

After Robyn had one-upped one of Blaze’s amateur mistakes back in classes that afternoon, he cornered HGTS’ leader before her team bounced. You don’t remember specifically what was said, only that Blaze had shot his mouth off and thrown down the gauntlet to goad Hill into a wager: a team spar with some embarrassing forfeit for the losers, and not a single thought spared for the eventuality that it might include him.

More surprising was the fact that Robyn – habitually the type to play keepaway and never risk letting her foes have the satisfaction – actually stuck around ‘til Blaze was through. After a quick scan over her shoulder at the disposition of her team, she’d opted to accept, and thus, here you are. Were. W’are.

Gods, that match was a fucking mess. You don’t even need to watch this time; the play-by-play’s burned into your retinas as both participant and spectator. Your head sinks back until the rough-textured plastic of the seat wedges against the base of your skull, and when the speakers’ digitized countdown approaches zero, you shut your eyes for a minute, to the soundtrack of an after-school slaughter.

Following the typical routine, you’d lain down your invisibility field in a wide dome. Showing the utmost respect for your contribution, your teammates immediately charged straight out, the trio leaping into the fray as one with nary a damn given for strategy. No feints, no tactics, no observation, all flaring fireballs and dropkicks and heaving overhead cleaves.

Floyd was the first to go, having landed only a single glancing hit with his spiked gauntlets. The guy took a folding chair to the face, sprung from Thyme’s Semblance, stumbling backwards until he tripped over the rest of the junk she’d conjured up in record time. Jagged junkyard scrap metal, bent fenders, popped tires, a traffic light, a broken bass guitar – one man’s trash becomes another huntress’ traps to be tossed all over the mat, and Floyd fell into them, hard.

Delmar quickly discovered Robyn’s new, prototype weapon has a transformation after all, his whiffed dagger-punch turning into a chance for Hill to hook the bladed wings of her fanning hand crossbow against the back of his neck and topple him hard, ass-over-teakettle right onto Floyd in the junkheap.

It was one of the scariest moves you’d ever seen her pull, the way she didn’t even pay Del a look as she walked away, just blindly aimed her followup and fired – a densely-packed Gravity Dust bolt at the base of the pile sent both boys soaring out of bounds, straight into the far wall with an Aura-splintering whunk. The overhead lights flickered precariously, and the crusty buzzer screeched twice.

Unlike any other Dust Mage you’d met at the time – without Ciara to screw up the grading curve – Blaze was as about as surgical and precise as the battleaxe he’d kitbashed into serving as his Dust focus. Even putting aside his grudge against Robyn’s leadership skill, the dude was always pissed his one-note pyrokinetic Semblance was outclassed by Winter’s adaptable elemental glyphs, and singled her out screaming something-or-other about being the real ‘hot shit’ around here – you can’t quite recall the line verbatim, so it comes out as macho gibberish in the re-runs. Probably for the best.

Stomping his feet, Blaze locked into a sturdy wide-legged stance to charge up a flashy, gargantuan fire-blast, large enough to start charring the mats’ surface with its flares. Winter merely rolled her eyes, slipped a glyph beneath him, and speared him from beneath with a pinpoint glacial pillar. His Aura, smashed all to pieces protecting his lower body from the blow, is the only reason he remains capable of having children. One more screech from the buzzer counted him out.

Meanwhile, you’d been scoring a few good hits on Greenleaf under the cover of your cloak, but that girl just soaked ‘em up like a fucking Megoliath. She was built almost as buff as you’ve discovered Hazel to be, and condensed into a less-grizzled, more-attractive package to boot. Y’might as well have been hacking away at iron with childrens’ safety scissors.

Invisibility had afforded you the advantage at first, yet with every twist and swerve, you’d stepped on or into more of Thyme’s tactical litter, the displacement giving Greenleaf something to work with. After you ducked an arcing, brick-breaking swing from her staff, her blind leg-sweep still caught your knee, and the followup sent you sprawling over a clear stretch of mat. By the time you’d finished somersaulting back to your fallen sword and stood to survey the arena, the match was effectively through.

Left as the last ‘man’ standing with a near-full tank of Aura to burn, you’d let your Semblance fizzle away with a world-weary sigh, arms outstretched and welcoming the inevitable dogpile to kindly hustle it up already. Instead, whilst the rest of her team tidied themselves and the arena, Robyn Hill strode right up to loom over you with that irritating grin, smug-beyond-smug, and lightly flicked you on the nose.

Naturally, you’d spun on your heel and walked to the edge of the platform, then calmly hopped right out of bounds for the buzzer’s final judgment. Because fuck it, right? It was already over, and everyone without burnt toast for brains would know it, but fuck it or not, things began getting ugly from there.

You forsake the seat in the bleachers and start down the steps to follow past-you, as she’s punished for the crime of common sense. Gods only know how Blaze was expecting you to pull a clutch victory all by your lonesome – against opponents the three of them already couldn’t handle together, couldn’t even whittle down by one.

But he still did, and it still hurt, and truth-be-told, it still smarts hearing the rant even now. Even if you knew you shouldn’t care about his opinion, even if Salem’s the only judge of your quality you want to consider anymore. Back here in the bad old days, there’s no Salem to speak up for you yet, save for that mindless mannequin up there in the booth, one who can’t interfere in what is to come.

Naturally, RAMM’s weakest member was the one to be fed to the wolves; having lost his bet, Blaze clung to the tattered rags of his bravado when Robyn came strutting down off the mats to collect.

“So, Blaze, B-man, bonfire-boy, I believe all witness accounts will attest the winner was promised a certain reward, and – Shucks, would you look at that? I’m feeling like a bit of a winner today.”

There is a common concept known as a ‘sore loser’ which is sorely lost on boys like Blaze Roscoe. “Fuck the hell off, that was rigged!”

“He was probably in on it,” says Floyd, jabbing a thumb your way. “He said we’d lose before the fight started! It was a setup!”

Delmar sees fit to join in once he’s no longer the one taking initiative. “Yeah, he did! Fake win! Doesn’t count!”

“Hey, you don’t have to point fingers,” says Robyn, pointing a finger. At you. The fingers curled behind it unfold into an opened palm, illuminated with a menacing lavender glow. “Wanna shake on it, tell ‘em you were just using your noodle to know how great we are?”

You (Old & Busted) flinch backward as if Robyn were waving a branding iron. You (Under New Management) aren’t proud to admit you used to do the same even in these reruns. That fucking Semblance… And two tries in one day, to boot. The question hangs in the air a few loaded seconds before it’s retracted, Robyn passing it off as a goof and returning to deliberations.

“If there’s anyone that’s paying up, it’s the jackass that threw the match!” growls Blaze, licking his proverbial wounds without Aura to speed up the process. “The rest of us aren’t doing shit. Do whatever you want with him and don’t get a big head about it – this isn’t over yet. RAMM’s gonna flatten you!”

“Better believe it!” Floyd adds. “Once we find a way to make our dead weight act like a fucking MAN for once, it’s over for you cunts!”

Your past-self’s pleas for understanding go whistling through one ear and out the other, Blaze in no mood to negotiate when he’s been handed the perfect excuse to renege and cling to his pride.

Robyn leans one uninvited elbow onto younger-you’s shoulder, and blasts a finger-gun at Blaze and his toadies as he flees Hall Gamma with his tail between his legs. “Worry not, hotshot, we’ll be sure t’give your whipping boy just what he deserves.”

That ominous sendoff should’ve been your first clue that this night was going to end in tears. The second, and far more blatant: the woman delivering it.

Robyn fucking Hill. Disarmingly charming, and undeniably dangerous.

She was always after your throat for some reason. It never made any sense; Blaze and crew were the ones always picking fights with HGTS, always instigating, always shooting their mouths off about Mantle and Faunus and investing their free time into finding fun new slurs to launch at them.

But instead of dunking on the most deserving – that day’s asswhooping a rare exception – the RAMM member she prodded and picked on most was you. Always roping her Mantler friends up into the teasing, always trying to rile you up, feel you out, get under your skin, get alarmingly chummy, get you talking. You weren’t an idiot; even back then, you knew it was absolutely a setup, a plot to catch you on something shameful if given ample chance to violate your mind with that terrifying Semblance of hers.

That first time you’d been talked into letting it happen the year before as a goof, it felt like being flayed bare, almost the way Salem can read into your heart – but different, more reliant on you damning yourself with your spoken response. Makes you wonder if Hill’d genuinely had a hunch just what magnitude of devastating truths she could have ripped out of ‘The Marigold Son’ if she only knew which questions to ask. You wouldn’t, didn’t, and now will never be giving her that chance.

It didn’t help that your rock-solid sorta-friendship with Winter gave the rest of HGTS the opportunity to razz you on a regular basis, since shared quarters typically made Schnee and her teammates a package deal. Naturally they’d always be barging back into the HGTS dorm during those times you and Winter’d set aside for joint study sessions. Because it had to be over there if you wanted even short-lived peace and privacy, as neither of you would ever find it in RAMM’s room.

Egh. While you’ve been brooding, the dream’s invisible timer continues ticking towards imminent doom, and in hindsight you really don’t need to stay for the rest of the conversation; the bit with Robyn & Co. threatening you with prospective embarrassment as your penance.

You leave the old-you standing there to get all agitated and pink-faced, and instead shuffle on out of the hall, squeezing sideways around an uncharacteristically smirking Winter before remembering you’re a ghost. Even frosty Winter had started to thaw a bit, after spending a year in the company of those chaotic women from the city below. She’d seemed warmer, quicker to smile. You’d never shared in that luxury, watching it from the outside looking in.

Departing the sweat-basted halls of the wider Combat & Athletics wing, you set your internal compass for your second-to-last stop on the tour. In the original script, you’d gone to wash up and then grab some dinner right after the fight. Unremarkable as that was, you’ve successfully skipped it the last few recurrences, and gone straight for the dorms, no detours.

It’s probably safer, too; your surroundings are growing unstable at an ill-boding rate. The hallway you’d’ve taken to the cafeteria? Floors completely soaked in ichor, looking like a bunch of schoolkids stuck in a tar pit. The view above the entrance hall, overlooking the landing pads? Now replaced with the crystal landing zone of Evernight, where another little dream-you anxiously tromps onto the airship for her very first official mission under Salem. Banners bearing your Queen’s emblem randomly replace decorative Atlesian flags, flying over stray clawmarks etched across the marble.

By the time you reluctantly arrive at your penultimate stop, you’re glad to see it’s only the walls and color schemes that have changed, clean blue concrete forsaken for the darker, crystal-cracked stone of your current castle home.

Substitutions aside, everything’s right where you left it: the second-year dormitory block, east side, third from the end of the hallway, opposite end from the elevators. Team RAMM’s room, your old prison cell. Like melting clockwork, here she comes, almost right on time: your doppelganger returning to the dorm with ‘the package,’ which had been thrust into your arms by a coyly snickering Thyme before everyone scattered to find some dinner.

Past-you grouches to herself when the door doesn’t detect the scroll in her pocket. She struggles to squeeze the cardboard box under one arm, balanced on a hip, in order to fish the thing from her pocket. It takes exactly one-two-three-groan-four swipes before the scanner wakes up and buzzes her through. She readjusts her cargo and hurries in. You don’t follow.

Instead, you find a good, dramatic leaning position against the wall, close, but not too close. Enough that you could hear the impression of any loud noises through the dorms’ lazy soundproofing, but not to discern specific words and movements. It’s better to block out what little you can; you don’t want to keep re-experiencing this night in any clearer detail than what’s mandatory to make it end.

Where Getting Your Ass Kicked, Part I was an action comedy, Getting Your Ass Kicked, Part II is an arthouse tragedy.

It unfolds simply enough; Blaze, Delmar, and Floyd exit the dorm, school uniforms ditched for baggy club clothes that cost more than a Mantler’s monthly rent. All of them ready to snag an airship and head out for a night on the town, a night where they can swagger and throw some money around, forget about having their asses handed to them. Being able to get away from you for the night was undoubtedly a plus.

As your old teammates slowly drift way down the hall to the elevators – one on a video scroll call to his floozy girlfriend over on VLIT, the others comparing shuttle schedules – the younger you is counting, and you count with her.

Cautious, but impatient in your anxiety, you had waited twenty seconds past the door sealing before you pulled the godsforsaken box back out of your bunk’s storage, and peeled open the top.

The facts were these:

Robyn, fulfilling the gods-given obligation of humiliating the losing team, decided in her infinite wisdom to shame RAMM in one of the most ancient methods, a classic straight from the playbook: Dressing you all up in something stupid, for the amusement of her team.

However, being as Blaze was a craven pisscanoe who wouldn’t keep his word, and it was no longer a collective full-team comeuppance, the crafty victor opted on a whim to make some amendments to ye olden unspoken bylaws of bets and forfeits.

After you were left to take the fall, HGTS had no intention of making you do so in public, flouncing through the dining hall at dinnertime or something equally outrageous, they simply insisted… That you give some consideration to how badly averse you’d be to playing along for fun. If it wouldn’t lead to you swearing bloody vengeance, you’d wear it when you showed up at the HGTS dorm for the study session you ‘n Winter’d already planned tonight, to dig through some of your Specialist Prep coursework. Privately. Quietly. Nothing more than three uncouth Mantlers throwing popcorn at your head, and Winter’s dry wit, to conceivably tease you.

It was when you’d opened the box that you discovered Winter’s ambivalence and feigned uninvolvement after the fight downstairs to have been a fat lie; where else’d they have gotten a set of spare Schnee Family servants’ uniforms? And not even one of the basic, pragmatic service staff getups for the daily grind at the Manor or SDC headquarters, no – one of the frillier traditional numbers dumped on the young women Winter’s father retained for showing off to wealthy guests, the ones whose duty was to stand in the corners of sitting rooms looking docile, possibly fetching drinks. Again, and not to overstate, it was an obscene amount of frills.

Terrifying frills, too, because it was on such short notice; Winter’d learned about the fight the exact time you did mere hours ago, and had no way of knowing Blaze would bail on his just desserts while leaving you behind. She’d’ve had no time at all to finish classes, fight, fly back to the family estate and back again before dinner. Either HGTS had kept four of these sitting around for some reason, in RAMM’s exact sizes, or they originally had different plans, and adjusted on the fly to a backup… something they’d planned to inflict on you somehow, someway, sooner or later. Something they might’ve planned, because they suspected. Haha. Fuck.

It’s not like the bet was legally binding. There was no hostage in this situation, no blackmail hung over your head they could’ve dished out if you didn’t deign to show up thusly-garbed, or even at all. Blaze hadn’t even gotten the holoscreen fight recorders turned on before you all’d thrown down. There was absolutely no reason on Remnant you genuinely had to go spend an evening hanging out at the Team HGTS dorm dressed up in girly clothes.

And yet, as you loiter in this hall, that naive idiot inside’s stuck staring at the whole of the servants’ dress you’d pulled up on its hanger, and dangled from the railing of the upper bunks to view in full. Conflicted, mesmerized, muttering to herself, and overthinking her way to her doom.

Down at the end of the hall, voices raise in frustration. Three trainee huntsmen turn back from the doors, arguing, smacking, raucous. You never saw them returning from this angle, of course; it’s all a simplified reconstruction. Either they forgot something, or their plans got canceled, you have no idea what turned them around. They’re the timer on a bomb, each step another tick towards zero, and the Marigold within really thought she’d safely cut the right wire a minute ago.

Gods, you should’ve just shoved that box right back at Thyme without ever looking inside, or at least done a better job of hiding it once you knew, thrown it out the window, waited longer to open it, maybe even delayed ‘til you got to the HGTS dorm and borrowed their bathroom to change. Anything, anything, instead of stupidly thinking you should try it out first, just to see if it really fits, then could slip over there beneath the cloak of your Semblance like always–

But, no. You had no idea what was to come. You were tense, you were miserable, fractures splitting wider by the day. Your burgeoning self was desperate for the scantest peek through the crack in her eggshell at what things could be like on the other side, and was about to be smashed for her trouble.

Tromping back down the way, the three-in-one shampoo boys themselves finally arrive back at their dorm. You hadn’t gotten further than ripping off your tie and starting on the buttons of the grey uniform suit-vest when the door shoots open again.

Through the magic of subconscious theater, you can watch from the other way around as they crowd through the door the moment they smell fear. They don’t shut it at first, and even if you wanted to, your ephemeral hand can’t work the controls. You have to listen, until the auto-controls shut it for you. Even then, you’d hear them still.

Behind that door, it’s unfolding much as anyone can predict, muted sounds marking every step and your memory filling in the blanks. Confusion. Sneering laughter. A slapping sound. It’s the first one, so you know it’s just the unfriendly shoulder-clap that came as a prelude. The dull thuds won’t be for a minute or so, yet. Muffled protest. Louder laughter, cut with irritation, then accusations. Voices joined by tiny, tinny extras, as they continue streaming the events, live, over their scroll.

The unwanted, mocking, open-handed smacks only becomes closed-fist when the girl inside doesn’t play along at first, doesn’t bow her head and accept their insults and aggression. They don’t take kindly to resistance, almost as much as they don’t take kindly to ‘a ██-██ing q██ ███y f██ who should probably ██ y███.’ And so on, and so on.

The sliding door shoots open, and out the other-you flies, stumbling down the hallway towards the stairwell. You follow close behind, your ephemeral body’s lazy pace never seeming to fall out of step with your sprinting memory. She should be invisible – you remember your Aura straining at the edges while holding your Semblance the entire time – but try as she might, it can’t hide her from herself.

You chase yourself past the darkened Grimm Studies corridor – now populated by actual Grimm – and down the stairwell, still unhurried. Why would you need to be? You know just where she's going and just what's going to happen:

A frightened girl succumbed to panic will run as far as her legs will take her, invisible until the sense of safety afforded by her Semblance abandons her.

She'll get a barrage of texts throughout, first from her team, spitefulness masking their fear of ramifications. Others, she’ll be too terrified to sift through – you’d deleted them in bulk days later, unread. The fact people already knew something’d happened at all was painful proof enough, let alone what the rumor mill had already spun up.

She'll get a call from a cousin that will regurgitate the slurs and sentiments, now with a relative’s voice attached, and the unspoken threat to pass it up the chain of command.

By the time her legs can run no more, hours later, she'll have reached the very edge – Of the city, of her rope. She'll get a call from her parents, their stern fury arranged in nice, neat formalities, concealing lethal weapons under their concern. And with their threats of permanently life-altering punishments joining the others, they will unite to finally shove that girl off the brink.

You’re tired. You wish you were sleeping normally, because you’re going to be exhausted come morning – you had plans tomorrow, or today, whatever, and Salem needs you at your best. But the dream’ll just drag on longer ‘til you see it through to its dreadful end.

The fact that this time, you barge through the outer doors to find Atlas swarmed with the dark creatures your Queen reigns over, doesn’t truly change much at all. Whatever crazy memory mixups your brain’s cobbled together would be quite the spectacle to sit and watch, but you’re almost done here.

It’s still a slow walk off-campus, with the night’s chill only an approximation of how it’d felt the first time around. Down the dim transport tunnels and southward into the abnormally-abandoned city grid, Marigold-the-younger is never far out of sight, always reappearing just around a corner or down the street. At times, from behind bushes and tall grass, as she cuts through the innermost edge of the farming zones. Neither automated harvester drones nor dream-spawned Grimm pay the sobbing girl any mind at all.

While you only follow her at an even pace, furious words chase her down like bloodhounds; distance and the din of raging Grimm mean you shouldn’t have to overhear those scroll calls, and – again, being a bitch – your brain lets you hear their echoes all the same.

Gods, they all hated you. Even with plausible deniability, even with all the excuses you could’ve thrown out to shield yourself from the presumption of ‘degeneracy,’ they’d still have hated you for the possibility of what you could’ve been. How do people even get full of so much hate? Even the oldest woman you know, who’s had eons to pile on prejudices, only truly hates two absentee deities and her assclown ex.

A smattering of snowflakes begin to flit through Atlas’ environmental control as the night drags on, foreshadowing the freezing Mantle welcome waiting down below. But you’re not quite there yet, neither of you.

The cloak the old you’d been holding has long since fizzled. Not for lack of Aura; you’d still had some reserve after they jumped you. If you’d been running on empty, you doubt you’d’ve even survived to be having dreary flashbacks at all.

It’d been the sheer hopelessness that made you ditch it. Like, who cared if someone might’ve seen you hopping the chainlink fence at the end of a construction site, walking out to some unfinished strut of south-end city scaffolding? If they’d seen you sitting with your legs dangling over the expanse?

A passing Sabyr gives your hand a curious sniff as you approach the edge, and you wave to scatter some Sulphur Fish off the fence you need to scale. The roaming Grimm keep their distance as you carefully shuffle out onto the frosty metal framework ahead, like they can sense the despair they smell here isn’t theirs to devour.

Aforementioned scaffolding’s pretty cold under your ass as you drop down onto it, quite beside yourself – and you’d say you could kick yourself for dredging up the terrible pun, but yourself is brushing against your ghostly shoulder, and you couldn’t possibly do a thing to hurt her more deeply than she’s hurting now. 

You look pretty gross when you get a solid cry going, runny nose and everything. Always wish you could give her a handkerchief, or lend her an extra layer for the cold. She’s gonna need it.

The both of you sit there and shiver, for a time. Her, with her head buried in her arms, folded on top of her knees. You, watching the darkening skies crowd with Lancers and Tempests, and– See, this is how you know you’re getting loopy: wings on a Beringel? Dream’s collapsing for sure.

Younger-Marigold smears another splotch of tears and snot on her sleeve, pulling her head up to look at the edges of the city around her. Looking down, as a crucial light seems to be snuffed from her puffy eyes, warm gold dulled in real time.

Welp. Here it goes again.

Beside you, she stands on sore and shuddering legs, still hugging herself tightly as if it’ll actually help hold her together. The visible puffs of her breath in the icy air come out in a rapid, irregular stream, like a broken humidifier. Slowly she spins, one heel scraping a half-inch over the edge, and turns those deadened eyes back on the city that birthed her, unblinking, rolling tears falling wherever they may.

There’s no fanfare, no arms thrown wide or final words for the world. Just one look back up at the academy, at the direction where the Marigold Estate rests. A tip backwards, a surrender to gravity.

And a Marigold falls.

It’s always really gotten to you, just how quiet it was. The effect’s tarnished somewhat this go-around thanks to the howls and hisses and deep, melodic bellowing of the swarming Grimm, but in the real deal, you fell as silent and aimless as a leaf on the wind.

Guess that’s your cue. From past experience, you could just lie back and let the dream resolve itself in a minute, but why the hell not? You’re about to wake up, anyway, and possibly have a weird story to share with Salem over breakfast while you’re at it.

Though you don’t bother standing like your counterpart, you do tilt back to uphold a pointless personal tradition, and dryly flip Atlas the bird one more time before you shove off the scaffold. One day, you’re gonna burn the rot from that city... But not today. You chase yourself off the edge, and into the snow-flecked, glittering abyss.

It’s kind of ironically appropriate, you’ve realized. You’re sworn in service to a Queen who cannot die, and here you are, reliving your own failure to die, practically once a month if you had to hazard a guess. Like, what is this now, eleven, twelve times, give or take? You’ve lost count. The trauma’s no longer a sharp skewer, just a dull, malingering ache you’ll struggle to soothe in the waking hours. The singular saving grace is that in dreams where you fall, you wake before hitting the ground.

Over the descent, a sense of weightlessness takes hold, and Mantle shines wide and sleepless beneath the two of you, vibrant despite the efforts of its oppressors. This view has to be one of the only pleasant angles of these flashbacks, taking in the soft blanket of lights before cold hard reality roars up to greet you.

Before long, that cold hard reality is rolling out its welcome mat. When you can tell the neon blobs from one another, when you can discern the shape of pedestrians walking to their shift in the mines, read names on signs, you know it’s time.

You call out to the girl falling not far below, ‘good luck.’

Both of you close your eyes.

Only one lands in soft linens.

Chapter Text

“Uuuuugh...”

That ugh? That was you, just now. And one of your uglier ugh’s, because ugh, your head and your back are killing you.

Without opening your eyes, without untangling yourself from this sweaty swaddling of silky bedsheets, you run a quick, internal diagnostic. Your head, you can probably attribute to a stress migraine, and that incessant dream definitely threw twigs on that fire. The twinge in your back, probably from tossing and turning in the throes of it, as is the inexplicable mummy-wrap of sheets you’ve rolled yourself into.

There remain further questions, but they can wait ‘til your brain’s got less of a muzzy morning traffic jam happening. You really need to see about having some more proper sleeping pills smuggled in, anything that’ll keep you from tossing and turning so badly.

Even if you allow yourself to grow accustomed to the sad idea you’ll be suffering said dream for the rest of your life, could your subconscious at least quit making it so visceral? Trim it down for time, tone it down for content, or slow it down in frequency ‘til the trauma’s all fresh and pointy again, just as long as it stays a rare visitor? Whatever. It’s over for now, unlikely to disturb your rest for a few weeks more.

On that note, there’s no saying just how much actual rest you’d gotten overnight. Halfway emancipated from the sheet-tangle, with eyes still scrunched, you blindly grope around to your left to pull your scroll off the stone ledge just beside and above your bed, so you can check the time once your groggy brain’s ready to handle being vertical.

Instead, your hand swishes through where the ledge should be, landing with a pwuf on soft sheets. How bad were you thrashing around last night, to have gotten curled at such a weird angle? No biggie; you roll off your other arm and try reaching around to the right.

Swish, nothing but bedding.

N’alright, considering your legs aren’t dangling off the side, either your bed’s grown three sizes over the course of the night, or Remnant’s most perverted assassin has crept in and zapped you with a shrinking Semblance. Neither option being particularly plausible, you reluctantly crank yourself up to a seated position and force your eyes open to the light of day.

There’s a limited frontal view for you to canvas, as your left and right remain halfway shaded by long curtains of wine-colored fabric, sweeping from down from wooden framework in polished ebony. The wood of the canopy shared with the headboard, piled across its breadth with more of the selfsame plush pillows you’d just been lounging and/or dribbling drool on.

The room at large is much the same in its architecture, resplendent for all its deep and solemn tones, bits of brighter colors – crimsons and violets, most commonly – stand out boldly amid all the black stone and darkly-stained wood, or the bits of gilding on these practically-historical pieces of furnishing. The gold is often so marginal as to be nearly invisible, until it catches a ray from the violet flames of the gnarled, wrought-iron chandelier. Below, in a thin layer covering the castle’s stone, the rugs are soft padding underfoot, a quiet tone, the color of blood the next morning after a battle.

Visible to the left when you scoot forward, there sits a bedside table and a divan upholstered in a widely-employed sangria velvet, lit by tall, free-standing candelabrum. Further along, a double-wide armoire and a door leading to an inexplicable en-suite washroom, sufficiently equipped despite a mustiness betraying its lack of use. To the right, more shelves and high cupboards, mounted racks for enchanted tools in varying levels of mystery and menace. Nearby, a workdesk on which to employ them, and a wall segmented with high, iron-wreathed stained glass windows.

And much more detail to get granular about, no doubt, but all that requires your notice is dead ahead, flanked by sconces: the less-menacing, interior side to a certain set of massive double-doors, etched and graven with the personal red unblinking-eye emblem of your Queen.

Well, now you just feel silly.

How many more times’ll you have to awaken in this room before your subconscious finally stops marking it as the exception, rather than the rule?

Elegant, but not obnoxious in its refinement, the room’s seemingly luxurious nature is tempered when one considers that rather than purchasing these pieces from some greedy antiques dealer for exorbitant sums, they’ve simply stuck with the same owner for centuries.

In fact, strictly on paper, your adolescent bedroom might’ve actually cost more lien to furnish than this one, not that you’re proud of that at all, and knowing you can’t put pricetags on magical doodads of whose terrible power you can't begin to guess.

Unfortunately for your efforts to check the time, it’s never been in your Queen’s habit to keep clocks posted around her own portions of the castle, and it’s damn near impossible to tell from the gloomy lights refracting through the stained glass windows. Salem can tell the time with magic, so it’s really down to the rest of you to figure it out for yourselves.

It means you’ll need your scroll, which is either tucked in the pocket of your shorts (presently logged as MIA) or several stories downstairs in your room, probably buzzing its incessant alarm to wake up a girl who isn’t there. Well! You’re up!

Under the sheets, your lower half is made dubiously decent in short order, after finding your underwear clinging to your ankle like a drowning sailor to a life raft. (You still refuse to call them boyshorts, for reasons.) Those’re easy enough to reequip with some creative shuffling, but after canvassing the area, you reluctantly conclude anything else is out of reach: it will require exiting the bed in search of the pesky sports bra you’ve miraculously begun to need as of late.

To preserve at least some of your propriety by not strutting around nips-to-the-breeze, you twirl the sheet around you as a rudimentary cloak and emerge from the silky cavern of the four-poster bed, only to trip and stumble drunkenly – you keep forgetting about the raised dais that separates the bed from the rest of the room, but at least Her Grace wasn’t around to see it, this time. You sincerely doubt she’s ever tripped like a klutz, but then, who would even be hanging around her private chambers to judge her?

Except for you, apparently. As she’s told you, no mortal being has set foot in this chamber but yourself since before the invention of the Combustion Dust engine – and even then, that one was an Ozma-cult assassin who made it farther than most. It’s an extremely exclusive club you’ve joined, and compared to the VIP status your family name afforded you in Atlas, this one genuinely delivers you a sense of pride.

Now, you just need to restore your sense of decency – You renew your search for your bra, and are abundantly relieved to find it all in one piece, lazily discarded atop the folds of a decorative, latticed modesty screen not too far away. Yoink. After pulling the thing on and tug-snug-tugging everything to sit just right, you give a cursory scan of your vicinity to see if anything else was mislaid on this end.

Here in Salem’s place of private contemplation there sprawls a massive mahogany desk, occupying a whole corner of the room to itself with its bent-angle design. Its multiple tiers are laden with all sorts of inscrutable occult objects and alchemical miscellany: knives and inkbrushes, mortars and pestles, retorts and crucibles, and tools both too archaic or too complex for you to identify. The wood, beautifully imperfect, shows signs of their frequent use, notched and burnt and ridged in random spots, finely carved in others.

Pushed back on its center sleeps an immobilized Seer – either grafted into, or grown from within, the obsidian platform and purple cushion beneath it, now hemmed by the creature’s ingrown bone spikes. Its bulb, heftier and more stable than most, lies dormant except for a single sluggishly-spinning plume of smoke, like a screensaver.

(It bears noting: a year ago, you’d’ve been way too intimidated to even think of making a sardonic wisecrack about old people always refusing to upgrade to a newer computer. Now… Well, now you’d still be loath to say it out loud, because you are a fine lady of tact, but you can definitely think it.)

That mounted Seer only merits notice as a side effect of the pewter tray that’s hogging the rest of the desk closeby, loaded with a sobering, familiar delivery you’ve come to associate with these stupid Grimm in particular. When you’re sleeping down in your own room, they’re often couriered by the flying variety, the tray dangling from their tendrils like the baskets on a hot-air balloon.

The passengers on those bumpy, bobbling rides – as well as these more mundane deliveries when you’re spending the night up here – a thin, square-bottomed glass phial filled to the brim with your regular dose of diluted Vitamin Salem, plus a glass syringe of the latest, more experimental strain of Grimm infusion you two’ve been trying to work into your system.

Salem presented a convincing rationale for testing those experimental infusions. You’ve already cleared the playing field by accepting her essence to reshape your body, and while your Semblance is rare in its mild usefulness – her words, not yours! – the bland, bottom-line truth is that it’s simply not a combat Semblance, and in your new line of work, sometimes one is inescapably faced with a scenario wherein the only solution is to break stealth, be strong, and hit stuff.

Not that there couldn’t be alternate possibilities, other utilities than battle, depending how-and-if they manifest! But your Queen seemed insistent that you have a hidden backup plan, a concealable way to fight without a weapon or a Semblance, or even Aura at all, until ‘the power of your true potential is available to you.’ Whatever that means.

Anyway, if you were already going to suffer the unpleasant physical consequences of controverting the flawed body you were born with, for binding your broken shards together with Salem’s blood, then why-the-fuck-not see just how else she can hone you? If it means being a guinea pig sometimes, so be it; at this point it’s go big or go home, and you no longer have a home anywhere but here.

However, taking your meds can surely wait another five minutes, right? Not that you’re stalling! You’d prefer to cobble the remains of your outfit back together first, before addressing medical necessities.

The mounted Seer doesn’t see it the same way; the thing flares up its empty bulb with a pulse of fiery red and vibrates irritably with rapidfire clicks. Fine, whatever; better to handle it now and make the thing go back to sleep, than to have a Grimm glaring and impotently wiggling at your half-naked self as you rummage around your Lady’s room for wherever your nice, caramel cardigan ran off to.

Turns out, timing isn’t on your side, proving you should’ve just tolerated the fury-wiggles; in the assumption that the tray’s the only reason this jellyfish-of-menace is attempting to get your attention, you pop open a glass stopper and begin to chug the first half of your morning medicine, only for the swirling smoke of its bulb to whirl aside and depict a striking figure in full clarity.

“Grk–! Hgrm’unnin, mizzhesh.” Alas, ‘Good Morning, Mistress’ involves too many complicated phonemes to clearly enunciate while groggily choking down lukewarm liquid darkness. Gracious as ever, Salem allows you a moment’s pause to whack the center of your chest and force down the phlegmy mix with a desperate gulp before she responds in kind.

“To you as well, dearheart. You have my apologies that I couldn’t linger until you rose. It seemed as though your sleep had grown restless by the time of my departure, but I felt it cruel to wake you needlessly...”

She reaches forward to shift something offscreen – offjelly? – then returns her attention to you, after a pained, juddering and bestial groan in the background subsides. “Unfortunately, the work presently underway can be neither delayed nor left unattended for long.”

Without the scrying skill your Queen has, you’ve only got a limited field of view through the two-way connection, and of her surroundings.

Those anguished whuffing noises sound pretty Grimmy to you, but her environment’s got too much light to be the beast pens by the sparring room. There’re stone walls behind her, but of a lighter and more magic-scorched stone than you’re accustomed to across the castle at large, meaning...

Once again, Salem’s delved into those secretive sections of the castle not even you can leverage access to as her (Operative? Shadow? Consigliere?) for your own safety: the dungeons, the ritual chambers, the deep vaults, et cetera. Even when they’re only vague mental images you’ve carved out of passive context and implication, they test both your curiosity and your resolve not to pry, serving as the opposite kind of secret to the secrets of this very room you’re standing in now.

When you’d first been brought here, you wondered why the hell an immortal whose body requires no sleep would waste space for such a lavish bed, a current-century washroom if she needn’t wash or relieve herself, dressers if she can conjure clothes through magic, all sorts of other silly, mortal fripperies. No real answers presented themselves, and you’ve always been reluctant to ask, but you’ve formulated an educated guess.

If those dreary secret chambers are where Salem retreats for the grisliest work befitting a vengeful, unfathomably traumatized immortal, then the rooms of this clean and classy upper floor – the bedroom, the study, all the rest – might be where she comes to feel just a little bit more like a normal person again. Two magnetic poles, Salem cycling between the two for as long as she’s lived here, and the cruel grind of time wearing away at some infinitesimally small trace of her old humanity within.

But, egh, it’s not really your place to be playing armchair psychologist about your Queen, anyway. Even if it would only be fair, considering she opened you up like a can of alphabet soup and read all your mental health and identity bullshit spelled out in soggy noodle acronyms.

“I know you’re busy, it’s fine,” you reply, and yes, it is fine, though that lonely twinge will need a minute longer to subside. “And I’m sure it’s more important than wasting time putting up with me before I’ve gotten my act together.”

“Hm. Nonetheless, it seems like an exceptionally poor showing on my part, given the arguably noteworthy nature of the day itself.”

“Uh. Noteworthy?”

Salem casually rearranges some rusted ritual tools on the stone table beside her as she speaks. “Perhaps. I hadn’t wished to make assumptions that you’d already grown out of such things, but if you’ve paid it so little heed as to forget about it entirely, that makes another habit we share. Although, if I’m mistaken and you still find joy in marking it for celebration, I’ll wish you the best of it.”

The blank look you continue to wear both is, and isn’t, the answer Salem is waiting for.

“Your... birthday, dear?”

Atop your frumpled blue bedhead, you can practically feel the invisible dunce cap coalescing into being. You knew it was coming soonish, but it still slipped your mind by the time you got home from Menagerie’s outback! Plus, during long, peaceful stints staying at Evernight without a field mission, the days can often run together in a chronological slurry.

Add the fact that you’ve never put a huge stock in your birthday, after having spent 18 of them ‘celebrating’ by sloshing through the sludgy-sick grime of glamour and luxury. Lavishly expensive birthday parties your parents arranged as little more than a means of brandishing you towards the other families-of-wealth, a threat and a temptation. ‘Our heir’s fancier than your heir,’ or ‘don’t screw with our investments,’ maybe ‘look, at least ours didn’t elope to Argus with a homosexual prostitute,’ or in the Schnees’ case, ‘fresh meat, ready for prenuptials!’ And the tuxedos. The ties. Cages and nooses.

It should go without saying that your 19^th, spent entirely unconscious amid your early stages of treatment here at the castle, was a stark improvement. It also means that the big 2-0, not technically your first birthday since moving to Evernight, still feels that way when it’s the first you’ve been awake to experience.

“No, Ma’am, you were right,” you admit, thumbing at the swirled engravings on the desk’s edge. “I’ve never really celebrated it too much, so there wasn’t any point wasting time on anything special. I was just going to check on the deliveries from the drones ‘n spend some time in the workshop today. Pretty quiet, pretty uneventful.”

“Good; then we’re alike in this after all. I find it unnecessary that I should remain beholden to a calendar in matters of rewarding your faithful service.” Flipping pages in an old goatskin tome, Salem stalls long enough to look up and check your face for the shy smile she intentionally put there, only to brush it aside with less-delightful news. “Uneventful day or not, ‘quiet’ could be out of reach –  I advise you prepare yourself before you leave, Tyrian is in one of his moods.”

When isn’t he? “Nngh. Wonderful.”

The fact that her foremost assassin’s maintained a year-long vendetta against you has been as unremarkable to your Queen as a schoolyard squabble over the good kickball. “I’m afraid you’ll have to set your foot down sooner or later, else he will never learn his lesson. Perhaps, to remove his means of threatening you entirely?”

Though it would be incredibly cathartic for the first mortal life you take to be Tyrian ‘Murder Is My Self-Care’ Callows, you’ve held off this long without making the first tally mark on that board. Always another tactic out on those infiltration and sabotage jobs, always a smarter approach to the orders Salem gave you than killing out of convenience, but that man makes you want to take a page out of his book and choke him with it. “Are you saying I should cut his tail off or something? Is that the lesson?”

“Not necessarily, though a possibility to keep in mind. It would certainly be quite the bitter pill for him to swallow, would it not? On that note…” Salem focuses a tight beam of prismatic light from her fingers at something just behind and beside your viewpoint. There is a wet thud like a mishandled meatloaf. “Don’t you still have some medicine of your own to finish?”

Blegh, she’s right, as usual. Probably wants to watch you take it, even though your anxieties haven’t had you skimping out on a dose since those initial weeks. Not that you dislike the backup; her presence, even remotely, always make these incredibly stupid risks a bit easier to bear.

Failing to recover your proper shorts so quickly pays off on its fringe benefit of leaving most of your thigh exposed. Returning the empty phial to its tray, you bring up the syringe, the one that looks like it’s been in use since the heydays of plague doctors, and give it a flick.

It once crossed your mind whether you’d wanna sterilize everything before you use these. Then you remembered that you’re injecting mildly-diluted, liquefied primordial death magic into your body, on purpose, and that fussing about medical hygiene standards is just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.

Any further impulse to stall is crushed under Salem’s patient, but expectant attention. Without further ado, you line up the needle with your upper thigh. There’s a hiss (from you) and a hiss (from the cursed concoction escaping its glassy prison and into your fleshy one) and a hum (from your Queen).

“There, now. Was that so difficult?” she asks in a tone that already implies the answer. It grows more serious afterwards, the fond, if distant maternal teasing traded for concern. “If you feel your worsening sleep is consistent with attempting these experiments, I expect you to inform me sooner than later, so that we can adjust.”

Delicately, you place the drained syringe on the tray. “I think it’s just my normal nightmares. Uh, maybe a bit more warped, bit more vivid than when we started, but that’s all. Not enough of an excuse to stop trying to make it work, I think.”

"How have you fared with the latest strain?" she asks, and before you can answer: “Show me.”

Way to put you on the spot all of a sudden. At least three(ish) semesters at Atlas Academy taught you all about sloughing out of bed in a rush after a restless night so you can humiliate yourself with a failure to perform in front of your teacher. Actually– Wait, no, that emotion’s great, you’re going to need that here in a second.

You lock your right arm in at a tight angle and stock up a deep breath. Doing this is as much about pushing in spirit as much as it is in body. That prickly sentiment just now, that resentment, you grab a hold of it inside and clamp down on it, lower lip bitten, grunting unglamorously all the while.

One of the first signs something’s happening at all is the way your latent Aura begins to peel back from around your hand like a candy bar wrapper. Temporarily lost is that close layer of protection you’ve worn since you were just a frightened child in that cold blue prison they called a mansion, and in its place comes something new.

(‘Do not be afraid of it. You can, should, must feed it your fears, yet you cannot fear it outright’ – It’s one of the first pointers she drilled into you – ‘Fear it, and it will take rather than create, take more than you could ever hope to control. Fear it, and it will not retreat on your order.’)

Fractions of an inch at a time, your fingertips begin to blacken as if charred by flame, your veins standing out the strongest as the darkness trickles down their winding routes.

Being miffed at a past, grueling school life in such a nonspecific sense is enough to kick up a few starting sparks, not enough to really accomplish anything without substantial fuel. Within yourself, you grip hard over something more weighty, something with some emotional mass and close at hand.

(‘The Dark Brother birthed Grimm with a hunger for all negative sentiment, but anger and hate are supreme in this regard. You are a woman who has long suppressed her anger. At Remnant’s unjust societies, at her own circumstances, at the hateful world and heartless gods which brought these things about. Your wellspring is vast. You need only learn to safely siphon it.’)

Even if that miserable flashback of the night you fell keeps coming back around, if nothing else you’ll be able to keep feeding it to this profane flame in the empty space outside your soul. You stoke that flame with the dream you just escaped, the memory more painful than any amount of tearing, reshaping flesh could ever be.

Unfortunately, tapping that bloody wound in your memory might as well be chucking an entire crate of Burn Dust on a campfire.

A tidal swell of searing darkness boils up out of your pores, creating a sweltering layer on top of the skin of your hand, coverage traveling a third of the way down your forearm. Speckled red stars burst at the corner of your vision. Both seeping from and gloving your fingers, the new mass stretches further, distended for all that you can feel them as your own – knifelike claws mercilessly piercing through where your nails would've been, hard plates of bone layered on top of these stolen knuckles, and even a jagged protrusion struggling to edge outward from your ulna.

For all of a few seconds.

Beads of sweat dotting your brow, you yelp when your concentration and resolve falter at once, and the entire summoned assembly seems to shudder. Shit, that was– Okay, don’t use the dream, not so soon. Salem’s words echo in the back of your mind, and you grab them, hammer them into your forebrain; this might not be working, but you are not afraid of it. You don’t fear it. It can retreat, will, because you demand it do so. It’s your fucked-up body, damn it!

Left rasping and unsuccessful, you let go of that immaterial clot of bad vibes, and your discolored flesh begins to rapidly recede, leaving just a couple mild, blotchy burned-looking patches. Your Aura’s already crawling back in to heal them good as new, now that those hungry tides are returning to the sea of dark deep within, and carrying the black hide and plating – already down to meager kitten-claw prickles of bone – along with it. Back into the complicated domain of your body, until dragged out into daylight again.

From experience, you logically know you won’t be scolded for this, but it still feels like failing Salem. Which patently sucks. A few haggard breaths later, and you dare meet her eyes a moment across the remote connection. "Just–Khm. Only a claw, bit of bone plate, maybe good for one or two swipes in an emergency? But–pfhah, but nothing else, can’t do any… eyes, ears, wings or anything like that, I’m sorry..."

Salem nods sagely. "You do not need to be sorry, Marigold, you need to be determined. I trust you’ll overcome this limitation, in time. That’s not to say I wish you to injure yourself unnecessarily with excessive practice; that would entirely defeat the purpose of imparting an ability to better ensure your safety, am I wrong?”

Sounds logical enough, no faults detected on your end. You give your right arm some firm shakes and limply waggle your hand to get the blood flowing again, stir up some sensation outside the Aura influx. “No, Ma’am, and I won’t. I just wish I had more to show for it. You’ve done so much for me, I don’t want to let you down... especially if I can’t make it work at all.”

“My expectations aren’t set so highly that I’m blinded to the realities of research; experimentation always carries a risk of failure, even in the rare case of a such an eager subject. While it would be remiss of us both not to capitalize on your unique circumstances, I’ll remind you that affecting this power so early wasn’t a facet of the original plan. Our timetable remains generous, but not infinite – not for you, at least, mortal as you are. We must utilize your time on Remnant with all due appreciation of its value, and should that mean abandoning this pursuit, we will."

On the other end of the connection, something crackling like an angry spinal column distracts her briefly, time you put to use pulling yourself back into composure. Whatever failure’s happened with her less-cooperative experiments downstairs gives Salem a clipped, but not unkind tone as she looks to you again.

“Now, I understand you’ve plans of your own, today. I have no new tasks to assign you, though naturally, you’ll still report to me in the evening, correct?” It goes without saying, but your Queen is a die-hard fan of making those things be said nonetheless.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll be back up here at sundown.”

“I very much look forward to it. I’ll receive you in the study. Dress, and be on your way, now.” The connection between the Seers is cut, Salem’s image unraveling into a milky red smoke.

It’s as close to a 'love ya, baby-bluebird, have a nice day' as you'll expect to get out of a woman as consistently formal as her, especially while she’s bogged down with her work. But you’ve had over a year to get to know her communication style, its quirks, its subtleties, to be able to mine out precious gems of genuine sentiment from under millennia of melancholic debris.

You’d never claim you can read her perfectly, not even well, and doubt there’s any mortal on Remnant who could, much less compare themselves side-by-side to her; Salem’s an entire library unto herself, and you’re just a sauce-stained take-out menu from a one-and-a-half-star pizza joint. Even so, you both seem unconcerned with the asymmetry of your... relationship.

And what an odd relationship it is: the sort of thing that catches one by surprise even when they watch it screaming towards them for months on end before the impact. From the way Salem smoothly entered your personal space – ground you gladly yielded – to the way she so-affectionately touched you – ditto – and the way she spoke to you as if you were something precious beyond your unwanted bloodline, billions, and body, that there was still more you could do for the world, more you could be for yourself, for her... You really should’ve seen it coming.

Not that you think anyone ever really anticipates losing their virginity to the Queen of the Damned.

(Or that the Queen of the Damned can cuddle.)

You intently refuse to pull on the stray logic-thread pondering whether she could – if she ever bore children beyond Ozma’s at any point in time – still somehow be your great great infinity-times-great grandmother. This is on the grounds that if you have to start utilizing carbon dating to archaeologically determine where someone sits on the family tree, it’s basically open season.

Whilst you ponder, the long, painstaking scavenger hunt is underway: Comfy high-waisted brown shorts, a warm ‘n fuzzy fleece cardigan a few shades lighter, meant to be layered over a plain grey V-neck. Your leather boots were at least neatly arranged by the door, and you’d prefer your past self to stop her childish rebellion against old Academy dorm-inspection policy and revert back to neatly folding her things without fail – chastisement that present-you never seems to recall when she just wants to throw herself at the mattress.

Minus one warm black thigh-high sock lost amid furniture of similar shades – may its sacrifice not be forgotten – you’ve checked off the whole list, and weave your way through a stray chair, ottoman, and the tea table, and over towards the washroom with your clothing bundle in hand.

A bundle which immediately proceeds to scatter across the floor again as you feel a jagged, organic squeeze in your stomach. Stumbling through the threshold into the darker room, you grasp for the edge of the ornate, fluted sink to stabilize yourself.

One particular worry begins to dawn on you, but it soon subsides along with the pain in a few more seconds – Okay, just a bit of leftover discomfort from your daily medicine and testing your emergency-claw, and not that less manageable, prolonged experience that comes around about as regularly as those recurring dreams.

Had you been a ‘conventional’ girl, it’d likely-as-not mean having periods to deal with. You, on the other hand, semi-regularly endure stints wherein a rebellious, roiling mass of primordial darkness intermittently cobra-strangles your intestines until you want to do little but writhe on the floor and wretch, or curl up into a ball, bloated and irritable, maybe devour half the castle larder (edible or otherwise) simply to smother the crawling void, or just plain want to hit something. All the while, vile eldritch ichor seeps out from your body unbidden, at the worst of times, and from all the worst sorts of places.

Anyway, as you've been made to understand from testimony, it's pretty close to the real thing. Small victories, right...? Luckily, this doesn’t seem to be one of those days, although it’s been long enough you’ll be staying on guard. You haven’t quite gotten the knack of tracking the pattern, assuming there even is one. Can’t exactly use one of those apps for your scroll, either – unless they’ve invented one tailored for a Grimmstrual cycle while you weren’t looking.

Nudging your fallen clothes aside with your foot for now, you crank open the hot water faucet, raise your head and get a good gaze at yourself in the mirror.

Mirrors don’t send you cowering quite as often as they used to. For a while there, it became less about scathing dysphoric body-shape pangs or disappointment at a lack of changes, and more about fearing you’d find the whites of your eyes disappearing beneath encroaching dark like a victim of the Chill, or skin bleached and flecked with sneaky chunks of chitin, sewn in with thread of black-blood veins.

(It’s a look that works great for Salem, just not on you.)

You pull down an eyelid and find their sclera still intact. A tad bloodshot, sure, possibly a fraction grayer around those pools of gold, but no more than you can blame on the dim lighting and your own paranoia. Skin’s been a bit paler too, which is saying something given your Atlesian heritage, but nothing that couldn’t be waved away as a mild case of anemia. Your fingernails growing in faster, pesky and somewhat sharp, isn’t that much of an issue when you’re prone to the anxious tic of biting at them, anyway. You open your jaws wide, and find no fangs, for better or worse.

Nope, you’re still human. Or, as human as most Kingdoms will allow someone like you to be, which isn’t much, but a half-notch above any of the actual Grimm you’re living with.

On the brighter side, your surly ‘just-woke-up’ face has gotten softer around the edges this last year, paving over some sharper, jutting places with a friendly layer of fatty tissue. The same can be said further down; you didn’t squeeze into that sports bra for the fun of it, or the sake of wishful thinking. Wishful thinking doesn’t wobble oddly when you sprint, or squish uncomfortably when you lie a certain way. Things are mainly the same for your silhouette further down. It’s not very much curvaceousness that Salem’s helped you steal from the jaws of the genetic lottery, but it’s measurable, an ongoing battle.

Some facets haven’t changed, though you desperately wish they would, but modifying them carries a kind of risk you’re not ready to handle – and that’s coming from you, a girl who just drank and/or injected what’s tantamount to instant-death juice for nearly all of Remnant’s population.

Understanding of your desires but conscientious of your safety, Salem’s kept her offer open, but warned you of the sorts of gory eventualities that could come with attempting to crunch down your skeleton to shave off some height, screw around with your larynx to have a crack at those vocal cords, or even try and fix your– Well, you don’t even want to think about that part.

Instead, you’ve been forced to try and find positives to which you can cling; height that gives you an advantage tracking observation targets in the crowd, more reach in certain combat styles. Sturdier shoulders to brace a weapon. A once-brash voice manually honed into something smoother while on that quest for a kinder pitch, now sultry as the wisps of smoke off burning incense. You’ve never been an optimist, but you won’t squander what peace you can scrape together.

Realizing you’ve been wasting water this entire time, finally as steaming hot as you like it, you splash some on your face, brush back the curtain of hair that now settles on your shoulders, and begin a belated effort to freshen up for the day.

Preliminary estimates would’ve placed the man as dropping down with a lunging stab right into the first foot you dare set outside Salem’s bedroom door. Instead, it’s not until you take a right through the archway to the grand stairwell that Callows decides to make a nuisance of himself.

This song and dance has become ingrained as another one of your new life’s routines, to the point the legitimate, instinctive terror of being assaulted by a sadistic killer is now held at bay behind a tempered glass wall of annoyance.

After the very first narrow escape, the very first time he’d well and truly been coming for blood, you’d stood in the center of your room and broke down in anxious, manic tears. Now, as another attack unfolds, you audibly groan that you’ll be another minute late to breakfast. At this point, you’ve learned more of the faunus’ combat style through attempted murder than you’ve picked up from any of the others in a genuine spar.

“Tchah!” Tyrian pries his lethal tailtip back up out of the stone floor, and the perfectly good maroon rug he’s just ruined in the hopes of being rid of you. Gravel and fabric shreds are tossed every-which-way as he waves the appendage around. “Oh, poo. You’ve spoiled the first of my gifts! Always so ungrateful, this one.”

Maybe you should’ve burned some Aura to keep your Semblance running the entire trip downstairs, especially with such a light day planned, but it’s too late now; he’s gotten what he was waiting for, a chance to heckle you. “Do I even want to know what the next gift was? That’s rhetorical; I don’t, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Why, an apology, in fact! For my own inadequacies!” Tyrian springs up straight and enacts a deep, formal, unsettlingly familiar Atlesian bow. “For you see, little insect, the fact that you persist yet another year in this world is a personal failing on my part. You – and much more importantly, our Goddess – have my solemn word I shall not let it happen again.”

Somehow, you’ve had worse birthday presents than these. “Hang on. You literally jumped me in the middle of my late-morning walk of shame, and you still think Salem’s gonna be thrilled if I get killed off?” His insane logic is always good for a laugh, and you give him a cold one as you lean back against the archway. “You think she’s going to pat you on the head and say, ‘well done?’ You’d be lucky if she even gave you a running start out of the castle.”

“Do not utter her true name so blithely! What exactly qualifies YOU to speak for our Goddess’ whims, hm?”

Your stare’s unassuming while you tilt your head in gesture to the bedchambers' doorway down the hall, voice violently calm. For all he's done to be a very sharp thorn in your side, a sadistic, evil wretch, you are absolutely about to go savage on this man. You are going to cut him to the quick and keep cutting. You're about to end this man's whole career:

“Well, I get to keep a toothbrush in there. Do you?”

Damn, that really tweaks his tail – he flinches as if physically struck, and curses in wordless fury. Where he’s standing, Tyrian is cutting off your escape route down the spiraling stairs. You’re unarmed and unarmored, and your control over any Grimm-tricks in your system remains childish at best. You’ve scraped together enough skill that you’ll have little trouble escaping once he’s off his guard, but you need to get him to draw first. Gotta push him over the edge again, which, given his psych profile, will be a breeze: he falls for the crude, suggestive implications the hardest.

“And have I mentioned our Goddess knows what my tonsils taste like? Because...”

That did it: the scorpion faunus draws his stinger into a coil, and drops into a low lunge. Time for another reflex test courtesy of Professor Callows; you can’t spring too early, you have to wait until just the moment he’s committed to his vector, his push-off. Right as he does, you ignite your Semblance at the last second and dive into a low, somersaulting dodge underneath the decisive arc of his swing.

Displeased that he can’t feel a fresh, gurgling Marigold corpse weighing down the end of his stinger, Tyrian flips around and tries to bait you back into engagement range: “Tsk-tsk-tsk, saying such naughty, nasty things about Her Grace so freely; it wants to be a female so badly, it’s behaving like a bitch in heat! No wonder I can still smell its stench…”

Not that it doesn’t ache from six different angles to hear such vileness leveled at you (and you really do want to uncloak and unload a salvo of reasons why you’re infinitely less replaceable than him) but you’ve matured into a professional who understands the meaning of restraint, unlike some other agents of the inner circle. You hold your tongue as you creep backwards towards the stairs and out of reach.

Denied any usable results from his taunt, Tyrian’s clenched arms and searching eyes burn rancid with that sick, poison purple, and he slices again, a diagonal cut striking empty air a whole four feet to your right, and scarring a crystal-lined wall with a spatter of sparks.

Thankfully, despite his goading, scorpion faunus are nowhere near as gifted in the art of scent-tracking as faunus of canid subspecies – the fact you’re still wearing last night’s clothes and had a sweaty nightmare might’ve been a problem if so. For now, you keep backing up, and backing up.

Except then your clumsy ass stumbles backwards towards nothingness, because you’d forgotten you were searching for the stairs, genius. Yes. Brilliant performance from Salem’s new right hand-in-training this morning.

Set to flailing all of a sudden, you concentration lapses long enough for your Semblance to fizzle a bit, enough for Tyrian to get a glimpse, emphasized by his growl of frustration. You’ve got about three seconds before he stalks over here to murder you, and your escape options are limited.

Your most readily-available mode is also the most ridiculous, but still you grab for the bone-carved banister behind you and drop your butt onto it, shoving hard and letting gravity take care of the rest. It is your sincerest prayer that being escaped in such an absurdly childish way frustrates Callows to the point of having an ulcer.

On one hand, you’ve dodged a painful mauling. On the other hand, the steep, carved-bone banister of Evernight’s grand staircase is very knobbly, and you are experiencing pain in your ass proportionally equivalent to the time you just had to waste on a pain-in-the-ass second-rate cultist. It might actually be sparking Aura.

Many floors later, when it becomes apparent your assailant has given up his hunt for the day and isn’t coming after you, you go ahead and hop off again, shambling out into the ground floor corridor just off the Grand Hall.

Leading her own one-woman parade accompanied by a few of the castle rats and a snake draped like a lazy boa around her neck, Ciara Bécuille can only snicker when you bumble into her path. A few of those rats, with the telltale wispy white eyes of her Semblance, skitter away before you step on them.

“Whats all the rushing, lass, big day for your birthday?" Ciara then reels to the side, flicking her lip ring, making a note of how you’re bitterly rubbing your rear. “Or, big night, rather?”

You bite out a curt noise of disdain. “No, that was Tyrian’s fault.”

Ciara feigns surprise, solely to be a smarmy shit, and even her scarf-snake seems to recoil its head. “Didn’t know ye swung that way, but awright, kiddo, just be usin’ protection, chase yer bliss!”

“Escaping from him!” You know she’s just screwing with you, but even in jest, you can’t abide that mental image. “And all the more reason I need dibs on the forges today, if I want something to keep him at a distance for good.”

“D’aww! Lookit you, finally beefing up your dear, dull ol’ toothpick after all this time! Gimmie the inside scoop; what’cha gonna make, who all’re you plannin’ to kill with it? Because if Creepy Crawly Callows really bites a bullet first, I’ve got a wager t’collect on.”

Does anybody at this castle like that man? “I’d prefer not to go that far, but I get the feeling the votes are in, since Her Grace said nearly the same thing about him just a few minutes ago.”

Groaning, Ciara rolls her eyes so hard her head moves with them; she’s always groaned about your laundry list of formal titles for Salem, probably having assumed you’d land on her end of the casual disrespect spectrum. In a well-worn exasperation, Ciara pulls her usual stunt: muttering a smarmy string of old language in her lilting brogue and jabbing you with a stout thump to the chest, while she shakes her head, disappointed.

One can’t help but wonder just how badly you’re getting roasted, and you’ve long been split on whether you should waste time digging into that amateur language primer on your scroll to pick up a few words, although you’d bet they all amount to ‘Just Shoot Me Now, The Lass Is Back On Her Shite Again.’

When you stand there silently rather than razzing her right back, Ciara takes note of you looking at the fingers she’s poked you with, and cheekily zips them upward, flicking your forehead. N’okay, you had that one coming.

“Snrk. Made ya look. Anyways, need to crack on, m’self.” She hefts the thick nylon toolbag she’s carrying for emphasis, which adds its own clinky metallic rattle. “Checked yer scroll today?”

Having forgotten to even check your pockets after rescuing your shorts, the answer’s obvious. “Not yet, no.” You flip it open to discover only the castle’s local connection, no interkingdom signal.

“Thought not. It’s Arty’s fault, really; lazy muppet’s never keeping up the upkeepin’ on that crap CCT rig. Keeps shortin’ out at the worst times like it’s got a mind to spite me, and a gal’s got business needs done! Fixing t’head up there and bang on it ‘til it's workin' or he comes up to stop me. Gonna wish he’d been doin’ the legwork himself, useless feckin’ eejit.”

“Hey, I mean, he’s a pain but he’s not... all bad,” you insist, followed by immediate mental whiplash from the sheer unfamiliarity of actually defending him, of all people.

The mage hits you with an exasperated look. “Are you still on ‘bout the tea thing?”

No, you are not ‘still on ‘bout the tea thing,’ though it had, admittedly, contributed.

Ciara’d been there as well, that night some months ago when you’d shuffled by the kitchens to grab a protein bar before heading up to Salem’s floor. Unsurprisingly, they’d been bickering: Ciara with some chemically-irresponsible Aura-replenishment drink, and Watts taking his proper evening refreshment.

“–that the beverage you are denouncing is a luxurious single-estate Atlas Schwarztee with bergamot.”

“Don’t smell any different t’me. ‘Tea,’ really, buncha pomp. S’all just hot leaf water, isn’t it?”

What recklessness compelled you to butt in, you cannot say. “I don’t know, Schwarztee may not be my favorite, but I always thought it was pretty relaxing, maybe even more than Kamillen. Usually took rosepetals in mine, though.”

“Finally,” Watts had snapped, callously flapping a hand your way whilst glaring at the mage. “You see, this is precisely my point; any Atlesian woman can comprehend the quality at first blush, but you Valish and your inferior standards for–"

Their squabbling continued apace even after you’d moved on, but you remember the mental slip well: the first time Watts deigned to acknowledge your femininity, even if only as a prop in an argument. It was a sign you’d gotten your foot in the door, unintentionally wedging your way into Watts’ good – well, not ‘good’ graces, into his neutral graces, despite your stark differences.

Plus, on those long, boring airship trips to some convoluted mission together, ragging on certain mutual acquaintances, stuffy socialites, and quirks of upper-Atlesian culture helps the hours go by. Any conversation that isn’t explicitly hostile moves things along, and is often preferable to dead silence.

Hell – this once, after a disastrously close call of a North Vacuan artifact heist, you, Watts, and Hazel’d somehow bantered nearly the entire exfiltration flight home talking about little else but the finer points of cheesemaking.

The cockpit of the stolen Manta was smaller than you were used to, a scout model snapped up for expediency. It was an unnecessary hassle for the three of you to squeeze in at once, especially when Hazel’s the size of an entire conventional family model unto himself, but the ship’s internal heating took a hit in the escape, and it was all the three of you could do to cluster around the single, rinky-dink Burn Dust camping heater propped up on the console.

Hazel had the helm, and you slouched against the back of the chair, only getting a slim view of the cold night horizon over his shoulder. To your right, Watts sat with legs casually crossed in the co-pilot’s seat, cordless soldering iron in hand. He occupied himself making sizzly, sparky repairs to a blocky power converter, adding a whiff of melted plastics and wiring to the burnt, dry-air aroma of the heater.

Nevermind your broken Aura, bloodied waist-wrap of bandages, or the ‘what-comes-next’ of reporting only a half-success to Salem – out of all topics, and purely because you’d passed some old, desiccated foodstuffs in the compound ruins’ larder and snarked about taking some with you as you fled – you all began bickering about fucking cheese.

“Just saying. Stuff I’ve got in the castle basement’s always served just fine.” Hazel reached over the controls to resettle the heating unit, which had begun to rattle with the patch of turbulence you’d hit. “No need t’get showy about it.”

Watts, three-time Land of Darkness regional eyerolling champ, attempted to defend his title. “Yes, because a neanderthal such as yourself couldn’t be bothered to ponder new possibilities. A former colleague over in the biological sciences once suggested enhanced bacterial cultures might perform the work of years aging in a cellar over mere weeks. Moreover, you’re only cooking with it – not appreciating it strictly upon its own merit.”

Disinclined to endure Watts’ rant about hyperbacterial ultracheese, Hazel deflected it off to you, so he could better focus on steering a wide berth around the Ravager flock on the radar. “Mrm. Y’got a cheese take, girl?”

Uh? You were a pasty-white, blue-blooded daughter of Atlesian aristocracy; of course you had a cheese take. That society might not’ve cared about getting your body right, but no way would they have let you off the assembly line if you didn’t come with profound cheese opinions built-in.

“Cave-aged, all the way.” You slid closer to the tight inner aisle, and bit back a grunt when you agitated a fresh sprain from the final divebomb of a very determined Great Sphinx. You were still a little dizzy, lips loosened by moderate blood loss and a possible concussion.

“My parents once had a wine-and-cheese tasting – not sure if you got an invite for this one, Artypants – and brought up this 20-year cave-aged Cantal vieux from Vale? Ruined all other Cantal for me. If Jacques weren’t already a walking pile of blood money with a shit ‘stache, he could turn a profit off those spent mine tunnels instead of closing ‘em off – Just start aging down there en masse, make it a whole subsidiary. Call it Schnee’s Cheese.”

There was a minor jiggling of the seat you leaned on, consistent with a silent exhale of exasperated amusement from your massive pilot. Meanwhile, Watts briefly turned an exhausted eye on you, up from his steaming electronic scrap. “Of all the Marigold wives and daughters I met in my Atlas years, no other was this obnoxious. Congratulations. It still boggles the mind how you can behave this way in comparison.”

“I grew up a closet case in Atlas, and my only female role models are a Grimm-blood witch and a lady who gives vermin free rides in her clothes. Statistically, I’m the tamest woman you work with.”

“Hrmf. Touché.”

Hazel gave one of those low, bristly hums. “Actually got ‘im to admit he was wrong? That’s rare.”

“I said, ‘touché,’” Watts scoffed, “I’m not awarding her a scholarship over it.”

These days, far more importantly than taking a bit of the tension out of mission cooperation, having Watts no longer gunning for you lets you turn your constant hypervigilance down to just plain vigilance. Lets you know you’re down to only one castle cohabitant liable to stab you in the back at breakfast.

Speaking of, and further reminding you how peckish you are now that the conversation’s winding down, Ciara keeps on talking as she shimmies past you and takes her leave.

“Oh, an’ for the record, Rainart’s been on another of ‘is kitchen benders, made one of those big-arse everything-quiches. Said nobody’s touching ‘til the birthday gal gets first cut, so might’cha kindly waddle on down there before I snap and throw hands over an egg pie?”

Ciara flaps a two-fingered salute over her shoulder, and in lieu of waving back to her when she can’t see it, you address it to another of the wispy-eyed rats trailing in her wake. It’ll pass the message along.

Freed from the attention of friends and foes, you’re left alone in the musty corridor with your rumpled, day-old outfit, and a solidifying itinerary: Rushed shower, work clothes without makeup, food, forge, shower-again-with-your-fancy-soaps, cuter clothes and very makeup, Salem time.

Not a single whiff of an unwanted party, no descending stormcloud of limousine airships, no champagne you were too young to even drink, no fake laughs to mask internal screams, no lengthy handshakes with strangers who assume they aren’t but are. No toasts. No man of the hour. No my handsome son, patriot, future specialist, future face of the Marigold line. No thunderous applause like machine gun fire, lighting you up on the stairs. There’s not even a proper cake.

This is winding up to be, by default, the best birthday you’ve ever had.

Chapter Text

High up in Salem’s private study, there is a wide, empty patch of flooring just beyond the fireplace sitting area.

All the bookshelves hug tighter to the walls than elsewhere if not seamlessly built into them entirely, fewer elaborate tapestries adorn the walls, fewer lecterns to knock over. Marble statues and antique cabinets have all been pushed back as far as they’ll go. The clean wooden floors and rugs end at a straight border, exchanged again for Evernight’s ever-familiar stone.

Square in the middle of that empty space on the flat stone floor is where you’ve found yourself tonight. Salem is there as well, pacing an almost-perfect circle around you in irregular loops, start-stop-starting as she wishes. All the while, you’re set to swinging your sword in frighteningly tight confines, stance after stance.

Originally, after you’d washed off the grime of a sweaty day spent toiling in the workshop, arguing with the Elder Geist powering the forges – for the official record, Hephaestus remains a persnickety little bitch to anyone who isn’t the late forgemaster – you intended to end your 20^th birthday by changing into some classy, but comfortable clothes and popping on some light makeup for a quaint evening shared upstairs with Salem.

Instead, the message came down that she wished to see the fruits of your labor, your development, your new weapon and gear. And hey, if your sometimes-inscrutable liege wants it, shit, that’s your plan for the rest of the day.

You just… really wish she’d’ve let you show off down in the sparring room, is the thing? If the limited space in the back of the study full of antiquities weren’t bad enough, the circle your Queen walks as she observes you charts out a very snug and inconsistent boundary for where you should be slashing sharp objects. It constrains your motions excruciatingly tight, measured, never sloppy, not a step out of place.

(You’re well-aware that’s absolutely the point, it’s just making you anxious.)

The sword you’re whipping around is no longer that hunk of scrap you’d taken up for the Academy; that bland, nameless broadsword, with its low-effort Dust-compatible rifle receiver grafted in. That shitheap was fed eagerly to the fires of the forge, its complicated emotional background melting down right along with the metal, made molten and pliable and unrecognizable as its former self. It received no funeral.

At first, you’d sought to sprint as far away from swords as you could, to find another martial niche. Blunt weapons, full-sized two-handers, they all seemed so slow and burly – and, sad as it is to admit how badly the world’s stereotypes still grate at you, masculine.

Polearms like staves, you’d seen (and felt) being put to good use back in school, but too cumbersome for dueling in tight confines. Daggers, katars, wrist-blades, all better suited for your stealth specialization, but lack reach.

Things got so dire you started trawling hours upon hours of Vytal Festival rerun footage for ideas to poach. In the end, you’d found yourself circling back to swordplay for the base weapon, coming from a fresh angle.

Ever since you tried to break away from your parents through learning the sword to become a ‘military huntsman,’ your experience had solely been with those big, clunky two-edged blades borne by chivalrous knights of eld. Nowadays you refuse to compromise on versatility, speed, the option of a nonlethal edge, tricks up your sleeve.

After all, you were forced to admit, it’s not just Grimm you’ll be hunting anymore.

Gripped tighter than is necessary, you execute a swift double-slash just inches beside the bun of Salem’s hair, and return your new weapon to its resting stance.

A straight and sturdy, single-edged hunting sword, metal alloy processed with a golden sheen across its telescoping blade, reversible knuckle-guard, and Dust-activation trigger. The rest of the hilt wears less flashy blacks ‘n blues for the most part, save a few bits of bright ornamentation. It’s been extended to allow incidental two-handing if need be, thoroughly leather-bound for extra padding and grip, save for the hinge used to fold into a small stock for the ranged mode.

You’re already anxious enough of cutting something by accident, so you’ve got the safety locked for its Dust array, lest nicking a bookshelf turn to a vibrating blade shredding through varnished wood like butter, blasting it with the elements, or projecting a repelling force when there’s no bullet to deflect, just a bunch of highly-breakable trinkets. Worst of all, if you grazed your Queen.

Locked to the attach points on your left hip hangs the rest of the assembly – the sheath, a tall and lengthy octagonal prism. Only the very bottom of the ranged mode’s adaptable grip disrupts the clean silhouette for ease of access, whereas the bolt handle, Dust magazine, bipod, all such things are tucked away, the hard-light scope switched off, the suppressor inbuilt for space.

You’ve already shown Salem the simplified, lightweight transformations – sword collapsed down to a short machete, a tug on the rifle grip ejecting a condensed and conventional silenced pistol from the larger receiver, for any lower stakes wetwork.

However, her Grace seemed more interested in your swordplay, so (with only a dollop of disappointment) you’ve foregone flaunting the pièce de résistance, the fully combined transformation – an illegally-replicated, dubiously-modified prototype Atlesian accelerator rifle.

Because when one is as powerful as Salem, you probably don’t get wowed by your subordinate’s dinky lil’ alternating Gravity-Lightning Dust coil, or the nitty gritty of electrokinetic propulsion, or her rifle’s adaptability for nonstandard munitions, or even by said subordinate cloaking over on the castle’s crystal-edged parapets, and messily exploding the skulls of migrating Teryxes on the far end of the valley in dead silence.

Even if you… maybe might’ve hoped for a little extra praise about that part? Is that vain of you?

After all, it was your very first trial-run job that let you steal the data drive that would be discovered to contain such advanced, unfinished Atlesian weapon schematics! Concepts The Esteemed General James Ironwood himself vetoed for being too prohibitively costly and inefficient for mass deployment. Ones you burned a lot of free time learning to reverse engineer, building off the basic skills his own best people’d been teaching you, no less!

When your motions spin it to catch light from the fireplace, the sheath’s plating gleams a deep, abyssal blue just a firm stone’s throw from black, save for the brilliant yellow engravings you’d added for flair. Not at all pragmatic, but something you felt an implacable urge to add.

You’re no artist, so you’d found a smalltime Valish illustrator on the CCTS who specializes in designs for professional huntresses. You paid handsomely, and anonymously, in exchange for the art and template files for both your weapon and your shiny new personal emblem.

Lining the thinner, inward-angled edges of the sheath, the gilded engraving comes in long measures of musical notation, a classical, tragic Kingdom of Mantle opera dirge running down the length, and right up near the trigger? That’s where you’ve emblazoned your emblem.

Honoring Salem’s place in your new life while also ripping freely from your family crest, you’ve brazenly crunched them together with a nod to your Semblance – a sharp, stylized, half-lidded eye in the process of falling shut, unseeing, wreathed with an asymmetrical flurry of scattered marigold petals.

It’s no secret that the weapon’s still an aesthetic and mechanical clusterfuck, a work in progress. But she was something you created as yourself, for yourself, something you explored, something you clumsily forged from both whatever ideas you could desperately scrounge together, and the charitable aid of those who felt sorry for you.

Notably, the neutrality you’ve developed with Watts paid dividends here. First, letting you skim classified data he’d harvested off those Atlesian military R&D drives for the promising schematics to begin with. Then, in arranging your theft of specialist-grade components to implement them, and – once you appealed to his ego in flaunting one Dr. Pietro Polendina’s critique of the concept’s viability – Watts’ spite-fueled tutoring on how to make your crazy plan work.

Costly, haphazard, irresponsible, highly liable to blow up in your face someday – but maybe, just this once, you wanted to play the spoiled little Atlesian princess you never quite got to be. You aren’t a huntress, but the old adage still holds true about a proper weapon being an extension of the self. Maybe you wanted to stop denying yourself and be greedy, to look at the most unwieldy, forbidden option held just out of your reach and still say, ‘gimmie.’

For technical spec purposes, she’s been designated a SLAB, or, ‘Stealth Linear Accelerator Blade,’ but you don’t care much about the formal scrawl on some sheet of paper in Watts’ lab – that’s not her name.

Because the truly corrupt of this world, those who’ve gouged their own hearts out to make space for more power, they tend to develop a certain overconfidence. A subconscious presumption that they are inherently beyond the inevitability of consequence. Wallowing in their perceived impunity, they often come to view themselves as the untouchable gods of their own little worlds.

Whether it’s an abusive parent, or a CEO, a bandit, a general, a wizard, or even a deity, they’ve forgotten consequence, and forgotten death. You’ve been chosen as the blade of the Queen who seeks to remind them, and your own blade is that ideal made manifest: In the end, all will fall the same – even witches, even Gods.

She’s your Danse Macabre.

“Excellent form,” Salem hums, “continue.” Every now and again, on one of her closer passes, she grazes a hand across your back, your bicep, fingers trailing almost playfully across the sleek, deep grey-blue surface of your new aramid-fiber combat gear.

Only a hair less recent of an acquisition than your weapon, adjusting to the armor will take time, the unexpected ways it strains and squeezes as you twirl and jab Danse’s tip just shy of a decorative vase. The suit’s optimally insulated and padded for protection, or so the manufacturer says, despite the inner layer’s stupid kitchen-shrinkwrap cling over your barely-there curves.

As embarrassing as it’d been shimmy-squeezing into that first military surplus suit for your initiation, you’ve ultimately surrendered to the strange utility of tactical bodysuits. There was a lot of bluster about stealth efficiency in the field, but the first and foremost rationale being your body undergoing such changes in shape, and so frequently, that something tailored to a more exacting standard could be ill-fitting in just months. Meanwhile, tight ‘n stretchy is at least kinda stretchy.

The suit’s not the sole source of the cramping and scrunching, though; half the blame goes to the absolute chaos of the upper and lower harnesses. All these belts, golden buckles and clasps, the Dust pouches and magnetic gear attach points, threaded beneath the lightweight, cutoff tac-vest you’re wearing as the world’s most bulletproof crop top.

At least your gloves ‘n boots are straightforward. Elbow-length and thigh-high respectively, dark leather with nylon vents, inbuilt elbow- and kneepads, only a few clasps to deal with, and absolutely no heels on the latter. Sure, heels’re gender affirming, but does that affirmation outweigh the value of having efficient sound-dampening high-grip soles instead? Not in your world.

It’s warm enough in here with the fireplace, then adding the heat of your exertion, that you left your ash-grey travel shawl downstairs with a disorganized pile of discretionary accessories. Plus, it’s not like you need to disguise just how much milspec hardware you’re wearing or shield from the rain. It still came out looking nice, in your opinion – your new emblem stencil-sprayed onto its single pauldron.

The foremost, unnecessary aesthetic add-on you’ve brought with you has become a recurring character in much of your mission gear. The same, sentimental reminder of your sordid history, of where you’d been the day you met Salem: that old, ratty orange trash-scarf you brought up with you from rock bottom, you’ve taken to tying around your bicep now and again, or rarely, around your neck.

You don’t know how Salem feels about the cheesiness, and you’ve never asked, but you know she sees it as you run your sword-forms and she scrutinizes your every motion, Her Grace only an inch from the expected reach of Danse Macabre.

All the sudden spins and turns, the swift and decisive movements, weaving around one another in a lazy circle – only the blade and your twitchy compensations keep this from feeling the same as any of the other times you two’ve danced in this very room, her one hand on your waist and the other holding yours, the steps timeless. There wasn’t any need for music, save the time you popped out your scroll and offered some, much to her perpetually-muted amusement.

Tonight, you arrived just as the sun was making its dive beneath the horizon. It’s pitch dark out now, the vibrant spill of sunset wiped up neatly, only the moon, its shards and the stars left loitering.

Salem has watched you in full silence for roughly half your improvised demo, aside from idle observations on your form. Even when she finally speaks again, she continues circling, gesturing for you to keep it up.

“In little more than a year’s time, you’ve come quite the long way. You have adapted to the initial changes, to your body and lifestyle. You’ve traveled Remnant, spied from the shadows, started to witness the true extent of Ozma’s carelessness firsthand. You’ve begun to blossom from a bud, refined. Your weapon has seen a rebirth, granting her a name at long last. I’m curious, however; have you considered a name for yourself?”

Rising slash. Falling slash. Your blade hums a curve around space Salem’s elbow had occupied a second prior. “A few, Ma’am. But most of them never stick, I keep getting caught up on meanings and colors. There’s one I’d been batting around since Atlas, but it’s... it’s pretty plain? Generic. I’m not sure if I want to go with it.” (Liar. You’ve felt it in your heart for years, you’re just scared to commit it to the open air.)

“Hm. Tell me,” she orders gently, an uncompromising imperative wrapped in fresh-fluffed cotton.

You pause, nervousness making your sword-arm lag in completing your passata soto movement, but eventually comply in a cracking voice. “I was thinking of trying out… May?”

“May,” Salem repeats, and as that single syllable bounces back in your Queen’s cool tone you feel more certain of your choice than ever. “May Marigold. Yes, a beautiful name, a strong spring name.”

Salem’s gaze and thoughts both drift down another path entirely, thinking aloud in contemplative murmurs. “But are you a Spring, or more of a Fall, I wonder? Your homeland bespeaks Winter, but...”

Clueless as to the tangent your Lady has taken, you stick to your own anxieties. Short sweep. Mock feint. “I just worry it might not fly with the others, if it isn’t perfect. ‘Marigold’ was one thing, ditching the other name, but asking them to call me something new that sounds wrong to them...“

“You worry they would refuse to understand you,” Salem says, skewering through to the point as sure as a lunge with Danse. “Not only my inner circle, but the powers-that-be who would still brand you a man. Worst of all, in your darkest days, you even fear this from yourself; irrational dread your soul could’ve incorrectly taken its own measure, even after all my gifts to you...“

Something within you begins to shrink, taking the split-second fear and running with it, the worry Salem thinks you’re being ungrateful, that she might take threaten to take it away.

“Calm yourself.” Salem bends a shoulder forward to avoid grazing Danse’s tip. “As it happens, I might have a gift to mark your birthday, after all – What would you say if I knew a way to release you from that fear, permanently? If I could offer you a form of certainty nearly as old as myself, that you must be what you feel you are?”

“Honestly? Probably ‘how,’ ‘please,’ and ‘thank you, Ma’am,’ in that order.”

Salem smiles at your candor. “In which case… I’d like to discuss another fairy tale.” The room’s shadows begin to shiver as she weaves a familiar spell, casting them across the wall in the outline of an old man in a cabin. “How familiar are you, May, with the Story of the Seasons? The Tale of the Four Maidens?”

Thing is, you’re actually pretty familiar, all except the part where it was actually real.

Being an Old Money family with Old Money expectations, the esteemed Marigold house of Atlas was expected to adhere to certain traditional behaviors and beliefs. Tenets upheld to maintain the facade of refinement, of honor and purity, all ever-present, and all skin-deep.

For the Marigolds, one such tenet took you and your family on a ride in a luxury airship down to The Holy Cathedral Basilica Of Our Broken Moon The Immaculate Brothers’ Blessing in Central Atlas every Sunday. Say that five times fast.

Sermons at Brother’s Blessing were bland beyond words can describe, some of the driest in the whole friggin’ Fraternist Orthodox Church, you’d wager. As a kid, you wondered if it could be a measure to prove how close you were to adulthood – gauged by how many minutes were left in the priest’s ranting before you finally conked out there in the pews. Mother would pinch you harder, and scowl at you deeper the earlier your willpower failed, so you had some extra incentive not to doze.

The only other incentive was when the boring old man in his boring old robes picked one of those stories that actually perked up your ears. Your favorites, understandably, were the Parables of the Maidens.

According to the priest, the Maidens – universally understood to be allegory rather than figures who truly lived – were described in legend as four descendants of the Gods’ own bloodline, divinely conceived as a gift for mankind. Thus, where faithful men might walk the paths set by the Brothers, their womenfolk may too have a righteous figure to emulate, and ensure they do not carelessly tarry into lives of idleness and sin.

A lot of the earliest parables were a bit namby-pamby in younger-you’s opinion; all about demonstrating how these allegorical Maidens were moral exemplars for women to follow in the household, and the way the priest told ‘em seemed so stuffy. It was always the ones where the Maidens were out doin' stuff that had you sitting up straight – and not just out of a fear of your Father’s hand if you slouched.

Because, as far as that kid-you was concerned...

B-because those Maidens could all do tons kinds of super-cool miracles that were stronger than any Semblance! Like, stuff out of the movies, almost! Yeah! And they could make all the elements answer them in a snap, without a weapon, wherever, and they didn’t even need any Dust either! And-and-and, once they got past the slow parables ‘bout Maidens helping grow extra crops or proselytizing, they got to the good stuff.

There was one where like, there was this failed colony where almost everybody died, and all their ships got wrecked, so the Winter Maiden, she swooshed in and froze a road straight across a whooooole ocean, so the last stranded men could walk from Solitas to Sanus, to reunite with their tribe, and bring home their keepsakes to bury!

One of the Spring Maidens stopped a big war by flying to the top of a scary-huge mountain between two jungle warcamps, and stuck a giant pillar of rock on it, and said whichever clan’s warrior claims the monument gets to rule, but ‘til then, they have to live in the valley together, and it took sooo long for someone to succeed that the clans’d all blended together too much to tell who won! (Also like, that if they fought anyway she’d’ve zapped ‘em with lightning but the priest only mentioned that part on the side.)

A Summer Maiden was making a flame to warm up the scared little animals of the frozen forest, after Grimm drove them into a cave during a blizzard – but then she left the cave, and the animals got worried and cold, but when they poked their heads out, the Summer Maiden was using her magic again, wha-pow, to shoot super-huge fireballs and explode all the Grimm, so once it was over, so the animals could be free and happy again!

Oh, oh, the Fall Maiden! One of them, uh…  You kinda forget the beginning, but the bestest part was when she was fighting these slave-catcher guys, ‘coz they were super mad she blasted all their slaves’ chains off. So, um, they were hiding in the desert to ambush her, and she told ‘em to just let her walk away, and they were like, ‘nah, we can handle a scared little girl,’ so she blew up a windy hailstorm so hard it moved all the dunes for miles, and sunk all the bad guys! Who probably got like, eaten by Blind Worms or something!

Er, yeah, it’s… The nostalgia's still pretty strong.

It’s easy enough for your mind to slip back to where it’d been, hearing those tales the first dozen times around. Fingers crossed that the next sermon would be another ‘cool Maiden parable,’ not more preaching about how poor people just need to work harder to deserve prosperity, or else they wouldn’t be poor. About how faunus’re actually being given a holy test by the Gods, and should be grateful for the opportunity to prove themselves faithful servants even in adversity.

Ptugh. It’s vile to remember, you’d buried a lot of these memories for a good reason. But, back then, there wasn’t a May Marigold to feel enraged by the prejudice.

Back then, there was only a bored little boy choked by an ugly tie, told to view the Four Maidens as the allegorical apotheosis of all womanhood. But that little boy didn’t understand such big words yet, and didn’t care – the Maidens were beauty, grace, and could blast magic in your face. What’s not to admire? What’s not to yearn for, maybe even to envy?

What’s not to daydream about, when one is a shy little boy in an uncomfortable little suit, drifted from his mother’s side after sermon lets out, looking for a place to duck away from prying eyes, from weird snobby adults who pretend they know him, at least ‘til the family airship arrives and he’s dragged off to some Sunday afternoon caviar social?

When that little boy retreats to his hiding place – to the second-floor balcony over the grand sanctuary, its high white-marble ceilings partitioned out with vibrant glasswork windows.

When that little boy would climb up into the narrow nook in front of one window in particular, hidden in view from the doors. In doing so, becoming little more than a dark shadow blotching the broken-but-beautiful image in the stained glass: a saintly Maiden in red-orange, wrapped in strewn leaves of maple, impossibly-long hair flowing all around her. Mythic. Beautiful, in a way that boy strangely mourned he could never be, for reasons he had yet to understand.

But that little boy was never a boy at all, same as that mythic saint was never a mythic saint at all, and now over a decade later, fate plans to pit those two women who’ve never met against one another, in a duel fighting for the fate of all Remnant.

In short: the Four Maidens aren’t make-believe, but mortal. Your Mistress plans for you to go out and find one. To fight one. Worst case, maybe even kill one. At the end of the day, she wants you to become one.

Then? The only one.

This knowledge is putting your brain in the blender. You need a second to process the enormity of it all. “So it wasn’t just real, it was real and related to Ozma?” Shaking a muscle twinge out of your arm, you resume your grip on your sword.

Curving around your front, Salem begins yet another languid circle around you while you swing. “Are you truly that surprised?”

“Not surprised that there was truth to the fairy tale in general.“ You bring Danse sweeping through another tight uppercut. “But after everything you told me, I’d assumed that whole legend was just… some byproduct of ancient people mythologizing that period you and Ozma had a whole magic-wielding family, with your four daughters and everything.”

Time stops, for the two of you. After you chain into the downswing, you stop short and freeze, just as Salem had done a single second before yourself. The constant cycle of motion in the room lies paralyzed, your liege’s pleasant pacing, your stances… The only motion that exists to the two of you, is a single drop of cursed blood rolling south from a small, two-inch gash rending the delicate, bone-white skin of Salem’s cheek.

Your heart, traitorous, draws attention to itself by beating once. Salem’s doesn’t.

Only for her to step onward, back to her pacing circles. Having not been enchanted with her own intent, the shallow gash knits back together in moments, and the blood spilled – unlike the blood she freely gives for you to drink – evaporates in much the same manner. Not a single word is said of the fact you’ve accidentally hurt your Queen, with your weapon or otherwise.

“It... both was,” she continues at last, “and wasn’t, and by now you’ve learned how unreliable legends can be. All that matters for our purposes is that the Four Maidens are more than mere fairy tale, or a facet of religious metaphor. They are each an unbroken lineage stretching back countless millennia, created from a fragment of Ozma’s magic of eld. Magic which will only deign to pass unto a young woman.”

This, she says looking you dead in your eyes. The blade in your hands hasn’t shifted an inch, and all those self-destructive doubts, all those echoed voices of the hateful, of those who deny your identity, all that have been internalized, come convulsing back up your throat like hot bile.

“But, what if– Are you sure it would even work with me, the inheritance process? Because I’m not normal, I’m barely even... I’m not the same as a real g–”

Your back slams into the wall before you realize your feet’ve even left the ground, body pinned and dangling there from just one of Salem’s fists gripped under your vest. The wood-splintering impact lets a few books make their escape off the shelves, invaluable ancient texts left dog-eared and bent. Danse Macabre’s blade clatters to the floor, and your prior train of thought has been wrecked on the spot.

“This, of all times, is when you deign to contradict me?”

You wheeze. Crap, that had to’ve crushed twenty, thirty percent of your Aura, flat out. “It wasn’t–“

“All the work I’ve done to shape and refine, work you’ve done to heal and endure, and now you see fit to lie to me, tell me you’re not what you so clearly are?” Salem closes the dwindling distance by another inch, her voice descending in both volume and patience. “When you surrender to the standards of the narrow-minded, be mindful it might cast a wider net than you intended. Or would you claim, also, that I was not a woman?”

This confuses you as much as it intimidates. “I’m– I don’t understand.“

“And why not? Perhaps this form was the figure of a ‘real’ woman once upon a time, but that womb-grown flesh was destroyed eons ago, and countless times since. Burned, devoured, disintegrated by magic, reiterated endlessly without an atom of its original biology. It is no natural form. It was not born into this world, its own womb left stagnant outside of magical aid, it bears no bloodline, no chromosomes, an ever-resurrecting corpse whose outward traits are regularly reshaped to my preference. Neither in the eyes of the Gods nor the sciences would I be considered a person. Yet you look at me, speak to me, lay with me, a woman all the same.”

Only a soft scraping on wood fills the silence of Salem’s pause. A decorative statuette slides down one of the broken shelves, and thumps onto the ground beneath you.

“With so much of my essence suffused within, I could mold, bend, or wholly obliterate that body of yours without a single twitch of muscle on my part – but in the end, not one bit of this would be of consequence to the matter at hand. Say I did, say you were utterly divested of that crude matter, its shape and origin, nothing left but a wayward spirit. Do you honestly intend to tell me now, that it would be a man’s soul I was holding in my palm?”

Your eyes flash. The sheer insult of the idea, such violation, blends with your latent dysphoria in a vicious cocktail, igniting together to blurt out, crass and agitated, “Fuck that, no!”

“There it is. There’s her spark,” Salem purrs coolly, and this spark of righteous defiance, it pleases her. “Correct, it would not. It’s a curious thing, womanhood. With the rise of fall of cultures, its boundaries shift like seasons, often so ill-defined, but it is ours, so long as we care to keep it.”

The lion’s share of the tension stuffed into your frame begins the slow process of draining out of your muscles, and you sag a bit in your pinned-up position. With her one hand sufficient to keep you where she desires, Salem brings up the other to fix some stray hairs escaped from your ponytail, kindly brushed behind the shell of your ear, then wanders lower to pet your cheek.

“I do hope this lesson was not too brusque; I’ve no wish to frighten you any further than has purpose, May, but I will not suffer lightly my maiden vessel’s mistreatment. Least of all from her own lips.”

Salem is running out of gap to close, looming in like this, dead lungs offering no puffs of warm breath to join your own in the drastically shrinking space between you. The roaming hand cups your chin in sharply-nailed fingers, guiding you ‘til you’ve got no choice but to look her in those captivating, smoldering-coal eyes.

“Need I remind them they are better fit for more productive pursuits?”

“...Please.”

When her lips find yours, you recall at once all the benefits to being pinned against a wall. She kisses you like cold steel with intent, like kissing the barrel of a gun, one that fires a bolt of heat straight from your head to the tips of toes just barely touching the floor. She keeps on going, steadily empties the mag, and you strive to keep up – try to breathe your clumsy, amateurish, imperfectly human gasps against your Queen and trap them there with your lips, an inadequate offering of that which she’s almost completely lost herself. You’re no great kisser, but you make up for it in youthful fervor.

Admittedly, you had no experience before Salem. It’s not like you’ve kissed anyone else in your life (that cutesy publicity photo-op yours ‘n Winter’s parents arranged when you were both like, eight, is an outlier and should not be counted). Despite this, it’s with die-hard certainty that you can claim you’ve spent months studying under one of the best teachers around.

Since fixing your makeup hadn’t been a possibility with how quickly you were called up, the only thing on your lips is a honey-flavored lip balm, and Salem seems quite intent to kiss it all right off you. It would be hard to believe she was ever shy about anything in her life, and that extends to her technique here. The intensity and heat with which she brings your mouths together skids to a halt just short of the border between the innocently intimate and the obscene.

And if, perhaps, a toe should sneak over the divide, and were you to, say, tip your head aside and bare your throat to be– gods, look, okay, you are but a mortal woman with a still-beating heart and perhaps you’ve discovered how delightful it feels when a powerful lady bites your neck a little! Hickeys from an immortal hit different!

Despite this, the mood is irrevocably tender, too: the blooming mark you’ll spend half an hour marveling at in the mirror tomorrow morning is followed up with a chaste, affectionate peck to seal Salem’s care into the bruise, her intent.

That scolding minutes before is miles in the rearview; you’ve actually grown a little dumb and giggly at this point, and as your Queen draws away, you take advantage of the closeness – and the plausible deniability – to lay a lighthearted kiss on the black third-eye gem on her brow.

In the past, you’ve been informed that this practice is ‘unnecessary,’ ‘ineffectual,’ and to a degree, ‘incorrigible.’ That might attest to why you keep doing it, and also why your Queen keeps letting you.

However, you’re nowhere near too kiss-drunk to notice when she abandons the charade of pretending it’s only her hand pinning you to the wall of shelves, and with a background hum of magic, leaves you fully free-floating a moment as she slides that arm behind your back, instead. If Salem couldn’t make gravity her plaything without the use of Dust, you’d’ve fallen flat on your ass. She doesn’t allow that, because she wants your mouth staying right where she left it, lined up for another sweet, impassioned collision.

Now, you kind of have to try and, uh – it’s finicky, because Danse Macabre’s sheath is still maglocked to your hip and battering into the broken bookshelf behind you; hurriedly, your fingers fumble to detach it so you can properly get your legs linked up and around your Queen’s waist unimpeded, then hook arms behind her lean shoulders for stability.

She’d probably be mad about your clumsy fingers screwing up her jewel-decorated bun if she couldn’t magically pin it right back up in an instant, later, and besides, you think it’s gorgeous when she wears it down. You think she’s gorgeous in general, but that’s beside the point.

So, here you are! Twenty-year-old Academy dropout, homeless runaway, fallen heiress, clinging both awkwardly and intimately onto a woman guilty of untold devastation and untold benevolence across untold generations.

A being fully beyond your ability to understand, her kisses too feather-light for the philosophical weight of all she represents. The forehead you nuzzle against is prehistoric. Something eldritch-by-definition is pressing tender lips to the apples of your cheeks. You offer up wholehearted affections to the ghost of an apocalypse.

In a way, it’s terrifying just being so near an entity as incomprehensibly powerful as she, lifted up by her, pulled soft against her chest. Yes, you’re terrified, yet you feel so safe. Like nothing could ever hurt you in her arms like this – when you’re being held close by the scariest thing on Remnant, everything else is so small by comparison.

Since you’re not brainless, you do know how she must see you. When she draws back from another round of staggered kisses and looks deep into you, not just your eyes but the whole, you know it’s not as an equal. It literally, mathematically couldn’t be, not even close.

But are you just a particularly useful and endearing speck, compared to her? A tool, a servant, a dark knight, a lovable pet? Wait, no, she’s a witch, so you’d be a familiar, right? Is that how it works? S’not exactly something you can put on a business card, but you can make it work.

Or perhaps, since your new life’s goal is apparently to become a receptacle for untold power which she’ll hurl at a problem she’s been having, maybe you’re a firebomb? A bottle soon to be topped up on Maiden-liquor, then sent flying out to set the Gods’ broken world ablaze?

Whatever you are, even this amount of love is enough. It’s more than you’d ever gotten before, or ever would’ve anywhere else, being the kind of person you are – the body, the legacy, the baggage. You really lucked out, here. You just hope she knows you know that.

Breaking another liplock, you lean back to look at her, stealing a moment for your frail mortal lungs to load back up on oxygen, whereas she could simply keep smooching ‘til sunrise, a juggernaut. The faint smile Salem has for you is wholly indulgent, only a bit of a bemused arch to her brows as she lets you recharge. Piercing ruby-red eyes a perfect complement to pale skin so much like the moon – unblemished by anything but the Gods’ carelessness. Meanwhile, you don’t need a hand mirror to know a tingling rosy flush has splashed over your own.

That’s the interesting part, too; before you two grew entangled, you’d expected her skin would always be utterly frigid – tundra-cold, toe to tip, no exception. But as with so much else, body heat is magically controlled at her whim. Salem's so warm when and where she wants to be, chilly as the crypt in others, and should that really be a surprise? That her default’s as cold as a corpse? Death’s her thing.

Even should your final goal succeed with the greatest outcome – the felling of omnicidal Gods, the unshackling of Salem from their curse on her, prosperity and peace for Remnant, et cetera – you sadly recognize she likely won’t want to linger and build that utopia, she’s going to leap for that freedom of death you once tried to chase yourself.

If you even last ‘til the end of this shadow war, you’ll still be mortal. Even if you live out all the rest of your days, you’d join her before long in the greater scheme of things, a span of time like a blink for a former immortal.

And even in that final goal’s failed outcome – only flipping the table, only baiting the Gods to clear the board rather than successfully cutting their holy throats when they come back to do it – you’ll either go to the next world hand in hand, or wake again in this one, able at least to offer her your own freshly-punished, undying company.

All in all, you've fallen in love with the promise of your own death, personified, just as Salem had fallen for the promise of her own, long ago. It’s like saying ‘I love you’ to the family plot at a graveyard, who whispers back: ‘As I do you.’

Although– Shit, okay, maybe you shouldn’t be putting your ability for poetic conceptualization to the test while occupied. While being held up by the single arm now braced under your thighs, while The White Witch in the Woods herself is gently swiping a tongue at your lower lip, demanding entry like you hadn’t already unlocked the door for her a year ago.

In the end, Salem spends a while kissing you breathless, putting your poor heart through its paces and leaving words and brainpower both at a premium. Conversation doesn’t resume in earnest until you’re both resting on her chaise longue in the warmth of the crackling fireplace, yourself draped across the cushions on your front, with your head atop folded arms, themselves resting on her unholy lap.

The evening’s mellowed out, and though Salem needn’t sleep, you’ve observed (and participated!) in her eschewing of less-important work during the later hours, where possible. When the only irons in the fire are things she can operate from across the castle by magic, or by manipulating Grimm to do so, even an almost-all-powerful immortal might take a minute to decompress.

Which finds you winding down for the day, a simultaneously unfestive yet monumentally important 20^th birthday, one that’s just filled in some of the final blanks and charted your path for the coming years, all the way to the world’s finish line and (ideally) then some.

There’s no point in stewing on the future just yet, even though that is one of your anxiety’s favorite recipes, so you veer the couch conversation elsewhere with a bit of that line-toeing impertinence you’ve developed.

"So, uh. Ma’am? If that was the case, the bit about not tolerating my mistreatment,” you wonder, “then why d’you always let Tyrian get away with it? He tried to kill me earlier today, too. Over by the stairs."

Salem absently spirals a loop of your hair around her finger, now wholly liberated from its short ponytail over the course of the makeout proceedings. Pretty sure she slashed the hairtie with one of her nails. But hey, if Her Grace likes playing with your growing hair, and you like having it played with, then all’s right on Remnant tonight.

"Dearheart, if I believed a predictable fanatic like Callows to be a credible threat to you, I’d question your suitability for the rigors of Maidenhood. Surely you must realize how much you’ve learned of the assassin's arts from your unexpected tutor; you should try to make proactive use of his zealotry, just as I do. As you grow into your power, he should come to fear you, the same as I am feared. If at that point he still fails to respect you and your rightful place at my side, his hubris will be his undoing...”

The witch rests a hand between your shoulder blades. “Not to put too fine a point on it, May, but I expected you’d have handled him already.”

She means for you to kill him. This doesn’t even count as a hidden implication anymore; she’s attempting to drape a handkerchief over a mid-size family sedan. Hell, you might not even feel guilty about doing it.

“But wouldn’t you still need him? For–“ For killing without hesitation. For ethically dubious-to-repugnant work she would never foist upon you, yet. For threatening, maiming, for times when your heart would lock your finger up on the trigger guard. “For everything I can’t do?”

“We live in a broken and savage world. If I could turn the city of Mistral upside-down, it would take me only a single shake to have a hundred hired killers at the ready, and two to shake out an assassin equally as obsessive. There’s little need to fret over the relevance of a pawn infinitely more expendable than yourself.”

Infinity’s a big number, and one you sure-as-hell don’t feel fits your value, ‘maiden vessel’ or not. Sensing the negativity sprinkled all over the thought you’re having, Salem pauses braiding your hair, instead giving it a gentle tug to insist you look up at her.

“To speak plainly: if you do feel someone poses a genuine threat to your life, May, you are to end theirs, first. That is an order. You’re to perform whatever is necessary in order to survive. Should it ease the weight in that moment, then cast yourself as a weapon and pass the blame unto the woman who wields you. All that matters is you return to my hand.”

The fact this woman can sound so romantic and reassuring even when endorsing murder is either a sign of her prowess or your susceptibility. Both? Maybe both. Care filtered through thousands of years of darkness is still care in the end, and almost as good at soothing your woes. “Of course, Ma’am.”

“Exactly what I wish to hear.”

Some minutes of companionable quiet later, Salem knits her brows at the pattern into which she’s weaved your hair. After a moment’s contemplation, she undoes her work with a mini-flare of telekinesis you feel rolling up from your roots in a staticky tingle, only to begin again.

(‘Spring often enjoyed wearing hers this way,’ she informed you earlier. ‘But we’ll see which lineage first calls your name, in time.’)

“Though many of their tales are tragic,” Salem adds to break the silence, “if it might ease that cloud of fitful doubt I still feel festering in your heart, know you’ll be far from the first Maiden suffering your particular plight.”

Salem folds three strands of hair over one another, with fingers, not magic, to a well-trod pattern she hasn’t forgotten even after eons.

“The most recent case was born in the Mirage Principality; you’d recognize these lands as the seat of modern-day Vacuo, some distance northbound of the current capital, and centuries before the oasis was lost to mortal greed.”

That name sounds distantly familiar, that old pre-Kingdom territory, something you’d likely only given half your attention back in history classes. This all sounds like normal storytelling fare, except the big, inevitable ‘but’ has to be coming soon, knowing Salem’s anecdotes.

“Ozma controlled the whole of Sanus, in those days. The last Summer Maiden of the age, an Anima tribeswoman, died without a chosen heritor in her thoughts. The power was cast to the winds, carried aloft and overseas to Mirage lands, to be lodged into the heart of an unsuspecting stable boy who had never been a boy to begin with.”

You rearrange your arms and tilt your head a little to better look up at Salem, without too much head jostling that could ruin her hard work on your hair. “Did she, uh… did she know already, who she was? Or did she only figure it out after the powers kicked in and made her wonder why?”

“It wouldn’t be for me to say – Ozma’s regional advantage ensured his spies rooted the girl out more quickly than my own, and thus she was taken for his side of the board. I was unaware of this, her identity left undiscovered for a particularly callous reason. He decries me heartless, but Ozma too is known to ask the unreasonable of his closest servants, ask them to uphold his will even as their conditions destroy them, even as their loyalty leads them out to die. Do you know what thoughts he whispered in her ear?”

A moment’s honest consideration whacks you in the shin with the obvious, and dire answer. Of course the story’d take this turn. Should’ve expected it. “I think I can guess,” you mutter, sourly.

“That she should stifle herself,” Salem confirms with a somber nod. “Smother selfhood and Maidenhood both into secrecy, ‘for her own protection,’ ‘to maintain the peace,’ as if he didn’t also mean ‘to best safeguard his relic.’ For whoever would suspect a common, lower-caste man to be a sacred Maiden? It deceived my agents for a long while; by the time word reached my ears, there was no chance to liberate her. I won’t dwell on the topic, given our mutual familiarity with the means, but suffice to say it wasn’t battle with beasts or bounty hunters, but with the untenable life Ozma encouraged, which ended her fleeting tenure as the Summer Maiden.”

“Fuck,” you sigh.

“Indeed,” says the witch too formal to say ‘fuck.’

Since you haven’t felt any movement threading through your hair for a minute, you assume Salem’s finished, and when she doesn’t prompt you to stop as you turn, you roll over onto your back again, the new, messy crown plait in your hair unusually-but-pleasantly bumpy pressed against the fabric of her dress. You’ll find a mirror to check it, later.

Curious, not accusing, you ask, “Is that why you… you know, why you chose me, at first? Because it would be harder for Ozma’s people to figure me out?”

“Why would I wish to see this tale play out again with a new Maiden, if I strangled her spirit as Ozma did? More than merely cruel, it would be an unforgivable waste of time and resources. No, if I should venture out in search of prospective spies, but discover instead that a Maiden candidate fitting the required profile has figuratively fallen into my lap, it would be self-sabotage not to extend my offer immediately.”

And look, now you’ve literally fallen into her lap. Go, May. Although, one of your shoulders is slipping off her knee, and you wiggle to readjust, with the whispery rustling of material from your suit and her dress, both. “What was the profile, if I can ask?”

Brutal honesty has been one of Salem’s most effective policies for dealing with nosy types like you. She rattles off the list like it’s memorized, and it clearly is.

“An ideal vessel would be a young woman, not greatly older than twenty-five years, thirty at the utmost. Ideally abused, repressed, or in some fashion familiar with the depths of mortal cruelty, yet still possessed of a spark of rebellion in her soul. A rejection of the established order, for how it similarly rejected, harmed or failed to save herself, someone, or something she cherished – The yearning to defy one’s tormentors or overturn the impossibly-entrenched is the crux, a way for our goals to align. Much as I’m loath to rely heavily on such pithy, fractured magic, her Semblance would be a factor as well; one with strengths suited for the sordid tasks required of her.”

Sad to say, that all fits you snug as a sweater; no wonder she decided to keep you. Sorta makes you wonder who else you know who’d qualify, because of the first who come to mind, you can barely imagine how they’d react to Salem as she is.

How would Winter handle it if a strange witch offered her a way to overturn her bastard father’s legacy of oppression, to avenge his abuse of her family and faunus worldwide? Just decline and stick to her small-scale Mantle huntress aspirations?

Ugh, you think Rhodes’ background fits the bill too, but she’d probably just report Salem to the ‘proper authorities.’ Why take retribution into her own hands and wreak havoc on the establishment when she could tattle to Big Daddy Ironwood instead?

“...But most importantly of all, for my purposes, for an effective Maiden – she must choose this life, must yearn for what lies at the end of the path. If you’d chosen, that day in Atlas, to decline my offer and make your own way on the streets of Mantle, I’d consider it a loss, but it would signal you were never fit for this path. You would have been left to your own devices, unbound by tragic histories and hidden destinies.”

Thinking about those alternate lives is a dismal endeavor. “If I said no, I’d’ve probably kept hiding in alleys eating garbage until I got sick, or froze, got arrested for vagrancy, or a dozen other slow, painful ways to go. When I jumped off Atlas, I wanted it all to stop,” you confess. “I didn’t want to be trapped lingering in the hurt, and ended up doing it anyway. You’re the one person on Remnant who understands that best.”

You fold your hands on your midsection, idly drumming a thumb against the sleek, synthetic armor over your stomach. “If I said no, there would never’ve been a May Marigold. Much less a May that could ever help do something that mattered, even if it isn’t pretty. I could’ve said no, but I’m glad I didn’t.”

“As am I. Though naturally I am not one given to genuine hope, I say with confidence that having taken you in hand could be the key to a long-awaited victory.”

Salem reaches down to cup the back of your head, deadly sharp fingers softly scraping at your nape, seeding a crop of goosebumps. “Make no mistake: you will be my final Maiden, May Marigold, and together, we will see to the end of this world’s futile struggle, one way or the other.”

She ceases scratching so she can raise your head, as she descends on you for another pleasant, poignant kiss. One that lingers a little longer than it needs to, but exactly as much as one hopes it will.

Once it breaks and you’ve resumed lounging in her lap, it finds you beaming tiredly up at someone else’s waking nightmare, and the nightmare faintly smiles back. She then hums to herself as a realization strikes her, in that wistful, tired amusement reserved for the ancients, and murmurs her afterthought:

“You’re going to be the death of me, someday.”

Chapter Text

CRRRRKR-BOOM.

Mrgh.

Well, you’re awake now. Stupid storm. And you know yourself better than to entertain the illusion you’ll actually be getting back to sleep.

With slothlike enthusiasm, you push yourself upright on your elbows and spin to sit with your legs dangling off the edge of the bed. The basic, unadorned, single-occupant bed. Your foot knocks against something glassy with a hint of a liquid slosh, which rolls away.

Priorities in order, you attempt to bundle and drape and fix your hair into some facsimile of normalcy before you ever bother to rub your eyes and open them to the dreariness of your downstairs chambers.

You’ve had at-will access to Salem’s bedroom for nearly two years now, to the point it’s there that deliveries for you tend to turn up first, before making their way downstairs. Your presence has become the default expectation.

Even so, it still feels wrong to sleep there, on these rare occasions Salem’s out of the castle and you haven’t been taken with her. Having such ornateness all to yourself starts reminding you of your youth, and the bed is just so big without her raw presence in the room to help you fill up the rest of the space.

It all becomes an echo chamber amplifying the wistful sighs of your loneliness, and gods so help you, you do not want to become that helpless waif from a period romance novel: the one who stands out on the castle balcony watching the skies for Salem’s ship, or herself, if she’s traveling light. It would be nice to retain some dignity.

(Says the girl still wearing her combat gear in bed. Says the girl with terribly matted hair. Says the girl who smells like a North Valish tavern’s third-most spill-prone barstool.)

At least when you skim your fingers over the cool stone slab behind your bed, they succeed in finding your scroll where you normally drop it; you scoop the thing up and pop it open to check the time. After dimming down the brightness a notch.

It appears you’ve been asleep… Gods, most of the entire day, which is a rousing endorsement of teetotalism, at least where it comes to accepting drink recommendations from Ciara.

As you’ve been drink-legal by your homeland’s standards for the better part of a year at this point, and there’s sure-as-hell not an established age in the Land of Darkness, you’ve partaken every now and again with the castle’s various members.

Hazel likes his Huntmaster herbal liqueurs in the rare instance he’s looking to spoil himself, but otherwise doesn’t hesitate to put down the cheapest swill that’ll come in a can proportionally befitting his size. He only laughed a little when you sputtered out an offered sip, and you appreciate that restraint.

Watts often lays claim to the stouts, though he prides himself on being skilled in producing cocktails, claiming mixology to be an intellectual’s hobby. You were shot down immediately when you once asked him to make you a fruity umbrella drink. Spoilsport.

Y’never drank with Tyrian, not only because he’d poison you, but because he doesn’t partake, himself. This somehow made sense in hindsight: him being the level of creep who wants to forego all substances to truly ‘experience the full sensory banquet of a kill,’ or… something like that. Ick.

Salem physically can’t get inebriated, solely dabbling in the long-dulled pleasure out of poisonous nostalgia. What she occasionally orders brought up from the cellars are rich and refined, blood-colored wines that mellow an evening, or so sweet they feel completely out of place in this land. According to the Queen, you’re ‘a hopeless darling’ when you’re tipsy. You didn’t argue.

But Ciara, she’s the wildcard. Due to her limited deployments she’s the one most often available to pester when you’re lonely without Salem, your lesser hobbies can’t hold your attention, and restlessness sets in. The stuff Ciara favors is typically a mead not many shades off from your eyes, deceptively light and honey-sweet, but hard-hitting.

Yet, for your own sorry and secret reasons, you wanted it to hit harder last night. When you bumped into the Dust mage, you vented your woes and mentioned you were looking to poach something heavier from her supply, if she had any.

Her eyes took a shine like you’d given her a new toy, and with little scrutiny in your caustic mood, you’d simply taken the first thing she slid you and knocked it back – which then knocked you back, because damn – something woody and chemical, liquid sawdust and cough syrup, and you weren’t looking to ask questions. Whatever she handed you had a kick like a ticked-off Nuckelavee, and now you can’t place yourself for the last… thirteen hours, ballparked.

Hence, the other cause for your downstairs migration: you didn’t want to puke on Salem’s bed, after drinking yourself into a stupor in a true testament to your maturity or lack thereof. Though, the weird thing – You actually feel fine? Bit of a headache, kinda dizzy, not rested at all, but you just feel like you’ve got a cold, rather than having commit yet another war crime against your Grimm-stained internal organs. You’ve drank less and felt worse, before. Odd.

Having sorted out the time, the next thing to strike you is the Recent Messages preview tab, populated with a short list of incoming and outgoing during your missing hours, and from names that are not among the denizens of Evernight, or Salem’s short list of secondary contacts.

Oh, so you were sloppy drunk last night.

By the power of Watts’ subtle, deeply-nested hack in the CCTS, it’s been within your ability to, theoretically, contact nearly anyone with a standing account, even within semisecure networks, via spoofed, anonymous access credentials.

This is a power you’ve never utilized, due to a lack of trusted social circle, a fear of letting slip any intel for Salem’s operations and whereabouts, an uncomfortable cluelessness what you’d say to the few names in this world you even know, and a complete dread of what they might say in return.

Very Drunk May, as it happens, lacks this restraint, which leaves Sober May cleaning up the mess. Blegh. Delaying isn’t going to un-drunk-text anyone, so you’d better suck it up and assess the damage, already.

Skipping your thumb across the glowing Scroll UI, you tap to check your text conversations, an experience which is surely going to be humiliating as hell, and filter through your message history.

– SESSION CONNECTED –

Private Conversation  – 00:33 Solitas Standard Time (Adjusted for Recipient)

Participating Users: [ERROR: Fault in %username%], @HHWinterSchnee

***

[ERROR: %username%]> hey  so

[ERROR: %username%]>  if im gettign the hours right youre either

[ERROR: %username%]> about to graduate or already did

[ERROR: %username%]>  never got the hang of timezones out here

[@HHWinterSchnee]> And who exactly is this?

[@HHWinterSchnee]> I would ask if you knew how late it was, but you evidently do not.

[ERROR: %username%]> so congrats winny winn winnifredddd miss licensed hunteress

[ERROR: %username%]> you made iiiit

[ERROR: %username%]> suvrived four years of drills and dorm inspectoions and exams

[ERROR: %username%]> all those baby specops traingnn missions

[@HHWinterSchnee]> How do you know that nickname?

[@HHWinterSchnee]> There had better be a good explanation. Only four people have ever been so annoying.

[ERROR: %username%]> but whatever you do from here on just

[@HHWinterSchnee]> I’m looking at three of them right now, and the last is dead.

[ERROR: %username%]> dont stay in altas okay

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Would I be right to guess that we know you?

[ERROR: %username%]> *altas fuck im really feeling it tonight

[ERROR: %username%]> screw it whatever just get distance from your dad and inrowood

[ERROR: %username%]> maybe start getting your siblgings and mom and like klein out of there

[ERROR: %username%]>  klein was always chill

[ERROR: %username%]> shits ogoing down in a few years probably so like get  clear

[ERROR: %username%]> mantles good though but general might still tr something

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Who are you, what are you talking about? Is this a threat? A warning?

[ERROR: %username%]> and you can let the rsto f your team know

[ERROR: %username%]> the night it happend

[ERROR: %username%]>  that you allwere right

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Wait. Stop.

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Marigold?

[ERROR: %username%]> about everythinb

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Is that you?

[@HHWinterSchnee is requesting to open a voice chat.]

[Call failed: connection timed out.]

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Are you there?

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Please say something.

[@HHWinterSchnee]> This had better not be a sick prank, so help me.

[@HHWinterSchnee is requesting to open a voice chat.]

[Call failed: connection timed out.]

[@HHWinterSchnee is requesting to open a voice chat.]

[Call failed: connection timed out.]

[@HHWinterSchnee]> Marigold if that’s really you, if you’re really alive out there please tell us

[@HHWinterSchnee]> we need to talk to you

[@HHWinterSchnee]> i need to talk to you

[@HHWinterSchnee]> marigold please be there

[@HHWinterSchnee]> please

[@HHWinterSchnee is requesting to open a voice chat.]

[Call failed: connection timed out.]

– SESSION DISCONNECTED –

Shit. Credit to drunk-you for having the sense to cut things there before you spilled something Salem would rather not be spilled.

Now it’s coming back to you, the real reason you were so desperate to turn your brain off so badly. Not just loneliness because Salem’s been gone, not just because you’d only recently gotten back from a harrowing blacksite jailbreak job earlier in the week, but because last night was this year’s Atlas Academy Graduation & Licensure Ceremony. The ceremony for your year, for HGTS, for RAMM – or just RA_M, you suppose.

As of yesterday, in another world, you’d be a licensed, professional huntress, potentially even Special Operative Marigold of the Atlesian Military. You’d have a spiffy new ironed-out uniform, polished buttons, regulation white-and-blue. You’d be reporting to the General or his nearest underling with a fountain of Yes Sir’s and No Sir’s afforded by rank and not respect. Your parents might even feign to be proud.

Instead, Winter probably has a license, a team and a normal life, while you’re a non-entity, half the world away and over the edge. Profanely infused with the selfsame monsters Winter’s honor-bound to hunt – that all your former classmates are set to hunt, actually. RA_M could come to finish what they started with you and be within their legal rights, not to mention paid for it. They never saw you as human before, this would be no different.

(Are you really in the right place? As always, you slaughter the thought before it can lay down roots. It hurts every time, but it’s better for your mental health in the long run.)

Though, strictly hypothetically, Winter’d do well out here, right? She already lost a lot of that age-old Schnee rigidity thanks to her team by the time you bowed out, so you can only imagine those pillars were shaken even more in the time you were gone, and that’d mean honing her growing distaste for injustice.

What could be more unjust than the true nature of the Gods and their blind, die-hard defenders here on Remnant? With a little elbow grease, maybe even the rest of her team would come around, too. That’d liven the castle up.

CRA-CRACK-BOOM.

The other party you apparently felt the need to text, though, absolutely would not. With how she guzzled Ironwood’s dogma like it was free champagne, you could never imagine her seeing the truth Salem offers.

It’s confusing to see her name pop up at all, since you didn’t even like her; in a way, she helped ruin your life. And yet, she inadvertently placed you on the course to connect with your beloved Queen, so maybe that’s why your shitfaced self decided she was worth a warning.

Alternatively, if you weren’t busy lying to yourself, you could admit it’s because you’re still irrationally uneasy about ever fighting her again, and wanted to nab some better odds by nudging her away.

– SESSION CONNECTED –

Private Conversation  – 00:56 Solitas Standard Time (Adjusted for Recipient)

Participating Users: [ERROR: Fault in %username%], @ASO-CinderRhodes

***

[ERROR: %username%]> rhodes you probably hated me and i definnitely hated you

[ERROR: %username%]> but whatver ironwood tells you about like relics  and fria dont get involved

[ERROR: %username%]> in all this maiddn quest shit

[ERROR: %username%]> dont be the backup

[@ASO-CinderRhodes]> Who is this, and how did you contact this account?

[ERROR: %username%]> go do something good with your stupid melty smeblance for once

[ERROR: %username%]> get a fuckign hobby

[ERROR: %username%]> go hang out with htgts maybe if they stuck together

[ERROR: %username%]> hsgt

[ERROR: %username%]> i mean with robyn hijll she loosens up stuffy chicks

[ERROR: %username%]> maybe not like  that but yeah like thjat too i think

[@ASO-CinderRhodes]> This is your first and only warning: knowledge of Protected Subject: Fria is classified at level Echelon Seven Secret Secure.

[@ASO-CinderRhodes]> Under Title 6 of Atlas Code § 1084p, electronic dissemination of high-level classified Kingdom intelligence is a crime tantamount to treason and warrants imprisonment or summary execution, at the discretion of the immediate acting authority.

[ERROR: %username%]> oh myg ods he drafted you already

[ERROR: %username%]> you graduaated like 12 hours ago

[ERROR: %username%]>   fucking

[ERROR: %username%]> why are you like this

[@ASO-CinderRhodes]> As said acting authority, should you willingly confess exactly how you came by this classified information, any sentencing could be kept to its most lenient by the Special Commission for Covert Kingdom Affairs.

[@ASO-CinderRhodes]> Intelligence operatives will be tracing this link.

[ERROR: %username%]> well i tried

[ERROR: %username%]> see you in a feqw years bitchhhhh

– SESSION DISCONNECTED –

It goes without saying: that was not one of your most dignified engagements.

Both in your own sloppy typos, and a major yikes to the behavior on the other end. How’d Ironwood turn that edgy girl into such a mindless drone in only four years?

Not just jumping her straight from schoolgirl to soldier, not even schoolgirl to specialist like you’d’ve been if you’d stayed, but duped right up to the highest levels of secret intelligence with ties to Ozma’s cult.

Cinder wasn’t from a military family, or any real family if you remember how the stories went, so it’s not like she’s got a background that justifies playing footsie with fascism.

Maybe she was still so hurt deep down, desperate for a home, for purpose. Desperate for the safety of a strong, guiding hand to defend, shape, and direct her, which, like… fine, okay, you can absolutely relate when you’d chased the exact same thing, but still.

Whatever, not your problem for now. You only hope that when the year comes for the capital-B Big Trip up to Atlas, you’ll still be contending with a pleasant grandmother on life support, who you can let down calm and easy after sharing a cup of hot chocolate and a game of backgammon, not some pissy goosestepper.

Not a girl suckered into going the fatal distance for a man who’d just as soon see her mulched up in the Wizard’s wacky meat-grinder to keep Remnant suffering in oppressed stagnation a few years longer, to struggle uselessly against the unstoppable gnaw of entropy.

There were a few other one-way texts you find in your history, the majority of them gibberish that went unsent. The delivery-failed warnings suggest you were spared further humiliation by a convenient network outage, which must’ve been your drunk self’s cue to stop fooling around and pass out for the night.

BOOM-SSSH-BOOM.

…

HWA-WOOOOOOOOOO–

Gah! What!?

Those out-of-place, bassy noises you’d blamed on the storm become a proper cacophony all at once, joined by the collective howling of a dozen different breeds of Grimm in unison.

Rather than blaring your usual alarm, your scroll’s speakers begin chattering out Watts’ voice, aggravated and distorted. Crackling out of your scroll on the emergency channel, you can barely make out discernible words between the bursts of glitchy static.

“...░▒▓▓▒░s moving past the Great Hall, and has stolen░my ░▒▓▓▒▒░otwire an airshi░▒▓▒░ have sabotaged outbound CCT ░▒▓▒▓▓▓▒░▒░ attempting░to break int░▒▓▓▓▒▓▒░ Repeat, the assailant is headed░▒▓▓▓▓▒░nd for gods’ sakes will someone rouse Marigold before she░gets herself ki░▒▓▓▓▒░...”

An intruder? Oh, no-no-no, you don’t get intruders out here; this is the Land of Darkness, this is Evernight. This castle’s supposed to be a safe place – for you, anyway! How the hell could someone get all the way out here undetected?

Trying to hit the call button to speak over the channel yourself is of no use; the connection keeps popping on and off every few seconds, a spinning pair of loading arrows never resolving, and only the rare burst of unintelligible glitched audio clipping through.

It’s a good thing last night’s drunken idiocy overrode your willingness to change into your pajamas; it means you can scrabble out of bed already in your gray-blue combat suit, just refastening your cropped tactical vest on top and tugging on your boots before you’re ready to roll. You grab Danse Macabre off her humble iron rack near the door, some extra Dust from your rucksack, and throw yourself into the hall.

Immediately you’re met with a rumbling blast of thunder that startles you into you stumbling. The curtains back in your room had been drawn, heavy fabric that helped muffle some of the furious spattering of rain you now hear beating against the high windows down the castle hall.

Here’s a secret: heavy thunderstorms still put you on edge. A proper Solitas girl can eat blizzards for breakfast, and even one raised within the climate-controlled safe haven of upper Atlas has dealt with modest hail and windstorms.

Atlas storms were never this warm and wet, nor their thunder so bellowing, and one thing’s for sure: Atlas storms never spun up so ferociously that they skimmed ichor off the fields of Grimm Pools up into the clouds, tainting their droplets an oily black. Atlas storms never barraged the windows with a smeared coating of opaque darkness that’ll take a whole day to drain off. Until then, the world outside remains painted over, save for a menacing glow through the minuscule gaps alongside every crackle of bloody-red lightning.

With the windows blotted over, the only light by which to see are the sconces, and, uh. Even those aren’t as reliable as they usually are. The majority, which you’ve never seen go out, have been extinguished of their off-color flames.

Alas, your night vision goggles are in the shop – literally, Watts has got them, and he sounds occupied – so you stick to tapping on your scroll flashlight and stuffing it facing outward in an empty pocket on the front of your tac-vest. It’ll do in a pinch, and you’re already feeling the squeeze.

Despite the name, Evernight Castle, in the Land of Darkness, has rarely felt as oppressively dark as this. One can wax poetic all they want about the littlest lights shining brighter in the dark, but such weak lights feel pretty damn useless helping navigate these horror movie hallways. You already live among monsters, but it sounds like there’s something worse to get jumped by.

As you get further from the personal rooms, the more you start craving a solid direction to find the source of the disturbance. Since even local CCT is a wreck, it’s not as if you’ve got a mission handler, and you can’t get a good guess at where the Grimm are headed – you’ve seen beasts of all sorts dashing, flapping, and slithering off down dank stone passages in all directions.

If you want to find this unknown hostile, you might need to pull from the bag of tricks you’re increasingly glad your Queen gave you.

Your loneliness with Salem gone, your uncertainty and fear of this attack, you focus the easily-accessible immaterial mass of these recent, unpleasant sentiments together, sending them climbing your spinal cord, settling at the top of your skull. One unnatural, sharp, ripping sensation and a grit-out grunt of pain later, everything is back to normal – except for the migraine inducing amplification of the sounds around you. You’d reach up to cover your ears, but you’d only be able to get half of them.

For now at least, until you get around to dismissing the black-furred Beowolf ears shooting up from mussed blue locks in a color-scheme mismatch. You’re getting better – this set is actually swiveling for you on command, and leagues better than that literally-backwards first attempt.

Years ago, you’d wondered what it’s like for faunus with additive traits to hear with four ears, and damn, if you didn’t learn quick the first time you yanked these from your scalp. You understand completely all the times they asked people to turn the volume down, or always kept earplugs within arm’s reach. You can admit your privilege in getting to summon and banish these things with minimal cost to your health.

Once you’ve acclimated, your upper ears perk at a distant bang, and you return to pounding down the maze, chasing a clamor of loud noises somewhere towards Evernight’s core. Many of the Gargoyles, those huddled winged Grimm who’ve stood constant vigil over intersections and archways, have awakened from their stony hibernation and taken flight, flapping ahead of you and into the fray.

The closer one gets to the Great Hall, the greater the frantic buzz of alarm among the less-sentient denizens. You’re alarmed too, by the unnerving sight of bare walls and empty alcoves where some of the old medieval Valish armor sets sat. Not that it’s hard to guess where they’ve gone.

A Geist zips through overhead and dives into one of the dwindling armor displays still standing guard over the corridors. The steel plate begins to lurch, clench, contort, then another, and another. Having sparred with plenty in your time you know even the person-sized Lesser Arma Gigas are no joke, and the Geists just keep on coming, and Grimm footsoldiers keep dashing away.

It’s like you’re watching a mass hatching in one of those nature documentaries, but instead of cute baby turtles, it’s tools of warfare bound onto a frame of hungry darkness.

They’re all mustering somewhere close, the source of the bangs and clatters, and you resume your mad dash to find this squadron’s rally point amid the lightless corridors of your home. You banish your extra ears once you’ve hit a certain proximity, before the blatant sounds of battle start to give you a harsher headache; whatever’s going on in there, it’s pure chaos.

Coming out of the arched doorway on the right end of the hall ahead, from out of the vestibule to the Great Hall, scattered bits of Grimm-laced armor and smashed stone come spraying like clippings from a lawnmower, clanging once against the opposite end of the hall, then beginning their smoky decomposition. The Gigas behind and around you don’t care that they’re headed for such danger, they keep trickling towards their destruction beyond that archway.

Wouldn’t you know it, your dumb ass is doing the same. You skid to a halt by the closer side of the archway, enough to keep cover, tap off your flashlight, and engage your Semblance. There’s still a healing patch in your Aura over the space where you’d conjured up the ears, and you’re grateful it’s not enough to weaken your cloak.

Whatever’s blasting Grimm in bulk seems to have no problem putting down melee-range combatants. Thumbing the style-switch on Danse Macabre’s sheath, the sword’s wrapped hilt extends outward, cranked at a 90° angle, and helps form the padded stock for her rifle formation.

Meanwhile, the dark azure casing decompresses, slightly growing in size and length as the hidden components for her accelerator rifle come out to stretch their legs. Her scope flips out, and you click it back down to basic, iron-sight targeting; no use wasting Hard-light Dust on long range holographics in such close confines.

Atlesian combat instructors would’ve chewed your ass up and spat it out for keeping the Dust magazine stocked, locked and loaded when not in use, and yet here you are, shaving valuable seconds off your preptime. When one lives with a jealous cultist fanatic and is also their Goddess’ new favorite, it pays to be prepared for battle at a moment’s notice.

Toggling the multiple safeties, working the bolt, a pricy specialized sniper round is slid into its nest, and Danse warms up her electrokinetics, Gravity and Lightning Dust strutting their stuff down the length of the barrel in an elaborate, yet scientifically unwieldy tango.

Armed, armored, cloaked and ready to recklessly protect the destiny Salem’s set ahead of you, you whirl around the corner – ducking to dodge another broken chestplate whizzing over your head, Danse slung low and...

And then freeze.

In the vestibule ahead of the Great Hall, it’s a disaster. Ruined armor chunks from fallen Grimm soldiers not even fully bonded to the material clutters many of the corners, as does the stony debris of Gargoyles, their Grimmified core material already dissolved away. Patches of the clean floors have been blasted into tiny craters as a side effect of the battle, rugs ripped and burnt. All the sconces remain lit unlike the rest of the castle, but that’s far from the greatest light source.

The massive locked, chained, and magically warded iron doors down to Salem’s darkest chambers are under siege. The familiar emblem of your Queen is almost completely charred – a massive splotch of scoring on the surface of the doors, like someone tried to bomb it.

Just nearby sits a discarded pile of expensive tools, many of which you recognize from the workshop, or Watts’ lab: a diamond saw, a thermal lance, an L-Dust arc cutter you yourself once hauled afield to break into a penthouse, all have congregated here, now shoved aside, proven inadequate for the one job they were given.

A last ditch effort surpassing all the fancy tools and gizmos, climbing a slow, steady curve around the door’s edges, there shoots a horrible sparking flame so blindingly bright you can’t look directly at it, hotter than a welding torch – crawling up a pasty greyish path slathered on the door’s frame, some insane concoction of Dust and chemical accelerants that would step on thermite’s face and take its lunch money.

In the center of the room, the descending horde converges. Grimm swooping in from both the north and south hallway entrances, and out through the grand hall itself to the west. They swarm like they were aiming to destroy a farming village, and are cut down like so much wheat.

Because at the core of the mob, in a whirlwind of thorned carnage, tiny jaws, tiny claws, and gunfire, dances a woman in a long, old snakeskin trenchcoat, a woman with bright orange roots and ends peeking from disheveled dyed-black hair, a woman with a lip ring that glints in the neo-thermite burn, with smeared smoky paint over the top of her face beginning to run with the sweat of her exertion.

You attempt to swallow. Something ragged is stuck in your throat.

Emblazoned with the Schnee snowflake, two retail crates of high-grade Plant Dust you yourself helped steal now sit cracked open near the center of the room. That explains the twisting masses of healthy off-green plantlife that might never be seen in the Land of Darkness otherwise, much of which bears the internal glow of a familiar Semblance, a milky white luminescence down their cores.

Also, it explains the Dust mage standing with a boot planted stop one of them, conducting the thorned coils, lashing vinetips and scythelike crooks of hardened wood with a green-glowing Eadránaí, her Dust focus-shillelagh condensed to its short, spiky, cudgel form. Intruding Grimm are battered, entangled, speared, or cut clean through in no particular order, in high volume and frequency.

And where the mage isn’t commanding the flora, she works the fauna: she commands the various pests like a tide, a new form of furry, scaly liquid with smoky ghostlights trailing from their skulls, rallying and flinging them at intruding Grimm.

Such miniscule fangs would surely do nothing against a dark creature honed for killing, unless there were a metric fuckton of them swarming a Beowolf at once, encasing its head in a skittering, slithering tomb, gnawing open the weak flesh of its unliving throat.

If this isn’t enough, the Dust mage in question shores up her imperviousness with combat ingenuity from the modern age. Namely, in gunning down encroaching members of the horde who break through the death-wall using a gilded, high-capacity, twin-barrel revolver that certainly doesn’t belong to her.

Watts’ gun – if you’d learned the name at one point, you’ve forgotten – is being put to work more heavily than he’d ever done himself, now blasting targets with an efficacy almost unreal. The mage had also liberated him of his ammo pouch and speedloader, it seems. The pistol clicks twice, and with a slam she buries the spikier end of her club into the weakest armor around an Arma Gigas’ neck.

With another hand freed, she pops open the cylinder, emptied with a snap of the wrist. A rain of used casings with the scent of spent Dust are flung carelessly across the room, and the mage slams in twenty rounds more. She rips Eadránaí out of the dissolving Gigas before it even crumples to the floor.

You have no idea if you should lift your rifle and help her, or not. This might… this might all be a misunderstanding. Like, this is Ciara, right? Maybe she was first on the scene and got caught up in the chaos. Shouldn’t you be helping?

“Traaaaaitor!”

Sprinting out of the Great Hall with arms trailing behind him, blades on The Queen’s Servants already extended from his wrists, Tyrian breaks onto the scene. His mind is made up more firmly than your own.

Ciara couldn’t be more disinterested. “Grand, just grand. Was wondering when our fav’rite manky murder moppet would be by fer a visit.”

“Mark my words, I will kill you, you ungrateful–“

“Will ya? How ‘bout’cha try it?” Though the vermin and vines both continue to ward away any minor Grimm that draw close, their commander quiets down, holsters Watts’ stolen gun, and hangs her cudgel on the opposite hip. With arms spread wide, she happily invites the assassin in. “C’mon then! Get on in ‘ere, have it a go, give us a hug! Elsewise the only thing you’re killin’ is the craic, Callows.“

For some reason, given the opportunity to cut someone apart, Tyrian isn’t moving.  He stands at the far threshold of the room just diagonally from yourself, and… does nothing. Oh, his muscles are working, his teeth are grit, and his palpable frustration is rising along with the complexity of his growled profanity, but can come no further.

“What’s the problem, Creepy Crawly? Sure seemed like y’wanted a piece ‘a this action a second ago. Couldn’t be that y’hate me, now is it? That’cha wanna hurt me real-real bad? Ooh! That’d do it!”

Tyrian vaults back several feet, into a crouch that breaks into the beginnings of a sprint. At roughly the same point as before, not far outside the range he could tail-whip his target, the faunus falters, like a mime struggling with his own dedication to the profession.

“In the n-name of… Our Goddess, I will... Gut! You!”

“Y’can keep on fightin’ it, but I’m warning ya it won’t be pleasant...”

Pleasantness and Callows do not go hand in hand. After another few seconds of futile struggle, Tyrian seems to push through some invisible membrane, granted full range of motion as he stumbles forward, ready to swing.

At which point he’s summarily blasted over into a crystal-laced wall by an inexplicable, sudden eruption of raw, greenish Auric energy, seemingly coming from nowhere save Ciara’s general vicinity, the moment he draws close with weapons drawn.

Tyrian makes a choked ‘Uff-!’ as he falls to the floor, and again, when Ciara unclips Eadránaí and twirls up some more thick, plant matter to entangle him in a leafy, thorned cocoon for the time being. It’s only now that you take note of another, larger cocoon obscured by the rubble, a conspicuously Hazel-sized lump. This appears to be a running theme today.

“If ye’d not been such an asshole, that mighta worked,” she tells the plant-prison, then returns to her work. “Keep yerself down; I don’t got the time for faffin’ about.”

The initial surge of Grimm has thinned over the course of their display, but the vines and branches still perch near the exits with a vigilance. The miscellaneous vermin do the same, some of their bulk dispersing out into the nearby corridors to keep watch, even when Ciara’s eased stance speaks to the assumption of having dealt with all living intruders.

Until one of the chittering ratswarm bumps against your foot, and Ciara’s head mechanically snaps towards your general direction. Without a moment’s hesitation, she swings Eadránaí your way, and a sweeping tangle of half-dead vines and branches sweep across the empty space, until they coil tightly around a column of thin air they can’t quite pass through. Which would be you. Ow.

“What in th– Marigold!?”

No point wasting Aura now, especially since it’s being poked and scratched away by these stupid thorns. You release your Semblance and shimmer back into sight. Ciara looks not-quite-pleased to see you.

“Oh, yer not supposed’ta be here, lass,” she says gravely. “Awake, that is, after the dose I slipped ya, but... here-at-all, too, I’d say. The castle, the continent, here involved in all this shite.“

All that cackling-hyena disposition has been peeled away. What remains is unsettlingly professional by her standards, even mournful. You do not like this.

The obligatory question dribbles out: “What– W-what are you doing?”

“My job, fer one, which I know’ll come as a shock and then some. Imagine that! A hard worker when I’m actually wantin’ to be! Though, I suppose this is more of a ‘havin’-to-be.’ Had myself a cozy niche carved out here, fucked as it is to say, but the clock’s run out on this op.”

She pops Eadránaí out to its walking-stick length so she can lean on it, chatting away like nothing’s wrong. Like you both aren’t in the middle of a disaster, like there’s not blinding, sparking fire spewing from a patch on the great iron doors to your right.

“Old man’s finally callin’ me back. Been a good run all these years, good gas, and y’know what they say ‘bout all good things.”

To say your blood is running cold would be erroneous when it feels like it’s not running at all. “Old m– You work for Ozma!?” No, this isn’t– You drank too much. Right? You hit whatever bottle she gave you too hard and you’re hallucinating, just another vivid nightmare for the pile.

Ciara, irreverent, crass, profane, cynical Ciara, denies nothing. “Ozpin’s his name, and you know that. Honestly! Know y’had some fun playin’ the spooky lady’s lap-dog, but ya gotta see by now, this isn’t a good place t’be – It’s not where ‘the good ones’ end up!” She leans forward on her walking stick. “G’wan, don’t tell me y’got so used to living ‘round Grimm ya forgot they’re the fuckin’ Grimm?! You were gonna be a huntress! Slayin ‘em in the hundreds!”

Figures something would happen to twist last night’s already much-twisted knife. “There was a different ‘Marigold’ training to be a huntsman, and he had no idea what he wanted from his life. May Marigold? She’s been off the huntress track for years.”

“You can still get back on ‘er, make for a great huntress, like as not! Out in Vale, or Atlas if y’got homesick. F’not that, then at least a detective or a spy, yer Semblance’d be a great ace-in-the-hole to have! S’why I know Ozpin’ll take ya in a heartbeat, won’t even need the schooling for him to slip ya a license – imagine doin’ this work for someone who’s not got so much blood on their hands!”

One of the vines’ thorns jabs at your rib as you squirm. “Oh, and you think Oz is squeaky clean?”

The mage looks at you like the child you practically still are. “Compared to this? G’way outta that; he’s nothin’ like the bleedin’ Queen of Evil y’got here. He’s just a tired, coffee-guzzlin’ egghead, barely leaves Beacon and spends his every day protectin’ his Kingdom! He’s not the one try’na conquer the planet!”

“Because he already did,” you launch back. “Forget a Kingdom, he has an empire! He rigged up all the Academies, seated all the Headmasters, he’s got all the front-facing influence he could ever need! The only control Salem even needs is the relic vaults, and even then, only until she can open them!”

“You mean, ‘til she has you open them. You know she wants you to murder those women, right? The Maidens? Suck the magic out of their feckin’ corpses!”

“Not– Not necessarily!” You would be waving your arms, if you had use of them, but they’re still pinned in place, stuck to Danse Macabre pointed at your own toes. “She’s experimenting with this bug Grimm, and if it works, I can just– I could take the power without killing anyone! I wouldn’t even have to make them think of me!”

Unimpressed, Ciara lords her ability to gesticulate over you with some wild waggling. “Pfah! You really expect me t’believe that? That after a zillion years of Maidens gettin’ butchered for their magic, it’s right when you come along wit’cher bleedin’ heart that all of a sudden, she’s got the cutesy froo-froo exception ready just for you!”

“No! She said she was already working on it; she’d have the beetle even if I hadn’t come along! It wasn’t to do with me, which– which means she isn’t in it for killing, she just wants the job done!”

“And remind me what that job happens’ta be? Oh, right! Killin’ the whole feckin’ planet! She doesn’t put you on the dirtiest jobs, but don’t think for a second yer Witch-queen isn’t swimmin’ in blood!”

Begging isn’t the tone you intended. It’s leaking through, anyway. “It wouldn’t have to be that way, not if we were working together! Not if Ozma actually listened! The Grimm aren’t the biggest threat out there!”

“Like hell they’re not!” Ciara stomps around until she finds a fallen, iron helmet that hadn’t fully fused with a fallen Arma Gigas, and punts the thing like a football, clanking onto a stone wall. “Grimm are the only threat! I’ve seen more than enough, watched ‘em damn near kill m’whole feckin’ family! Whole village, even! And if it wasn’t in the attack, it was the starvin’ after, when we ‘ad no one to work the fields! It’s misery ‘n chaos all whipped up by your Witch – don’t tell me it wasn’t so!”

“She’s not in control of all Grimm, everywhere, all the time! If you want to blame anyone, blame Ozma for not better protecting outkingdom villages! Blame the God of Darkness for creating the Grimm at all, or the God of Light for letting him!”

The legitimate points you fire bounce right off her bias without leaving a dent. “Tch! So now you’re really on with this ‘The Brothers’re the Baddies’ tilt, too? Weren’t you raised Fraternist? I don’t rightly care ‘bout all their eschatological bullshitting – There’s a real world down here t’deal with! Did’ja forget that while she was crammin’ a shiny new savior complex ‘tween yer ears? Real, flesh ‘n blood, down-to-Remnant problems, that your boss is responsible for! All mine wants is a little peace!”

A knob turns inside you, a valve released. Righteous indignation floods out. “What good is a peace where the masses are still suffering, and the ones with power do nothing to keep from rocking the boat! Guess what attracts Grimm more than the uncertainty of change? Oppression! Poverty! The suffering of entire races and cultures!”

Holy shit, where is this coming from? From you, obviously, but your voice is weighty even to your own ears. It’s not as if you prewrote this screed; you’re a dazed, anxious mess, but still it flows.

“Your Last King of Vale was hyped to stop the Great War as an excuse to throw down his Academies all over the world, but then what? Fat lot of good his noninterventionist policy did during the Faunus Rights Revolution, or when Vacuo’s oasis was getting Dust-mined into a wasteland, or any social conflict since! Why haven’t the Faunus gotten their lands back from before the Great Exile – or, shit, at least sovereignty for Menagerie! You expect me to believe The Infinite Man himself couldn’t swing that?”

Even Ciara is surprised as much as she’s impatient; you’re not this loudly talkative at the best of times. She claps a hand over her eyes and drags it up, smearing her palm with the runny black warpaint. “Gods’ sakes, óinseach, will you just–“

“No, I won’t! You want me to suck up to the bastard responsible for Atlas? Who sat and watched while Mantle and the Crater get crushed underfoot by the city he placed all high and mighty in the sky with that staff? Whose culture made me everything I am, before I even was? I’m just another walking consequence of Ozma’s own actions!”

Groaning loud and hoarsely, the mage has grown fed up with your ideological ranting. To shut you up as you warm up for another stanza, she flicks her Dust focus and squeezes the vines around you like a vice, damn near trying to break your– Oh, and there it goes. In a shatter-shimmer of blue, your Aura cracks, fizzles, dies out amid its efforts to patch up the damage.

“Look!” Ciara spits, “we can argue the politics ‘n semantics til the feckin’ cows come home once we’re on the airship back to Vale! We can just go, lass! You and me! Ciara and May! Getting to live in a Kingdom instead of a wasteland! I don’t need ye to agree with everythin’, promise, I just need ye to come with me, now, while there’s time! Before she makes ye do somethin’ ye can’t take back! Ozpin – the ol’ man’s got doctors comin’ out his ears – it wouldn’t take ‘em long to figure how to change you back, get all that Grimmy rot out, make everything just like it was before!”

Change you back.

Automatically, irrationally, every battlefield danger instinct kicks on. Sirens blare in the back of your brain, blotting out the warning howls of the Grimm and the rumble of the storm.

Like it was before.

“N-no…”

Ciara’s face further scrunches at you, shoulders tightening. “Whadd’ya mean, ‘no?’”

Through context, your active brain knows she doesn’t quite mean that change specifically, but it’s close enough when your positive bodily changes are so invariably linked to the Grimm essence with which you’ve been treated. Your subconscious, meanwhile, only perceives terror.

“You can’t– I’m! I can’t… Ggh! Can’t just leave!”

The room begins to darken of its own accord, and it’s not just your vision fading from the strain of the strangling vines. Ciara sees it too, hitches up, spinning her stolen gun to every corner of the room and finding nothing but shadows and unfinished Gigas scrap.

The shadows thicken at the edges and thresholds, and beneath the debris, darker than they should in the light of the sconces and the sparking flame at the door.

“And you won’t have to,” comes a voice from everywhere, an immediate relief, a sense of safety reverberating from the shadows. It hurts to try and turn to see, tangled up in the thorn-thick vines, and you stop as you realize there’s no point. Salem is not standing in the room with you, now, but she is present.

The voice, though coming from every angle, feels as if it glides to the other side, behind Ciara. “My, my. Such a poor choice of words. Of all the things you could offer my dearest to tempt her away, you suggest that which would hurt her most.”

Composure is a requisite skill for a double-agent, and Ciara’s is fiercely tested. “W-well, now,” she says in a hollow laugh. “Look who’s home early!”

“Early?” croons the Salem-in-the-walls. “You misunderstand. I never left.”

Confidence steadily bleeds from the Dust mage. Filling the empty tank is the desperation of an animal who realizes its foot is already in the snare. There is an invisible timer in this room with you, and it is ticking, and for whom and what, you can’t say. She snaps Eadránaí down to its cudgel length and keeps it close at hand, only looking at you askance as she scans for danger.

"Kid, y’wouldn't understand – the things you don’t know about ‘er history, what she really is, what she’s done, things she’s not been tellin’ you–"

"I’ve told her everything," comes the sonorous, composed anger of your Queen, echoing from every dark spot in the room. "Everything she wished to know. Most within days of her arrival, and before she consented to my gift, at that."

Ciara’s disbelieving look jumps to you. "Y’knew what she wanted all the way back then, and you still–?"

Short on breath, most of it relegated to hisses of discomfort as you’re constricted, you’re glad that Salem speaks up on your behalf: "She is a grown woman free to think for herself, and would tell you as much, I’d think, had you only asked."

Frustration boils, and Ciara stomps away from you towards the door, whereupon you apparently cease to exist – just a decorative blue-haired art piece laced up in brambles while the adults talk. Her argument with you is shoved straight to the backburner in favor of her true goal. “G’dammit, where are ye keeping her!?” Ciara demands of your semi-omnipresent Queen. “We know you’ve had ‘er for years!”

“If you are referring to the last misguided assassin your master sent after me, you were headed in the right direction, though she’s not quite inclined to travel at present.”

“She’s got kids, ya sick bitch!”

“And will your master send them to me as well, when they are ripe? Put weapons in their hands and half-truths in their minds, knowing they only face the same fate as the last thousand ‘heroes’ he bid to fight the undying? They were all someone’s children.“

There is a sigh that feels as if it should send a breeze through the room. “Does Ozma even recall our own children, I wonder, save for their mere Maiden echoes he’s turned into playing pieces on our board?”

“How sappy-sweet of ya. S’that why you snapped up the lass here? Be her new mum ‘til ya got bored and bedded ‘er?”

“Your insinuation is depraved, though I cannot deny I endeavored to offer May all that she needed, all she was denied. Much of which you would seek to take away, as I understand. I’m greatly curious what Ozma could be for her that I cannot...?”

Increasingly impatient with the speed of her Dust-laden door-breach, Ciara bangs the butt of Watts’ pistol against the scorched iron surface. “She’ll see! Bit of time t’wake her up, deprogram all yer culty bullshit, she’ll be ours.”

You attempt to interrupt – “I don’t need deprogramming!” – yet your voice is weak, low on breath from your tight vine confines, only escaping as huffing and puffing out half-formed consonants.

“Overconfidence is a fatal weakness. You genuinely believe I’ll simply allow you to take my Maiden vessel, when she so clearly does not wish to leave? That I am unable to have you stopped?”

“Yer damn right!” Ciara unearths a small pocket of cocky determination and immediately hides inside it. “Ye can’t get near to me, and I’m almost through to the lady of the hour! I’m takin’ her back, and anyone else in there, I’m taking yer ‘Inner Circle,’ Marigold too, and y’can’t do a thing to me yet! S’why your dear ol’ hubby picked me all those years ago!”

Bewilderment has been one of your prevailing feelings these last several minutes, but especially now.

“Ah,” Salem says, reading your heart like liner notes. “I feel May’s fear is tinted with confusion about this. Would you care to explain to her your ‘Semblance,’ or shall I?”

Wait. You’re wearing her Semblance right now, aren’t you? “Buh… But–“ You tug at the selfsame thorny vines, stabbing your shoulders, but earning a bit of lung capacity to speak with. “But I thought her Semblance was this!“

“These parlor tricks? No, dear, this vestige of the shamanistic magics of old doesn’t belong to her; it is but a sliver of power bequeathed by my Ozma, as he’s known to do with his spies – such as Branwen, who, as I recall, was in close pursuit on the day of your initiation, the very day Ciara met you. How convenient.”

“Branwen’s a cock-up, is what he is,” interjects Ciara, deflecting. “I had the Maiden covered! Could’ve shooed the lass out the bunker if he hadn’t got his feathery ass clocked and rushed us back!”

Salem lets this pass unmarked, continuing your gossip session.

“See the plethora of smaller spikes all across the grip of her Dust focus? They’re quite the ingenious trick; a method by which to inflict subtle harm upon herself without detection, emulating the expenditure of Aura in tandem with her shamanistic abilities. As the old magic employs ambient energy, not innate, the discrepancy would’ve been simple to spot. Credit where credit is due, it did escape me at first, all those years ago.”

Both you and Ciara share in the outburst of “Years?!” It’s like you’re on the same side, for one fleeting moment, gone far too quickly.

“Oh, yes,” remarks Salem, as if discussing the weather. “Were I to guess why she’s leapt to blow her cover, I’d assume her Aura is faltering under the weight of her true Semblance weaving so many bonds in fate. So many causal barriers – such as attempting to bar my entry, now that my intent is clear. The weight of staying my hand even a moment must be immense. I imagine Ozma had finally relented and allowed her a retirement, before her Aura resealed itself entirely. His fault was in ordering her to dig deeper before she fled, rather than escape in safety.”

Bonds in fate? Causal–? You’ve long since learned to avoid interrupting your Queen’s monologues, but you’re losing the plot, fast. “I don’t understand, if the ‘shaman’ magic isn’t her Semblance, then what is?”

"Geasa," say Ciara and Salem in unison – the former with a dejected pride, the latter with disgust. This clarifies little for you, and Ciara’s busy watching the door. Salem steps in – her disembodied voice slips around in the shadows until it feels as if she’s right behind you, as if she could place her hands on your shoulders and steady you in the midst of your world falling apart.

“Ozma favors the more esoteric Semblances among his spies, especially those whose effects extend even unto myself. Most prominently, those involving the alteration of probability and causality.”

Mentally miles behind, you’re still sprinting to catch up. “And hers is one of those, and that’s why you’re not here? How does she even do that?”

“Patience. Have you ever noted her predilection? Has she issued a conditional statement which casually implied a promise or prediction, perhaps cloaked in a slip of her native tongue, whilst creating a point of contact to a bodily font of life – touched you or herself in some form, in proximity to the head or heart? A direct connection to better designate the causal link, as she lays the trap of inviolable prophecy.”

Equal parts horrified and spurred to hysteria from being found out, Semblance so casually dissected by her nemesis, Ciara begins to laugh again – that familiar cackle, but shorn of any delight – and pounds her chest carelessly with her thorny cudgel for every beat of her fervent prayer.

“Descendin’ long into lands of darkness, shall I strike down Grimm and evil and not by any but noble ‘eart be judged, harmed not by whosoever would seek t’harm, slain not by whosoever would seek t’slay, ‘til this vigil’s ended!”

Sardonically – almost mimicking you for once rather than the other way around – Salem remarks, “Hm. She’s saved me some trouble. Though, a combination geas of such complexity is hardly the norm; most might be small, a single mutual bond. Something like this, to be maintained so many years, dedicating the bulk of her Aura, every hour of every day… No wonder she’s burned it to a stub.”

‘My aura’s knackered,’ she would say, ‘Aura’s still shot, lass, go play with the Grimm,’ nine times out of ten when you’d ask to spar. Rarely kept her scroll on during missions, never connected to the team’s Aura readout. Conditioning you to accept every silly lilting promise or prophetic saying, every slip into her old language, every tap to someone's chest or a pound of her own as an amicable quirk of a quirky woman. Rats. Bats. Snakes and vermin, skulking all over the castle, eyes in every room, everywhere.

Damn it. Gods damn it. It’s not just confusion anymore, you feel like an idiot. You probably deserve this. Of course you deserve this.

Salem’s voice reaches in to help scatter away your knife-sharp thoughts. “To answer your initial question – Now that the ruse is dropped, I ‘would seek to harm her,’ hence, I cannot enter her presence without consequence. Though even the fiercest retribution could not destroy me, the brief delay of my reconstitution would allow her to escape with her ill-gotten prize, and abduct you in the process. I will not allow this.”

At some point, Ciara tapered off her first round of laughter, and has proceeded to an encore in the form of distant, broken chuckling, as she watches the too-slow blinding burn barely half of the way around the door frame.

There’s something in her eyes you can see, even from this distance. A very specific kind of defeat with which you are painfully familiar. The thin candle of hope, snuffed.

“Maybe it won’t matter. Lookin’ like a bust, this one is. Cover’s blown, so chances I’ll be skippin’ town after this’re slim to none. But there’s at least one unfucked job I can pull off for the ol’ man ‘fore I’m gone.” She sighs, and lets her head go slack. “Prevent ‘er from takin’ another Maiden.”

The perceived temperature in the room plummets. Salem doesn’t interrupt, only silence from the talking shadows, now. Has she deserted you?

“Know it’s my fault, lass. Should’ve got’cha out earlier. First day, even – shoulda told you to feck on off and said to the Witch you were a no-show.” Ciara backs away from the door, swirls Eadránaí to tighten your vine wrappings to a strangling point again, then hangs it on her belt. She does not holster Watts’ revolver.

Even wrapped up standing stock still like this, your lungs have your breaths coming shallow, fast as a marathon runner's. Your voice is broken beyond cracked, you can only rasp facsimiles of plights to listen. To just talk it out.

“Nope. You were desp’rate and I thought you’d take the booby prize – stay down in the bunker, be easy to ring someone up to come knockin’ and getcha to Vale. Instead, y’came all the way out here, tried to make yerself a life where the dead things grow.”

Ciara advances three steps. The empty casings from the gun rain onto the floor with gentle clinks. “And I won’t lie ‘n act like I wasn’t fond of some female company that wasn’t a feckin’ demon. But I missed my shot, ya got in too deep.” The woman before you reaches for her pouch of ammunition, slow and somber, but unwavering. “Why did’ja have to hesitate? Now y’know what I’ve got to do.”

You are in danger.

“P-pleh… Hh… Dohn...”

“I tried. Really did, lass, and it's for your own good – Better'n letting her turn ya into one of what she's got cooked up behind that door, and she's already got’cha halfway there already. B’sides… you’re only here at all as you tried to kill yerself. Been fallin’ and fallin’ all these years, same as me. It’s just lookin’ like we both finally hit rock bottom…”

From the instant the gun is drawn upon you, staring straight down the barrel, an implacable twinge of wrongness seems to shoot through you – a distinct sense of violation and broken promises.

“Close yer eyes, lass. S’time to wake up.”

Your Aura’s still gone; instead of the energized pins and needles of pre-emptive protection, there’s only the cold of dread and disbelief welling inside, negative sentiment ascending upward and coagulating in front of your skull, anxious tingles on the very spot on your forehead you know the bullet will land.

Unless you do something, you are going to die, and this time, it won’t be your choice. This time, it won’t be at your lowest point, unloved and shamed and hounded without a future in sight. This time, it will be after you fell right through rock bottom, and into an actual life – with a fulfilling purpose, a destiny, a lover, a name. All you’ve gathered over the course of your descent, blown away with one pull of a trigger.

(Across the four seconds to follow, there are five sharp sounds.)

One: The firing pin of Arthur’s stolen revolver strikes the next round’s primer, an infinitesimally fast blast of residue from Dust powder expended, and a shot is loosed, dead-on, towards its trembling target.

Two: This shot deflects with a loud crack off of the Nevermore bone mask you’ve summoned over your face in a harried heartbeat – a last-ditch defense, the rapid conjuring drawing on the despair of betrayal. Flecks of osseous matter spray in a whitish cloud over your shoulder, and your exposed eye stares out the broken half, glassy and terrified.

Three: That inner twinge of implacable wrongness comes to a head, its source immediately apparent. The psychokinetic feedback from a broken geas, one of many casual covenants between the two of you stretching back years, to the very day you met. You have been drawn upon in bad faith, and you did not first draw on her. Green auric energy loudly bursts outward from the revolver, leaving Ciara stunned.

Four: Too startled by the damaging feedback, Ciara can no longer focus on maintaining the thorny vines enshrouding you. Noisily, the thick green coils snap apart like rubber bands and fly loose, freeing your sore, thorn-pricked and bloodied limbs to move.

And Five: The least forgivable, the most agonizing, one of the most crushing sounds your ears will ever know. The fatal report of Danse Macabre – rendered soft by her suppressor yet deafening in your mind – sending a ferromagnetic slug tearing straight through the gut of a traitor.

The last, inch-thin reservoir of Aura explodes in green splinters, and blood sprays from a friend. A backstabber. A doting aunt. An oathbreaker. A mentor.

In a panic you pulled the trigger down, you released the charge, you sent the shot. You’ve just killed someone, and deep in your heart of hearts, past where rationality can dig its fingers, it doesn’t matter that she fired first, does it?

You’re a murderer now, May Marigold. As the chalk finally draws down its first tally on the old-fashioned board, the screech is anguish.

That look on Ciara’s face as realization strikes holds no anger; she knows why she failed, why her Semblance didn’t stop you, what she did wrong. Her final, pained look is thick with the same lostness you feel yourself, and above all else, naked remorse.

“T-tá brón orm... cailín beag.”

Then, she falls like an empty heap of bones and flesh will always fall. So do you.

You can thank your past self for putting practical kneepads in your gear, because you crumple immediately. You release the hold on the Grimm essence, rescinding the broken Nevermore mask, which melts into ashy smoke. Danse hangs limp in your arms.

One half of your brain wants to fling her away from you, out of sight, knowing what you’ve done. The other latches on like a lifeline, your last defense, because who else might turn on you, now? Who else, that you thought you could trust?

The shadows in the room ripple like the release of a last breath, and with the rush of a dark whispering wind, a heavy presence materializes not far behind you, followed by the calm clack of heels, approaching. The Dust-thermite burn is snuffed away at once.

Whatever causality-altering hold that C– that Ozma’s spy had maintained with her Semblance must have faded away, if your Queen has entered physically. However, the manipulated flora and fauna keep in a holding pattern. The thick vine walls and cocoons, the wary vermin, they remain as they were left.

Stopping beside you, Salem turns a wary eye on the debris. All stays tense, yet nearly still, until a fat, glowing rat – not only its eyes but entire body lit with that wispy white magic – scurries out from under a broken breastplate.

Salem’s head snaps to the creature making its frantic escape toward the great hall. Raising two fingers, her pinpoint bolt of burning rainbow magic snipes the creature clean through, and its spiritual payload explodes like a mortar shell packed with greenish-white ghostly fire.

“Oh, he has been busy…” Salem notes under her breath.

With this, the fleeing sliver of Ozma’s magic used by proxy fades as well, the furious plants and vines collectively withering. Hazel and Tyrian stir as their bonds break like your own, and surely somewhere a few floors up, Watts is doing the same. The rats, the bats, the odd snake or two, all the random vermin and living creatures still able to survive at Evernight, lose the glowing wisps in their eyes, and begin to mindlessly scatter, snuffle about, or devour one another without mercy.

There’s nothing left in this place commanding the primal aspects of nature, and the complex arithmetic of a causality-altering Semblance no longer able to bend and bar outcomes.

But you still can’t move.

Why? Why did she… All along! Everything kind she ever said, did it even mean anything?! All these years, all that friendship, was it even real? And she could’ve just… if she had just stolen a ship and gone home, it wouldn’t have had to come to–

“May.”

But if she’d said something earlier, and you left together before you’d taken the Grimm treatment, your body would still be the way it was. But you’d still be innocent! Or maybe not, because you’d still be an outcast to most Kingdoms on Remnant, but you’d have clean hands. But how much is that worth? You knew this was going to happen, right, you signed up for this, you’d have to–

“May. Look at me.”

The pointedness of the tone stings, jolting you back to the here-and-now. Your head jerks up with an ache-inducing speed. Though the expression on Salem’s face is one of intensity as she stands just beside you, there’s no anger to be found.

“You’ve done well.”

Dignity is a lost cause; you’ve yet to catch your breath, and on top of that, you’re practically whimpering through your weak, stuttered response, not unlike a child who’s broken a vase. “I didn’t mean to–  I panicked, I didn’t want to have to– I wasn’t thinking, I...”

“She would have killed you. The fact that you did not desire her harm was, in the end, what allowed you to circumvent the geas which shielded her.  So convinced was she of their certain protection, she failed to account she might one day level a gun upon someone who didn’t wish her ill on any level. I once instructed you to protect yourself at all costs – tonight, your obedience was tested, and proven as strong as I believed.”

“I just don’t…” Your lungs haven’t gotten the memo that hyperventilating’s been called off. “I just don’t understand… I thought she was different, and– And believed in the cause! I looked up to her, I felt safe around her!”

You register black, silken fabric against your cheek even before the hand in your hair, or the fact you’ve lolled to the side, towards Her Grace. There, collapsed on your knees with weapon in hand, with your head gingerly cradled against Salem’s side, the both of you watch the bleeding body ahead grow cold.

When you cry, really cry, it is just as pathetic as that night you fell from Atlas' graces, just as wet. There is salt and snot on the otherworldly black silks of an ancient witch's dress. She does not care about the stain, says nothing of it. She simply holds your head in place, and lets you wrench it out.

Maybe this is just the continuation of those same tears from Atlas. You expected to die that night, same as you expected to die just minutes ago. Another part of you did die tonight, but here you still are, mourning your own death both past and present.

You’ve really got to rein it in; it's selfish of you to cry over death at the feet of a woman denied it. When the emotional tides slow, Salem continues unabated.

“A personality which belies one’s true convictions is a gift in the turncoat’s line of work. Especially those portraying themselves as irreverent, a loose cannon, who cover traces of their betrayal with the impression of carelessness. It’s a nature common among many of Ozma’s assassins: dogma concealed under a smirk.”

At this point in your returning self-awareness, you discover you’d never taken your finger off the trigger again. Here at Salem’s side, you won’t need to defend yourself; it’s okay to let go. You deactivate Danse Macabre’s ranged mode, and rest her sheath across your knees.

“Even though she tried to kill me, I want her back. Am… am I just too weak for this?”

Salem strokes a thumb over a patch of your hair, and if you hadn’t banished the Beowolf ears, she’d likely be scratching just behind them. “Do you presume I don’t, at times, still wonder what could have been, had Ozma not betrayed me so? Even after all he’s done to me, and all I’ve suffered for trying to save him?”

It kind of makes you feel better, but it’s not a real answer. The way the traitor fell, her face is fortunately obscured by the angle, and a death-shroud of messy hair. But you need to look away; the sight of her lying there is burning into your eyeballs as badly as the thermite flare. You want to turn, but you don’t dare move away from the safe place Salem’s holding you, either; you tilt your head down to avoid it, but instead, are confronted with the weapon in your lap.

When you built Danse Macabre, you always hoped she’d be anointed first with the blood of an absolute monster. A beast who was no longer human or faunus, whose heartlessness made them into little more than a Grimm whose body won’t dissolve. An oligarch, a slaver, a sadistic serial killer – Something that had purpose, sent a message, a kill that meant something.

It was by gun, and not the sword, but Danse feels soaked all the same, in the blood of a friend-who-wasn’t. This here today didn’t mean anything at all. Your purity was forced from you, you couldn’t give it up for the cause.

You feel ill.

The very meaning in naming her Danse Macabre was the reminder that all will fall the same one day, that much is still true, but… you’d just hoped some would fall sooner than others, and that you wouldn’t have to be the one to put the latter down at all.

As utterly neutral as she is correct, Salem comments, “You’re overthinking.” Can you really complain how easily she can read your bad feelings if she uses it to help staunch your hurt?

“Maybe a little, Ma’am,” you lie, pointlessly.

Tyrian is hefting the body over his shoulder, hauling it to who-knows-where. Hazel crouches to pick up Watts’ fallen pistol, to be returned to its owner. When he’s down closer to your level, he meets your gaze and gives you a solemn and understanding nod, then he’s back up and away. No one touches the fallen cudgel.

Bending halfway to where you’ve crumpled, Salem inquires, “What do you need, May?” You expect she knows better than yourself, and wonder why she even asks.

It’s safest to just admit it: “I don’t want to think about any of this right now.”

“Then I shall take your mind off of it.” Salem rises to full height and beckons you behind her. “Come. It is past time you’ve seen something. It will not ease your heart, but you will have answers.”

Moving in slow motion, you push upward to get your legs under you again. Everything stings, dotted in splotches of your own blood from the hundred different thorns, taking its sweet time to dry as your Aura attempts to recover. You’re left off-balance after you stow your weapon, when Danse Macabre weighs one human body heavier on your hip.

You begin to fall into your usual place behind Salem, back a step and to the side, but she draws you in to clasp around her offered elbow. Her free hand, she waves before the massive doorway, making a complicated set of signs with nimble white fingers.

For a second, you think the storm outside is thundering again, when it’s only the deep rumbling of the weighty doors cracking wide, the attached chains broken in the assault now jangling uselessly in serpentine trails along the floor, and the sigil of Salem’s symbol glowing crimson beneath the char. A gust of cold and musty air, not dissimilar from the cellars of the Marigold Estate, pours out from the dimly-lit doorway.

Standing on no further ceremony, the witch then ushers you through the charred doorway for the very first time, passing into to the deepest and darkest chambers of Evernight.

Still in a daze, embattled by your guilt, you go without a second thought.

Chapter Text

The Fraternist Orthodoxy – being, well, the orthodoxy – rarely touched upon the legends of the Silver Eyed Warriors. The Atlesian Archdiocese maintained that all those scattered tales were strictly apocryphal, and that any of the more historically-backed sightings must’ve been an instance of a rare, hereditary Semblance in a bloodline who, coincidentally, bore those shiny-grey eyes, nothing more.

With that in mind, you’d rarely heard those tales come up as a kid, and those few times were only memorable in how unmemorable they were – big shout-out to the mandatory St. Camden’s Youth Ski Trip at age 14, wherein one of the Youth Ministers was just…

The guy was struggling way too hard to look cool, sitting backwards in his chair, aiming to tempt disaffected teens’ attention away from the myriad agonies of puberty and carnal temptation by offering stories ‘they don’t exactly want us telling you.’

Which was a total ripoff; there wasn’t much to ‘em, not like your favorite Maiden Parables. The best Maiden stories, though straightforward and digestible even for children, had a flow to their narrative, the tiniest bit of an arc, some risk and loss and suspense, even if you knew it’d be a happy ending.

Most Silver Eyes tales that still got around could be boiled down to ‘Nondescript Man walks into town, emits ocular flashbang, Grimm dead, praise the God of Light.’ How was that supposed to grip your heart and inspire feeling? You slept through a lot of ‘em.

Maybe you wouldn’t have, if you’d known those eyes could very well kill you one day.

The sparsely lit hallway, more like a tunnel, runs long and vast, spanning deep into Evernight’s forbidden places. Your mind is elsewhere – on the disheartening scene you just departed, the blood you just spilled – and you notice little else until Salem closes yet another door behind you, gently pulls her arm from your hold, and speaks.

“This is one of many chambers and many secrets I’ve kept solely for myself, where possible. In truth, I’d have likely brought you here years ago, had it not been for the risk of exposure by the late spy in our ranks. It’s hardly that I do not trust you, rather that I respected the capability of the enemy to acquire information. Now, she is gone, and you are ready for the gravity of what you will find. This chamber is the reason for her betrayal, for her attempt on your life, and her death.”

For a room you’ve only entered for the first time, it’s unexpectedly recognizable; you can mentally place bits and pieces of its marble walls and myriad high columns from what you’ve seen speaking to Salem through the Seers.

The age-old, original design of Castle Evernight once incorporated a sizable chapel, a holy place, which invites even further questions about the castle’s origin – if this half-buried foundation was part of the ruins of the castle Salem shared with Ozma, did that mean he was who insisted on building such a secular addition, despite Salem’s inevitable protest? Did they overtake an existing castle, and it was already here? Was this castle utterly irrelevant until Salem came to call, in an age where the Land of Darkness was still full of life and civilization?

Doesn’t matter. Whatever the case, the ‘holy place’ couldn’t be further from holy, now. This profaned chapel isn’t a place of worship. It’s a prison, and maybe even that is generous.

Glommed onto the corners and ceilings of the chapel, in spaces once meant for pews, shrines, and tapestries, giant hunks of semisolid Grimm matter have congealed. Heavy bars and spikes of iron have been placed in between once-decorative archways under the hanging balcony hugging the edges of the room, a form of makeshift cell.

Here, you find the Silver-eyed Warriors in residence. Or… what’s left of them.

You’ve known about the Silver Eyes for years, longer than the Maidens, and no few of Salem’s early spy assignments carried you all across Remnant keeping tabs on their actions and allegiances, no matter how harmless they looked, and no matter how many of those eyes they even had left.

“Are you sure they can’t do their whole… Silver Light thing?”

“No, May. Not like this.”

Quick counting says there are perhaps five or six, at least that you can see here. It’s difficult to tell for sure, from how thoroughly some of the Warriors are now… obfuscated by the Grimm material. A few appear as if they’re being devoured by the solid ichor plastered on the wall, while others droop from it, suspended hanging outward like a streetlamp, like they’re forever falling but can’t quite hit the ground.

The more ‘mobile’ among them are kept in place with enchanted shackles tethered to iron hoops jutting from plates on the stony walls. Whether they are the newest, or the furthest ‘developed’ experiments, you can’t say.

Up at the fore of the room, the original altar has been knocked away, space repurposed to fit a giant, rectangular stone slab, a ritual worktable of some sort you remember catching through the Seer.

Just behind it, on the wall beneath even more elaborate carvings, stands a great jeweled triptych of the Brother Gods: the Light Brother, generous, poised on the left, then the Dark Brother, scrutinizing, lurking on the right, both surrounding Remnant in the center, with the fragmented moon high above.

Such gaudy décor clashes gravely with the contents of the table-slab – on its back, something you’d be justified in mistaking for an Alpha Beowolf. The creature’s form is somewhat closer to a real canine’s, yet still a man’s, its bone mask distinctly lacking any eyes. Its chest rises and falls. The thing slowly stirs, but doesn’t wake, and exposed in an empty, unformed chunk amid the Grimm flesh, is the unsettling truth: a marred face, that of an adult faunus, Silver-Eyed and canid-eared.

Dangling above the center of the chamber, and entangled in what once must’ve been a rather elegant crystal chandelier by its lonesome, another bodily Grimm-melded Warrior is overtaken by a quivering, groaning group of The Apathy. The human head sags limply, eyes vacant, while the Grimm skull bulging from the hardened ichor over their shoulder tilts and cranes randomly.

The dram of Salem’s blood in your veins has given you partial immunity to their psychological dampening in the past, but you’ve still been able to feel when one was near. From this hybrid monstrosity, you don’t feel a blip, leading you to assume it’s been attuned only to suppress any rebellious emotion from their kin.

This isn’t something anyone should see. This isn’t something anyone should endure. But you are, and they are, and it is what it is. You’re forced to wonder if any of those assembled in this room around you now are ones you once surveyed. Not that you need to worry much that they’ll recognize you.

Salem follows behind you as you explore at your own, distracted pace, witness to some of the darkest of her works.

“These here will not harm you, but always remain cautious. Treated with Grimm essence in such a degree as you are, a fully trained Silver Eyed Warrior possesses the capability to kill you with a single look, if they detect you are a threat. It is true your… Semblance bends and manipulates light, but I suspect this is restricted to the literal, rather than the esoteric. I’d prefer not to test its ability to nullify the Silver Eyes. You are too valuable to risk, now.”

Other days, such praise from Salem would ease your mind. Instead, an itching numbness prevails, like your very soul went and got swarmed by insects.

You know, nigh-instinctively, that this is unethical to a monstrous degree. And yet, you’re so, so godsdamned tired right now, strained to pay any attention that isn’t sucked down to the burning of phantom blood on your hands.

And these Warriors, wouldn’t they just be doing the same in reverse if they were up and active – capturing people serving under Salem and doing who-knows-what? Even now, does Ozma have your predecessors in captivity? If any of them ever ‘experimented’ like you did, and took well to the essence, what kinds of shit would the Wizard’s side be doing to them? Cia– the traitor said something about Ozpin having doctors, right? Doctors who wanted to ‘fix’ you? Those wouldn’t just be surgeons from the local hospital, after all.

Putting aside the existential threats the Gods present, aren’t these Warriors most often conscripted into defending and maintaining an unforgivably broken system? In a couple years’ worth of working for Salem, you’ve been ushered into a front row seat to some of the worst atrocities this world can offer while still proclaiming itself ‘at peace.’

On her orders, you’ve practically lived like a conflict journalist; you’ve covertly tracked down Grimm-baiting swells of negativity all across civilization, and helped map their hotspots. You’ve recorded war crimes in violation of the Vytal Peace Accords – confessed to, defended, and performed throughout every human Kingdom on Remnant.

You’ve observed the Mistrali slave markets, wearing both their faces. The bold brothels and night-markets, where sapient lives are no longer shielded from the question, ‘how much for that one?’ Or the clean traders, their schools, shrines, and orphanages. Nonthreatening, rooms a bit cluttered with the telltale signs of children, but otherwise everything spic and span. It’s only behind closed doors where a shrewd, bony woman might pull the kiseru from her curling lips, and over a cloud of fragrant smoke, give you a firm price in lien for every tiny little life in the building.

You’ve skirted laser grids in Atlesian military blacksites, where the finest technologies the Kingdom has to offer is judiciously used to utterly unmake people, the same or worse than these Grimm-hybrids, yet in the dozens and even hundreds. How many of Salem's associates preceding you have gotten sent to such prisons, where your entire identity, your mind itself, is peeled apart inch by inch with the cleanest and most medically-efficient torture?

You’ve stalked through plantations in Central Sanus filthy with paramilitary goons funded by the Remnant Fruit Company as a front. Camps patrolled at their perimeters by soldiers whose ages may not’ve hit double-digits. Atlesian surplus submachineguns with safeties off, in the hands of faunus orphans who just want a warm meal that night, never trained to fight off a Grimm, considered disposable.

In a way, your primary task this last year-or-so has slowly shifted: Once upon a time, you were steadily sent out on missions to swipe old world artifacts or supplies for the castle, snoop on Silver Eyes and suspected Maidens, quietly sabotage Ozma’s operations. Your orders lately are, more often than anything else, to play the silent, invisible witness to the sins of this misbegotten bitch of a world.

So when you come to see this bare cruelty in the belly of the castle of the so-called ‘Witch’ – just a handful of magic-fueled warriors and attempted assailants sitting around drooling, barely aware, while the Grimm-parasite around them snuffles like a beast? It’s… it’s almost tame.

It’s not okay – you doubt you could ever claim it was, it’s clearly abhorrent, and it upsets you that your Queen is even part of it, and yourself by extension – yet at this point in your life, to you, it’s still just comparatively tame; that’s the only word you can find for it.

Seeing all of this, knowing what you know, and having taken your first life today, makes for a dangerous concoction of thoughts for your brain’s bartender to be shaking up. Thoughts that make you wonder: what exactly have you been playing at, acting innocent all this time? Lying to yourself that this wasn’t exactly what you signed up for, what you knew was coming the first night you knelt for Salem?

A war in the shadows isn’t only going to be spying through binoculars, running harmless heists, recording blackmail, gathering intel. It’s still a war. And war, no matter how glorious and noble your Atlesian schooling tried to make it seem, is always horrendous.

When you stood in that orphanage facade, the proprietress blowing smoke in your face, balancing her eagerness to be rid of another brat with the hunger of her bank account – should you really have given your false apology and excused yourself to ‘deliberate?’ Or should you have chosen to act?

What about when you stalked those plantations, and found the mercenary commander’s cabin; what choice were you truly making, when you zoomed in through the window with your scroll, not your rifle scope? Should you have taken the incriminating photos and moved along, or should you have chosen to act?

What about when you stood in that unlisted, ultraviolet security Atlesian blacksite, housing at its core that suffocatingly gray, five-floor panopticon, observing the bulletproof, Hard-light reinforced one-way plexiglass cells? When you crept past the kitchens where the Aura-sapping chemical solution was fed into the food and water supply?

When you flitted from cell to cell, looking for your target, and beheld the inmates behind that glass – shaved, numbered, some even forced into heavy masks like ugly white lockboxes, some faunus’ traits surgically removed entirely. Kept from the sun so long that their skin screamed their bruises and taze-burns all the louder...

When confronted with these realities that tempted you to agree with the Gods you’ve sworn to fight; that the world deserves to be wiped away, what kind of coward are you, that you hurried to secure your own mission?

That you brushed it off, said nothing could feasibly be done for them all, that there were too many guards to safely move them, and that you couldn’t reasonably knock out the entire prison, couldn’t hijack the entire airfield alone?

You were selfish, irresponsible, as you extracted the one key prisoner as Salem ordered, then left without raising a single alarm. In doing so, you left so, so many there to suffer – you had the power to enact change and didn’t for the guaranteed expediency of your own goals... but worst of all, for the arrogant comforts of self-righteousness, of getting to tell yourself you’re staying morally pure, still ‘one of the good guys.’ You were acting like fucking Ozma.

But you were never a good guy, were you? You’re just a bad girl.

And maybe, just maybe, you should’ve stopped pretending you could play a pacifist forever.

Maybe.

Maybe you should have killed them all.

Every guard and interrogator, soldier and surgeon, every military officer and overseer. Swept through unseen, a silent wind of liberation, and left nothing in uniform alive. Embraced the Grimm inside you and preyed on their fear, put Danse Macabre to the task for which she was named. Redemption is a concept for people, and the only people in that base were jailed behind bulletproof glass. You could have let them watch their captors fall one by one, could’ve gifted them hope.

Yet you didn't, because your own naive hope these past years was that you could always ‘play it smart,’ that there would always be a nonlethal option. That standing atop a mountain of stun-blend Lightning Dust, sleep gas, martial arts and tranq darts would lift you high enough that the red tide couldn’t wash you away. That your hands could have the privilege of staying clean.

But there're no clean hands in heart surgery, and you're fighting over the heart and soul of Remnant, now. It’s well and truly a war, and if you want to heal this world, to try and play the medic, of course your scrubs will come away sodden with the viscera.

In the old parables, no one blamed a Maiden for those evildoers she put down. Her judgment was held aloft as righteous, and she was praised for her protection of the people, shaping the world for the better. If – no, when you become a Maiden yourself, when that level of power is in your hands one day, you can’t be like those who hoard it and do nothing while Remnant suffers like a dying animal.

Healing it, or putting it out of its misery, you have to do right by the world. Even with that chance you might fail, and the Gods might wipe it all away nonetheless, you’ve gotta do right by the people languishing in this room around you, prisoners of the invisible war.

How many traffickers, oligarchs, and war criminals would you have to put down, to actually atone for the Silver Eyed Warriors suffering here? A dozen each? A hundred, a thousand?

No, trying to quantify the worth of a life in such a way is fruitless, so there’s no point guessing at totals. You need to stop thinking in such simple terms of morality, and little is more simplistic than boiling it down to a flat number.  Maybe all that matters is you start, and never set a condition to stop. It’s about the journey, not the destination.

The haze of edgy daydreams thins, and you realize the metallic taste in your mouth isn’t a psychosomatic symptom of your fantasized bloodlust: you’re bleeding from your lip.

In your self-loathing, you’d unconsciously drawn on the Grimm essence and punctured it with a small fang. You dryly wonder if you could give yourself a lip ring, now.

Except you then remember a certain woman’s wagging tongue flicking a lip ring during a cackling bout of laughter. You shoot the thought down, desummon the fang, pump your barely-recovered Aura hard into the wound.

You’re losing it, May.

That spontaneous inner fire which flared to life during your zoned-out contemplation dissipates in the air around you, and you come back to the present having veered off towards one of the chapel’s occupied, yet unsealed cells.

Your feet have carried you over to a dark half-lump with pale skin and silver eyes, seated back against the stone wall. You can say ‘seated’ with certainty because the remainder of the occupant not soaked in the thick, tar-like ichor is very much unbound, unshackled, simply... sitting there, one knee up, an arm casually propped on it.

Out of some unknown draw towards the morbid, you crouch down, and examine what’s visible of the woman – at least, you’re assuming – the three quarters of a woman’s face.

Middle-aged from the look of her, and possibly human, not that you can be certain any faunus traits aren’t obscured under the Grimm mass or the folds of her tattered cloak. You can’t quite tell if her hair was always so dark or if it’s just a byproduct of the ichor stain, since it melts from black into a warmer-colored gradient near the ends.

“Er… Hey?”

No response. She’s just staring at nothing, looking exhausted, lost. She looks the way you feel. You arrange yourself right in front of the part of her face you can view, and gaze into those currently-unseeing Silver Eyes. Eyes of light, and purification, the banishment of evil.

Some ichor-sticky hair has fallen in front of one, and compelled by a bewildering lack of self-preservation, you reach out to clear it aside for her, tucked away to expose that deadly silver mirror.

Are you really something that needs to be purified? That needs to be fixed, changed back to the way you were – like if the traitor had taken you home – or an abomination better off dead because you took an offer of help no one else would give you? Apparently so, where the God of Light is concerned, if one flash from these irises in front of you would disintegrate most of your body in an instant.

But then, since when did you start caring what the Gods thought of you? You share a bed with their third-greatest mistake behind birthing the Grimm and creating this world altogether.

If Salem hadn’t neutralized their owner, and she was out there right now fighting Ozma’s war, would these Silver Eyes have ever turned on you with that hateful judgment, and burned you away? You’d hope they wouldn’t – even empty and unfocused, they look warmer than an assassin’s should be, maternal, even more trustworthy than that of the traitor – but it’s not like you can really trust anyone in Ozma’s pocket, no matter how kind and caring they seem. You learned that the hard way today.

The Grimm-caked woman judders a moment, her head lolling an inch in the other direction. Her static gaze still unfocused, the only other activity from her direction are fractured sounds rasping up a throat hoarse enough to not have seen water in weeks. Maybe it hasn’t.

“R-R-Ruh… ru… eh…? Yeh… Nn...”

It’s probably best not to bother her. Standing, you pace backwards and away from the nameless woman. It’s not your intent to sound suspicious, but it sneaks through into the tone as you ask, “Was all this… could this have happened to me?”

You don’t even need to look where you’re going; as you exit the cell, your back bumps right into Salem’s waiting arm, who pats your shoulder. It helps.

“No, it couldn’t. Though there were certainly less-advantageous outcomes, shaping of this magnitude requires my explicit intent. Through my intervention to aid your progress, coupled with your own will – how even when afraid, you still drank and accepted this gift – the hunger of your soul surpassed the hunger of the Grimm essence, and subjugated it.”

When you ponderously raise a hand close to your face and examine your gloved knuckles, your thorn-pierced palm with its half-dried, human blood, you can’t find the right words you need not to sound ungrateful. But you’re Salem’s – you know she’ll understand.

“It’s just… seeing all this makes me wonder how different I am from them,” you gesture towards the seated, ichor-soaked woman, the hybrid up on the altar, “or regular Grimm, or even from proper humans, now. And if I do end up absorbing Maiden power, what then? A holy magic monster? What am I gonna be at the end of all this?”

Softly pushing at your shoulder, Salem turns you around to face her, expression unreadable, yet not unkind.

“Ozma is the God of Light’s thrall, thus the Maiden lineage comes from his power by proxy, as does what broken magic became your Semblance. In the same vein, the Grimm are the Dark Brother’s creation. When you ascend to the Complete Maidenhood, and the relics are in hand, you’ll hold the most powerful transferable gifts of both these wayward Gods. When you’re prepared, you will become the closest we can reasonably create to a weapon against them – a blade forged from the remnants of themselves they left in their wake.”

This, she says to the dumpster-diving damsel she pulled out of a grimy alleyway. All the talk of power and destiny and overthrowing divinity is inspiring, but much of it rolls off of you for feeling too distant.

Time to deflect a little. You set your hands on your hips and shift your weight. “Huh. We sure there aren’t any other ancient magic powers for me to soak up? I can probably make a little more space in here, if I have to.”

Salem, being Salem, lifts up the threadbare sheet of sarcasm to see the heap of emotional toil it’s covering, then lowers it, unimpressed. “Unfortunately, the Silver Eyes cannot yet be transferred by artificial means, magical or mundane, so to offer you this gift as well is out of reach… Not that it’s of concern to me.”

With a smile befitting a saint, her sharp black thumbnail skims the thin skin below the curve of your lower left eyelid, only for the cool pad of that thumb to brush a few strokes over your temple.

“This gold is worth far more to me than silver.”

Your throat bobs a little, and your heart quickens. Romance always gets you good, and you’ve given yourself to the star of the oldest love story there is. Even the extensive horror of your environment can’t smother that.

She moves to cup your cheek, the only thing holding you back from hurrying up and meeting her halfway, desperate for that moment of comforting mental emptiness that comes as your lips touch.

You’re in love with a monster, but you’re a monster too. That makes it okay. Right?

“There’s still much for you to learn,” Salem says after a few more doting kisses. “But I wished to ensure there remained no great secrets between us, now that we’ve a respite from prying eyes. I know also that this could gravely change your opinion of me, and to some degree, it would be justified.”

Salem lets you go, yet kept in arm’s reach. Right back to her serious face. “As events begin to escalate in pace and importance, I must be certain my Maiden vessel does not doubt her place, nor her mission. Even having seen all you have seen, done all you have done, and come to know what you have – can I count on your loyal service? Do not answer immediately. I want you to think.”

You pan your eyes across the room, at the baleful, shuffling horrors around you, the tepid atrocities. Down at your hands, at dried dribbles of blood from a tragic encounter with a friend. You look up again, at the embodiment of chaos, of a desperate struggle against the heavens, of your probable death.

Years ago, you might’ve felt as if you were pressured, here. After all, if you told her off, she could snap her fingers and have you torn apart by the selfsame half-beasts you would’ve let sway your feelings over the line. Now, even asking the question feels like a formality, yet one that’s greatly appreciated.

This entire incident has left you feeling off-balance, and there’s a lot you need to think about, to justify. Still, you muster the last of your confidence to clear your throat and rattle off a well-used, but comfortable mantra, one which rarely fails to see Salem smile. “Until the end, however it ends, right?”

There is a sick irony in how fiercely your wounded heart leaps to sink fangs into the whispered “Good girl” she gives you, all the while a literal Grimm-hound lies on a slab just across the room. You politely tell the irony to fuck itself.

“Now… You’ve had a short, but stressful day, I’m aware, and that my feigned absence to prompt the traitor denied us the comfort of our time together. I would correct this tonight, and I expect you feel the same?”

“Yes. Please,” you sigh. “I don’t want to think about anything for a while.”

“Of course, darling. We shall reconvene at the usual time – our bedroom, not the study – and we will clean you up, clear your head. In the interim, with Ozma’s spy handled, there are some affairs I must see to around the castle in shoring up our defenses. As such, I will give you your space, should you require time to settle, as well as begin attending to your own preparations.”

Maybe you’ve missed something, and you blink wearily up at Her Grace. “Preparations?”

“To move on Vale. To pursue your Maidenhood.”

Salem says it so matter-of-factly that the ringing gong of ‘This Is Really Happening’ is slow to be struck. When it is, it’s visible in not only your face, but your entire body language.

“This early?” you ask. It felt like you wouldn’t need to worry about preparing until after the 39^th Vytal Festival wrapped up in Mistral; the time until the 40^th and all it represents had seemed like a comfortable distance. All of a sudden, it’s exceedingly cramped. “I guess it felt like we’d have more time, before I actually needed to…”

“Ozma’s gambit tonight signals our timetable is set to accelerate dramatically over the coming months and years. Sadly, it is true: you will be away from the castle for increasingly lengthy ventures, your return visits brief, if not delayed indefinitely at times, and the same for any rendezvous in the field. It will be difficult, but it is the task for which I have trained you, and I know you will honor me.”

Bit of an emotional gutpunch to only just get Salem back, only to hear it’s time for stretches of missing her for weeks and months with little-if-any contact at all. It’s not like she owns a scroll, herself. Hold on, what if you spliced yourself with raw Seer essence, could you telepathically– No, gods, don’t be an idiot.

She’s right, though. This is the war for which she chose you to be her champion. Her Maiden. It’s going to be grueling, but you won’t fail her, you won’t fail these prisoners, you won’t fail Remnant, and damn it, you won’t fail yourself. No matter how much chaos you have to wade through, you can still do something to help this world.

“Do I leave tomorrow?” You worry a thumb over one of your bleeding punctures. “Is there an itinerary?”

“No. Though in short supply, we do still have time. This evening, don’t worry yourself about problems far outside these walls. Be concerned only with what you can do for yourself, in rest and in personal preparation. I highly advise you begin focusing on unfinished business at the castle. Once you’re away, I do not wish you to regret having left any loose ends, understood?”

You draw a deep breath of the musty air, hold, and heavily sigh it out, with a single sullen nod.

“Mhm. I think I understand.”

It’s been a chaotic day at Castle Evernight, between a half-baked sabotage failure and the communal knowledge that operations against Vale will soon be underway.

Now, as the snuffed torches and sconces are re-lit, as shuddering Imps and other Grimm clean away the clutter, as the castle goes quiet, a light cloud of steam is leaking out around the cracks of the door to the ground floor’s common shower room – a simple, but perfunctory little chamber with dark marbled walls and tile, sixty years out of date and somehow still on par with Atlesian military standards, if one can ignore the lack of unnecessary holograms.

Its occupant clearly had a rough day, having been humiliated not getting to gore a traitor and please the Queen. No, it had to be that pathetic, degenerate whelp she keeps around as a plaything, of course, because it always is, ever since Her Grace looked down and in her inscrutable wisdom, scooped that perverted thing out of the garbage, right?

So, the showers’ occupant takes his time, for once, surprising nearly any and all that he would ever care for hygiene. And yet, a true assassin can’t run around smelling rank as can be, especially around other faunus who can pick up on his trail. It makes a little sense, when one ponders it.

This nice steamy shower doesn’t last forever. But, what’s this? Muffled grunts of displeasure and confusion from within?

The door slams open, kicked by a very, very irritable Tyrian Callows, hair wet and only loosely braided. He’d apparently hurried on his way out, now only bothering with his white pants and vest, as the man’s foregone his coat, suspenders, boots, even his favorite arm wrappings. And his weapons, strangely enough. What kind of assassin loses track of those?

He whips his head back and forth, down either end of the quiet, unoccupied hallway, and shouts: “Grrah–! Get out here! Where are they!?”

Unsurprisingly, the empty corridor gives him no answer.

“Yes, yes, quite a clever trick for a child, but I am not in the mood to play, insect!”

A thunderclap echoes through the halls, one unaffiliated with the angry weather outside. For the second time in one day, Callows finds himself flying into a wall – careening backwards through the open door and crashing with a craggy cracking of stone – this time not by way of a geas Semblance, but the impact of a Grav-Dust slug at short range.

The raw concussive force, besides breaking part of the door’s hinges, also shatters one of the shower room’s overhead light fixtures, left dangling precariously by half its wiring and belching intermittent gouts of sparks onto the damp tiles below. The long mirror spanning over the countertop by the sinks is fractured, gerrymandered into a dozen lopsided shards by the cracks, further littering the slick floor with broken glass.

Creaking on its remaining hinges, the heavy door slowly falls shut again of its own volition, closing off the humid space. But Tyrian’s no greenhorn, this is his field of expertise!

Obviously, he would guess he isn’t alone, explaining why he takes a defensive stance, snatching up two of the longest mirror shards fallen to the floor as makeshift daggers. He must not care if it bleeds Aura to hold them so tightly and remain uncut.

The man lowers his center of gravity and creeps forward, slowly, to a space with free range of movement. He’d unknowingly given himself a field advantage, sulking so long as to work up such an abundance of steam, the warm fog upping his odds of catching the trails and outlines of sneaky insects that the naked eye cannot.

Coming from nowhere, as a lot of things seem to be lately, a hurled cluster of bottles appear from thin air just above – a bevy of eclectic, strongly-scented herbal soaps and shampoos, belonging to an owner who won’t be needing them any longer – only for a phantom bullet to shoot straight through them.

The bottles explode into a wet, messy mist of competing smells and harsh chemicals, raining down over and around the scorpion faunus. He was never that gifted with scent tracking, no matter how he bragged, but with his baseline being stronger than a human’s, he surely must find it very unpleasant, even disorienting. Enough even to sting his eyes and leave him hacking, dropping one of his glass shanks.

Despite his wheezing and the burn in his eyes, despite the sparking flicker of the broken light fixture, it seems he’s not so stunned as to miss the fleeing of his soon-to-be prey – All of a sudden, two staggered rows of tiny splashes in the puddles on the floor, trailing away!

“Ah, but it isn’t so clever as it thinks!” croons Tyrian. “Time to... die!”

He swipes a deadly tail through the steam, and catches no resistance. Below, the splashes halt. A veil is pulled aside, revealing nothing but two spent Dust casings, skipped across the wet tile.

Vzzzzzzzrzzzrrrzzzrzzzz...

He spins in place. It’s only by the grace of Tyrian’s baseline heightened faunus hearing that he can perceive such a familiar hum even while its source is hidden; maybe if he were a different subspecies it would be strong enough for him to determine exactly where that source is, but as it stands, it takes him several seconds of whirling and cocking his head as he searches.

All of a sudden, he jerks to a halt, perked up in… alertness? No, no, caution? Oh, what’s the word… It’s pretty short, maybe four letters, starts with an ‘F.’ There, in the wisps of steam spun up through his own motion, he can catch a cloudy glimpse of a hollow, humanoid outline, almost as tall as himself.

His second impromptu knife is abandoned in a flash, insufficient for the task; Tyrian only has a fraction of a moment to catch the ghostly blade whose shape cuts through the fog, before it can open up his gut from umbilical to epigastric. The man tries to rely on his dwindling Aura to let him hold back an invisible weapon whose electrokinetics are primed, Dust fueling oscillations at such high frequency as to ordinarily help shear through metal and bone.

Tyrian is forced backward into the cracked wall, struggling to hold back a sword he can’t even see between his twitching fingers, a blade whittling away his Aura to even hold from the sides, his tight grip and straining muscles saving him only as much as they condemn him.

Pinned so tightly to the stone, his tail’s range of motion is limited. When he tries to drag it aside for an attack, an invisible boot slams the tail’s tip into the tile and twists.

Overhead, the broken lighting struggles in clinging to life, and sparks sputter weakly in the gloom.

At this point the veil is dropped from around your body; there’s no further need to waste Aura on your Semblance. You’re revealed to him, long cobalt hair flying wild and unkempt, armor lightly speckled with the dried blood of a woman you once trusted, mingling with the countless thorn-pierced splotches of your own. Eyeshadow, a blotchy smear. You look like a mess. You are a mess.

One can only wonder how it scathes him, to see his own personal weapons, The Queen’s Servants, both strapped neatly to your wrists; the stolen, bladed gun-gauntlets happy in their new foster home, for the time being.

“Those do not belong to you, disgusting little thief…!”

Though you wouldn’t know all their intricacies, having never touched The Queen’s Servants before today, there was quite a bit of time to poke around and get a feel for the utmost basics while you were waiting on the man to finish up washing and be made decent.

Or, well – not ‘decent,’ just clothed, because you still respect yourself too much to be subjected to the alternative. In any case, it was enough time to figure out their trigger scheme.

The gauntlet on your right wrist, through its grip on Danse’s hilt, is already aimed at Tyrian’s abdomen. It unloads a double-tap of bullets from both barrels, earning a pained grunt and four sparks off that dwindling violet Aura.

It’s quite fitting that he should one day find himself at the mercy of his own weaponry. After all, he did all of this to himself! Over the course of years and years, and by the countless lives of those who were forced to suffer him, he did this to himself! Karma may not be real, but you are.

From the twitches of Tyrian’s cheeks, wrinkling of his nose, you can determine the elementary components of a scathing insult are being compiled on his tongue – perhaps yet another overplayed lash about your gender, or a barb about your inferior utility to Salem, your weakness in battle, your faults of compassion, and yet, the pieces don’t seem to fit together just right. His mouth seizes up, capable of very little but grunts until he finally looks up from your thrumming sword and sees your face, really sees it.

Whatever he finds in your eyes doesn’t appear to comfort him; eyes the very same radiant gold as his, eyes with the same strength of conviction as his, eyes stained with the same fury as his. Buried deep in the dark mirrors at the center of those eyes, all he can possibly see now is a thin reflection of himself. If so, he would see that he is sore afraid.

Above, shattered lights finally surrender. One final electrical fizzle, and all goes black.

“W-who do you even– think you are, insect?!” Tyrian strains to stammer, as a shroud of lucent purple glass splinters off his form, as Danse Macabre sharply tickles the skin of his chest, and in the absence of a heart, merely angles toward the meaty source of his pulse. “Do you understand... what you’re doing–!?”

That’s easy. Both questions have the same answer.

“The will…”

“Ghaa–hrrk-rk!”

“...of our Goddess.”

Chapter Text

–[T-minus 2 years, 2 months, 1 week, 4 days to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

Now this, this right here? This is some deja vu.

In an unremarkable town in the Central Sanus borderlands, a smidgen closer to the Valish end than Vacuan, an act of jewelry theft has occurred. This, too, is unremarkable – in this part of the world, crime runs as rampant on the streets as overtly as it does in the police departments.

A higher-end jeweler’s in the marketplace had been the target for this job, one of the few businesses who can afford to have the bribe-a-cops cover their asses, unlike the pithy food carts and peddlers hawking eclectic wares out of their tents just outside in the main thoroughfare.

Our culprit: a young woman, tan skin, minty hair, late teens to early twenties at a glance, lightweight clothing with some skin to show. Her escape cuts through cluttered streets walled in by seemingly random clusters of alternating Valish and Vacuan architecture, neat grey brick edifices occasionally jerking back to western sandstone and adobe.

The strange thing about this girl was how she hadn’t quite been herself when she went in to admire the jewelry, how a punk off the street was welcomed the same as a wealthy old woman from the capitol, here to pick up her extravagantly expensive purchase. The shopowner outright thanked her as she pocketed her prize, and confidently strode out without anyone else the wiser – until some illusion faded, the thief bolting into a sprint as soon as the man began shouting for his hired muscle.

She seemed experienced in the matter, this mystery girl. Minimal hesitation, watchful eyes, a ready stance. One might guess she does this sort of thing to make a living. One with attention to detail would guess she does it just to survive.

Holstered behind her back, crossed at her waist, the thief carries a pair of bright green revolver-sickles, visibly high in quality. Whether she stole them off a traveling hunter, was granted them by a gang leader she worked for, or cobbled them together herself over time is anyone’s guess.

It’s not as if this brush with the law couldn’t turn violent for everyone involved, and both sides appear prepared for it. The crooked cops are right on her tail, her Aura already strained, a toss-up between spending it on Semblance tricks again, or maintaining it for a fight, because the cops in this town are armed, angry, and... Gone?

Gone.

When the thief spins to look more clearly at what she swears she’d seen over her shoulder, she’s unsettled to find she was right; those two cops, one with baton brandished, the other loading his service pistol, are gone. Their footsteps cut out as if they’d simply vanished right into th–

This time, the surprise startles the poor thief enough to jump. As if materializing back into existence, both cops pop right out of thin air – fallen face-first onto hot, dirty cement that cooks their cheeks like griddlecakes, totally unconscious.

Not that she must’ve been their biggest fan, but spontaneous cop-evaporation isn’t something that one sees every day. The thief, hands going for the handles of her weapons, slowly backs away from the fallen men and around into the alley she’d been dodging into as an escape.

“You’re welcome, by the way.”

And you absolutely startle the hell out of her, because you’re sometimes a bitch like that, but hey, you wanted to make an interesting entrance! Stowing Danse Macabre, you flip down from the rooftop and into the alley before the thief, in a sexy, if ultimately unnecessary three-point landing.

The thief’s wide, wary eyes scan you up and down, and where in years past you’d worry she was trying to clock you, now you expect she sees a dangerous professional. Not that you’re trying to freak her out, or anything! You just know what sort of image you present.

During your foray through the deserts of Vacuo, you’ve temporarily tweaked your combat gear and thrown a lightweight, burnt-brown leather duster over your grey-blue bodysuit. You’ve also swapped out your trusty orange trash-scarf for a tannish orange shemagh, over which currently dangle a pair of polarized goggles, both of which pay for themselves in a sandstorm. Your voluminous hair, one of your biggest points of vanity, has been thoroughly wrapped up in back to spare it from the elements.

The dark circles beneath your eyes are a constant, to the point you’ve begun to lean into it, practically smearing kohl around them even on days you forego any other makeup, such as concealer for the crescent of small, irregular scars around your right eye. Cuts courtesy of Ciara shooting and shattering your Grimm bone mask into shrapnel that dark day have begun to fade with time, but nonetheless visibly mark you as the sort of woman often roped up into danger.

(As does, y’know, the gun-sword.)

Thus, here you find yourself, so much like your beloved Queen – appearing from nowhere in a trashy alley, in a poor city, to make an important life-changing offer to a girl in need, looking so lost and alone.

Well, lost, alone, and twitchy. Back when it was your turn to get recruited, you’d only brandished a survival knife at Salem, not anything with ballistic capabilities. Raising your hands for calm, you aim to ease tensions before the thief feels the need to draw. “Hey. I’m May. Got a name?”

“Emerald…?”

“Pretty name, and a pretty handy Semblance you got there, Emerald.”

“Uh-huh.” Emerald drops her hands another couple inches from the gun handles, but her arms remain held in an active stance should she need to retract that choice. “Who the hell are… Why did you help me?”

“It’s simple math from where I’m standing. ‘See Girl In Trouble’ multiplied by ‘Girl Has Cool Semblance’ equals ‘Help Girl Immediately’ plus ‘Offer Girl A Lucrative Job.’”

Emerald is justifiably unnerved, and you’re pushing that bell-curve on affable weirdness as-is. Might be time to rein it back or go deep. “You don’t even know me. Why should I trust you?”

Unlike when Salem saw the truth of you in a glance, you don’t have the ability to read the hurt in a heart, not except for the old fashioned way. But you can still look at Emerald, and see a lot of things. Clothes, old and slightly ill-fit, bearing the scars of constant mending in lieu of buying new, stains hurriedly handwashed. Scars old and new showcased across skin her outfit exposes, inconsistent with bestial Grimm wounds. A frame too lithe to merely fit a nimble thief’s build, too lithe for anything but malnutrition. Bags forming under the eyes. Twitchy. The kind of reckless desperation required to hit such a well-guarded shop, and for so little a reward.

“Oh, you absolutely shouldn’t, but I know from personal experience that when you’re in dire straits, you take what you can get, no matter how stupid. I, uh…” You rub at your neck, sweaty under the borderlands’ sun even with your lengthy hair ponytailed. “I was in a situation a lot like yours a few years ago, and the lady who became my boss helped me out. Let’s just say I’m paying it forward?”

“Are you with a gang? Or are you like, a fucking cult recruiter?”

Er. Well, kinda, but you can’t rightfully tell her that, at least not directly, without hiding it under a layer of sarcasm. “Does it count as a cult if I’m the only one in the cult, and I’m just assembling a crew for my own job on the side? Like, cult-adjacent? Cult Lite, Diet Cult? Yeah, I’m Diet Cult. But what I’m talking about here’s just a good, old fashioned, straightforward underworld conspiracy, like grandma used to make.”

As it turns out, when you can’t use ancient maternal charm to convince a frightened alley-girl to join your team, weirding her the hell out is a helpful substitute. That said, you don’t want to lie to her outright, either – just like Salem, you don’t have to lie, just keep a handle on the perspective.

“Here’s the short version,” you say, clicking your tongue. You step back and lean against the wall, to better catch some shade from this stupid sun. “My intelligence guy slipped me a dossier about another illusory Semblance user I could give the pitch. Except, in the time since those rumors went around, he seems to’ve graduated from con man to a trafficker in bed with the police union. Semblance was Hypnotic Suggestion? Ring a bell?”

Emerald’s eyes fall, and she kicks at a broken bottle of Sunflower Pop. “All the street kids talk about it, now. Especially the ones that aren’t juvie anymore. They say the cops around here can make you confess to anything. Or… do things, sometimes. If you’re not good, you get hurt, if you’re too good, you don’t come back.”

Her eyes stay glued down. You’re glad for that, because you don’t want to see what was in that look. You move on.

“That’s the one. So, I track ‘im down, we chat, one thing leads to another – now you can dunk a basketball through the man’s chest cavity, and the cops’re swarming a homicide a few blocks away. Which... might explain why there were more for you to bump into while you work, sorry about that.”

The thief blinks. “Wait, so, he’s… he’s dead? Just like that?”

You sweep a hand, like a gameshow host’s beautiful assistant, to the mottling of drying bloodstains on the hem and sleeves of your duster. Some might say you went overboard, but the boy you set loose couldn’t’ve been more than 12, so if anything, you should be faulted for your leniency.

“Dead as a doornail. Anyway, it meant I was flat out of dossiers in this part of Sanus. So, I go to drown my woes at the food trucks on Market Street, where I’m treated to a front row seat while you do your thing, and… See where I’m going with this, enough to keep hearing me out?”

Despite admitting straight-up to goring a man without remorse, and the drying bloodstains on your clothes, Emerald continues to look up at you with a tentative interest. Her hands’ve fallen so far away from the handles of her guns that they might as well be slack at her sides. “Vaguely.”

“Great. Because I had to drop my falafel to chase you and the pigs, and I’m still kinda hungry.” You pace over to the alley’s edge and fade from view long enough to peer around it. The crooked cops’re still lying like food for the buzzards, though you won’t want to stick around much longer. Time to blow this scene. “D’you think if we stole their patrol car, your Semblance could make people ignore the paintjob long enough for us to hit up a drive-thru? I’m buying. Indefinitely, if you want.”

It’s a fact of life that you are very much an introvert. You are not a ‘people person.’ You’ve never learned how to socialize outside the shallow spheres of the exorbitantly wealthy, both vieux and nouveau riche, but always riche. Your default modes are sardonic sarcasm, cynical analytics, smug smarminess, and plain old grousing, all of which are acquired tastes, unpalatable to many. You don’t really know how to sell fellow skeptics on an idea.

And yet, for reasons unknown to modern sociology, Emerald Sustrai willingly climbs into a car with a self-professed graphic murderer, and gets herself a #3 Taco Grande Meal with an extra-large Dr. Piper. For you, a Crunchy Wyvernchilada with extra fireball salsa, small tea, and a side-order of jalapeno poppers.

The first time you hear Emerald laugh is when you ping her in the side of the head with one of said poppers, while debating where to drive next. Is this how normal people are supposed to make friends? Hell if you know, but you’re headed due east with a full tank of Dust, no cops in the rearview, air conditioning on full.

A week and a half after you meet, and six hours after the first time she describes you as ‘friends,’ she asks if you were actually serious about ‘all that diet cult shit’ while the two of you are refueling the car.

Officially, Emerald Sustrai wishes it noted that she will cut you in your sleep if you ever tell anyone how loud she squealed when you conjured up a shrunken Ursa Minor’s arm over your own, and mockingly challenged her to an arm-wrestling contest with an elbow on the trunk.

After the pitstop, Emerald still climbs back into the passenger’s seat.

What, was she supposed to ditch you, all because you’re an abomination against nature and a threat to all society? She’s still got work to do – like nagging you into finally getting your ears pierced, so you can both put some of this filched jewelry to proper use, before you need to fence it.

This Grimm-infused revolutionary and the street-rat thief stumble out of a tattoo and piercing parlor at a quarter to ten on a sweltering, cloudless Sunday night in the desert, in another Southwest Valish town whose name you can’t pronounce well. The both of you shoving each other on the way back to the latest stolen car, roasting each other’s picks, fancy citrine seated on your lobes, red garnet dangling from hers.

Though Emerald was the one who bullied you into it, this apparently still counts as ‘A May Stop,’ and thus, Em’s got dibs on the next destination on your meandering, eastward vigilante crime spree. While she hops into the driver’s side and flicks through the map on the scroll you bought her, you stay outside, fold your arms on the passenger’s side roof and plant your head on top, staring up at the vast, star-spattered sky.

In theory, this leg of the journey doesn’t have to take that long; you’re in range of a decent CCT relay, so you could ring up Hazel or Watts to call in some airship pickup at literally any point, and have yourself and your new associate ferried out of the borderlands straightaway. But y’know what?

“Get your ass in here,” says Emerald. “I found a hotel with an all-night pool!”

You think you’re making pretty good time to Vale as-is.

–[T-minus 1 year, 10 months, 2 weeks to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

The cabin up the hill is in flames. Not merely smoldering like the aftermath of a bad kitchen accident, but its insides thoroughly set ablaze in battle. A load-bearing beam crackles, splits, and collapses into the roaring heat.

“What’re you looking at?!”

Just before you, on the winding dirt path that leads there, stands a young man with unkempt, sharply-slicked grey hair, wounded, panting from pain and exhaustion. A thin trail of red dribbles from the right side of his mouth, tinging teeth an unfriendly pink. There are multiple rips in his motorcycle jacket. It appears as if he can barely stand, blood absolutely drenching the bandages wrapped around the middle of his legs.

“That’s… the assassin?” Emerald asks from beside you.

She doesn’t mean the boy; as if an afterthought, there’s one entire dead-ass body dumped next to him on the edge of the road. Just lying there, like garbage for pickup. You have a hunch the comparison might be apt.

“Not anymore,” you whisper, then raise your voice to address the unknown factor. “Hey, there. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that was, at some point, a ‘Marcus Black?’”

The young man continues to stand there, fists clenched. “At some point. Yeah.”

Even when the carnage speaks for itself, you have to be sure. “Which leads me to assume that you’re his... son? I’m only checking because there’s not much of a resemblance. By which I mean, you’re not dead in a ditch and I’d like it to stay that way.”

His unemphatic shrug is as good as a yes. You move along.

“We caught a bit of your fight from the treeline. Looks like you learned a lot from him, er…” You spin your hand in midair in a posh filler gesture, then sweep it out his way. “Apologies, I’m doing this all wrong. Got a name?”

“...Mercury.”

“If you’d indulge my curiosity, Mercury, tell me: what’d your dead dad do that warranted…” You nod to the crackling, cabin-sized campfire up the way. “Deading?”

You ask this fully expecting the response to tie back to Mercury’s bruised and bloodied state, or those conspicuous leg wounds, but somehow, the crimes of Marcus Black manage to outclass your furthest estimate.

The young man spits something bitter under his breath, then literally spits out another gobbet of blood-and-maybe-a-tooth. When he realizes you couldn’t hear, his volume amps up exponentially, as does his simmering rage. “He took it. He took my fucking Semblance! It’s gone.”

Emerald gasps an airy ‘Oh, shit.’ You hold your cool; by what power, you cannot say. The urge to desecrate a corpse is skyrocketing.

The sketchy intel you were working with, gathered from whispers in taverns and bandit camps, insisted that Marcus Black could completely disable a target’s Semblance, not a word about taking them, permanently.

To dampen a Semblance is one thing, but to see the expression of another’s soul, your child’s soul, plunge in your figurative fist and rip it out, is the sort of violation that can’t be forgiven. Even the strange monster that you’ve become can see that.

“I’ll tell you this much, Mercury: if your father wasn’t already dead, I’d’ve opened up his stomach myself. Just saying, you just saved me some cleanup work, and I’m pretty grateful for that. Since you’ve done me a favor by saving me suffering through working with him, I’d like to do you a favor or two.”

Even pushed past the breaking point of exhaustion, Mercury’s frame shifts into a ready stance, defensive, ready for fight or flight on legs that can barely walk and fists that’ve already fought too much. “Sure you would – Who the hell are you two, anyway!?”

Folding her arms to play at a casual stance, even when the Semblance theft tidbit is still rattling her, Emerald tries for a cocky attitude. “Either nobody important, or the most important people you’ve met in years. I’m Emerald. That’s May.”

“Here’s the deal,” you begin, “My employer’s intel-guy pointed me to some lowlifes, and the lowlifes sent me to ring up your father, who I see is a little too dead to be taking business calls. I dunno if you’ve got any gainful employment lined up after this stunt, and that’s fine since I don’t have anything gainful to offer. But I do have some unbelievably shady work with great benefits that could stand some muscle with skills and a killer instinct.”

Since she can see you’re floundering a bit on the sale, Emerald seamlessly tags back in. “D’you have somewhere to stay after this, or…?” She bobs her head your way. “May rented us out a place while we’re in the area. It’s only got two bedrooms, but I can crash on the couch.”

(She’s not giving anything up; Emerald always wants to crash on the couch, wherever you stay. Says she feels safer having an eye on the front door. You don’t begrudge her this, even if you worry about the cricks in her neck.)

“I… I can make it on my own,” he growls with all the threatening intensity of a one-legged puppy. Not that you’ll be bringing legs up around him ‘til you’ve gotten him some medical assistance.

You didn’t want to do this, but he’s wobbling pretty badly now, listing slowly from left to right. Time for the big guns.

“I’m just saying, you’ve got no Semblance – sore spot, I know – plus a broken Aura, no family, no house, no travel supplies, no vehicle, you’re wounded to hell and back, and since your shithead father decided to plant his cabin in the ass end of nowhere, it’s a couple hours’ trek through Grimm-infested forests to arrive at even the nearest place that might even give a few hours of shelter. I promise, I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you’re kinda screwed without our help, so. Offer’s on the table, and I’d actually feel a whole lot better because – not gonna lie, I think I’m still morally obligated to kidnap you, just to drop your ass in front of… I don’t know, a hospital.” You glance at Emerald. “Is that ethical?”

Em just shrugs. “I don’t think hitmen get health insurance, much less a family plan.”

“Good point. Could have my guy whip up a fake insurance card? No, that’d take too long, he’ll pass out before then.”

Behind Merc’s eyes, gears are reluctantly turning. To briefly duck away from the topic of ‘bleeding to death in the forest,’ he turns his suspicious gaze from you to your companion. “Is this how she hires everyone?”

Emerald preens, which gently waggles her ponytail. “Nope. She saved me from some cops, then we went for tacos. It’s kinda freaky how hot she can take her sauce.”

“If you want tacos too, we can do that,” you cheerfully inform him, “but we’re not down in the borderlands anymore, so they wouldn’t be as good. Besides, I was kinda craving steak after this. You good for steak?”

As usual, your incomprehensible weave of intimidation and friendliness, professionalism and casual crudeness is baffling to all witnesses, cracking their defenses. “The two of you are insane,” says Mercury.

“In my line of work, it’s an inevitability.”

When you say nothing more, Mercury is forced to draw his own conclusions about his options, both short- and long-term. In the end, he opts not to die in a ditch like the man a few feet behind him.

“Fuck it. Fine. But I want my own room, and nobody look through my shit.”

–[T-minus 1 year, 5 months, 2 weeks to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

You always hated business meetings.

Not that you were ever old enough to have any real hand in your father’s dealings, and your place there was solely as a decorative ornament telling the world ‘Hey! My Dad Fucked! And Now This Miserable Family Endures Another Generation!’

It meant you fell asleep almost as often as you did in church, trying to keep track of who was subtly threatening who with what seemingly friendly comment, and getting lost along the way.

Optimistically, you’d think your life experience would have made you better at holding meetings. You’d done everything you could to ensure this one went off without a hitch, you even got dressed up nicely in a new navy blazer – mens’ suits are still a prison, but womens’ cuts aren’t half as bad.

Hair, you had done up in one of the crown braids Salem taught you, with a bit of aid from Emerald. Bought some unoffensive floral perfume, classier makeup – Everything to appear dignified and diplomatic, and nothing like the knife-in-the-dark you are.

All of which was for naught, because this meeting’s a fucking flop.

“So, lemmie get this straight,” grits the red-haired bull faunus, posturing with his weapon in the back of the war tent. “You could have gone to anyone for help. You could have made a deal with a gang leader, paid off some huntsmen that had strayed from their righteous path. But instead, you choose to seek an audience with me.”

Here under the eternally maple-colored cover of the Forever Fall forest, in a secluded encampment just off one of the primary SDC shipping rails, dwells a renegade cell of the White Fang. Vicious, angry, their actions driven more by hate than an ideal, all qualities embodied by their leader, Adam Taurus.

In this tent, Emerald, Mercury and yourself all kneel respectfully for this short audience you’ve been allowed, your manners on point, polite and nonthreatening. Not that it’s doing a damn thing to score any respect from the man you were sent to meet, and you’re trying, gods, are you trying to appeal to his ego.

“You’re the one we need. Your skill, your ability to lead those beneath you. You’re an exceptionally valuable man, Adam, and we’ve put a lot of thought into –“

“Then you’re clearly not thinking straight. If you truly understood me, then you’d know coming here was a mistake. The White Fang is not a force for hire. We’re a force of revolution.”

Adam’s voice raises in irritation. Yours remains soft, with an intentional tilt to your inflection. If this goes too far south, you’d rather not any of the faunus here remember your voice with clarity. You could take advantage of the muffling of your Semblance, but a man unhinged as this could interpret foul play.

“I believe our plan would be beneficial for all parties involved. My benefactor is something of a revolutionary herself, but at this juncture, we’re limited in what we can achieve without joining your forces with our own. But if they were, we could make waves – For example, once the Vale and Mistral stages of our operation were complete, our course would take us to Atlas, whereupon I could personally deliver you the head of Jacques Schnee, himself. All we need–”

“What you need,” Adam sneers, brandishing his sword’s sheath, “is to leave. You’re asking my men to die for your cause – a human cause.” His hand finds the hilt. “For results it could take years to see, if at all. That’s not an idea I am willing to entertain.”

Bowing low as you stand, you signal for Emerald and Mercury to do the same. “Very well. I apologize for taking up your time,” you lie to his face. “We’ll just be on our way. Give you time to consider.”

The Mad Bull snorts, and lowers his sheath, shuffling you all out of his tent. The three of you go without a fuss, and you can hear him conferring with one of his soldiers. You keep up the pleasant facade, the chaos you could unleash here deferred just a while longer.

“So now what?” Mercury asks, as you near the edge of the camp, “I thought the White Fang were supposed to be our manpower, putting aside the Grimm we don’t actually have–“

You hold up a hand to silence him. Before he can look too put-off about it, you cant your head back to motion at something behind you three: the black-haired faunus lurking just beside the leader’s tent, scraping skeptical yellow eyes down your backs.

Canine or feline subspecies, you’re unsure, but clearly some type with an ear trait. Elsewhere in the world, you might not give that big bow a second thought, but smack-dab in the middle of a White Fang camp, it screams the conclusion. Either way, you’re not about to speak openly as long as you’re being watched by one of Adam’s lookouts.

After a long void occupied by nothing but boots crunching on dirt and fallen leaves, your trio hits a partial clearing in the Forever Fall, enough open space to tell you’re not being stalked by one of Taurus’ paranoid followers, and you open up discussions.

Feigning that you’re checking an important message on your scroll while actually pinging the location of your airship because you are absolutely not lost, you give Mercury a nudge. “To your point, we aren’t engaging the real White Fang. They’d be far more amenable to polite discussion, and far less likely to ever be convinced to fight for us. This guy’s just a glorified serial killer.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” says Emerald, shaking a sticky leaf off her boot. “He creeps me out.”

Mercury’s huffed agreement on that point makes three of you, at least. “Then we’ll get it done without him, and make him regret it.”

Unfortunately, business before pleasure. You butt back in: “No, we’ll still need numbers like he can provide for the final push, and in my experience, I’ve seen you can get a lot of mileage out of expendable fanatics. We’ll give him a few days to stew. Besides… we don’t need him for what comes next.”

–[T-minus 1 year, 5 months, 1 week to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

It’s a gray and quiet day in rural Vale, the sort of overcast where one can smell a prevailing, but gentle rain just on the verges. A slow day, like time itself isn’t in any big hurry to go anywhere, and the winds are just as lazy.

This comfortable grayness blankets the sky above a plain woodland path in the middle of nowhere, a quaint and docile landscape, and its wildlife much the same. Two parallel rows of simple, wooden fences bracket a straight and featureless dirt road, very few curves and corners ever daring to make it interesting.

A perfect spot for treachery.

Even after all these years, you’ve got a vivid mental image of your stodgy Specialist Prep professor smacking the holographic Hard-light display up at the front of the class, yammering on about old warfare literature and some of the many key tenets in an ambush encounter against a martially superior foe.

• Do not allow hesitation in yourself. Punish hesitation in the opposing force.
• Do not be fettered by emotions. Exploit emotion in the opposing force.
• Do not utilize overwhelming power when delicacy is required. Do not utilize delicacy when overwhelming power is required. Do not utilize but one when both are required.
• Do not allow the opposing force the ability to retaliate. Allowing the opposing force’s retaliation is the groundwork for defeat.
• Do not allow the opposing force to become aware of what has transpired until your victory is assured.

There were a few dozen of them, all of which you memorized verbatim to regurgitate on a test like a good little student, then promptly shelved in the deep cryo-storage of your brain. You’ve only dug up a few of them to toss in the microwave and heat up again, and you can only hope it’ll be enough – because you’re running out of time.

“We only get one shot at this. And I’m not saying we can’t handle a bit of improvisation, but this is gonna get a whole lot harder if we fuck up, so… let’s try and not do that.”

“Real inspiring, O Fearless Leader.”

“Must you wound me like this, Emerald? Dust up your gear, find a tree in range and call me a spot. Merc, Dust, treeline for the rebound.”

Mercury huffs. “Myeh-myeh, someone wore their bossy boots today. Not like we’re doing anything important out here.”

He’s afraid, they both are. And so are you.

The bustling of three anxious young adults bustles harder, then goes quiet. Silence and stillness on the forest road, like there’s not a soul around for miles.

Nary a soul but the green-cloaked and hooded rider on horseback, rising up in the distance, clopping closer on their steed.

An unassuming, weak and powerless outkingdom villager, perhaps on their way back home from a hunt, a trip out to trade with another village, to visit their sickly grandmother, who can say? Very few, actually, and if they could, they’d say that looks can be deceiving.

The rider’s pace maintains, unhurried on this tranquil day, unafraid of the rain if it should choose to unleash on them. They enter a particular straight stretch on the dirt road, lined with lengths of thin, poorly-maintained wooden fences, and thick forestation beyond the treeline on either side.

Nothing dares to disturb the monotony of the ride, except something so small, so frail, a shrill cheeping at the edge of hearing. What could that be? The rider has no answer for a few seconds longer, until they spy the abnormality, a little splash of color, of cobalt blue swimming in all the day’s gray.

A frightened bluebird with a broken wing, chirping, squeaking, straining on the ground, flapping its weak little heart out but unable to escape. Left ailing on its own, with no one there to save it.

The hooded figure steps down off their horse. It almost irritates you – how is it that easy? The world doesn't work like that, who are they trying to impress? No one saves the broken little bluebird unless they want something from it, unless it can be of use to them. You were lucky you were of use to your Queen; people don’t just help the bluebirds.

But this one does. The figure pulls back her hood, revealing the Fall Maiden in all her plain, average glory. Not a figure from a stained glass art piece fifteen feet tall, immaculately-conceived and perfect beyond mortal compare, permanently haloed by raw natural energy. Just some girl.

A girl with straightish brown hair that skims the junction of her shoulders and messy bangs, with soft tan skin and a beauty mark just under one eye, the combination of which is implacably familiar, and common, light-brown eyes.

Her clothing’s practically a century out of date by capital standards, expected for living in the sticks. A simple blouse and a few bits of perfunctory, brown leather armor overlaid, a pauldron and greaves that she doesn’t actually need, all for appearances. Just like the polished, rounded pendant that shares her namesake.

Amber doesn’t reach for her telescoping Dust-focus staff as she gets further from her mount. Wary but cautious, not for her own sake, but the broken bluebird’s. Her steps stay light, tiptoeing closer, murmuring a few inaudible, wordless coos of calming. She lacks a healing Semblance, and it’s unlikely she’s a licensed vet, so maybe she thinks that, at least, she could move the little bluebird away from where it was hurt, away from where it could still be hurt, and with time, it might just heal on its own.

She doesn’t know that for this bluebird, it’s been much too late for years.

Lying on your back in the damp Nowhere dirt, your hands tingle with the channeled Aura of your Semblance while you put the finishing touches on packing high-grade powdered Dust into a thick, magnetically-lined round, and slide it into a custom rifle buzzing and vibrating of its own volition. You think you saw it smoking.

To prepare Danse Macabre, you’d picked up larger, heavier capacitors for this job, and spares to match, their blocky shapes jutting straight out from the clean line of her frame. No matter your preparations, you are absolutely going to fry most of Danse’s internals with this stunt, and it’s a sacrifice you’re sworn to make.

You’ve written her a mental IOU to play matchmaker and set her up a three-way date night with a toolkit and a pile of the highest-spec parts you can steal. Besides, if all goes as planned, you won’t necessarily need a weapon to defend yourself anymore.

With that being the case, the muffling of your Semblance isn’t going to do squat to keep this quiet once you let loose – the G-L coil’s quiet propulsion and the suppressor will both be relentlessly overshadowed by the 160 decibel death knell of overclocked high-performance components rent a-fucking-sunder.

It’s also why you made sure to pack in earphones with sound-canceling at a military grade. Sure, projected Aura is typically enough to prevent eardrum damage, but nothing about this situation is typical.

Those capacitors, and the base components intended for years of healthy, responsible usage, are already strained to their limit, compiling a Dust-powered charge they simply weren’t meant to handle. You pick her back up to brace her at your shoulder. The transformed rifle is rattling like an airship engine bundled tight in your arms as you keep charging, charging ‘til the very last moment.

Amber tiptoes closer to the sad little bluebird. To you. She’s… actually, rather pretty, now that you get a good look at her. Intel was flimsy with few photos, living such a sequestered life as she did, having gone into hiding at the wizard’s order. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re the one to find her. She won’t have to hide anymore.

The Fall Maiden crouches down to examine the frightened bird, projected right over the place you lay. The crosshairs nestle in the crease between her brows, and the muzzle just one sneeze away from butting the tip of her nose. Time’s up.

“Target acquired,” you murmur into your mic in a mirthless, desert-dry drone. “Sending.”

Zzzzzz-Cha-THOOM.

Shattered is the double-illusion of the wounded, helpless bluebird and the invisible woman beneath, as the Fall Maiden takes a supercharged, Dust-packed ferromagnetic slug right between the eyes, point-blank, with all the power of an Atlesian frigate’s anti-airship battery.

You can feel Danse Macabre’s projectile mode give up the ghost immediately, reduced to a steaming carcass of overheated slag. Jackknifing up out of the dirt, you return the busted gun-sheath to its mount on your hip harness, and watch the Maiden soar. Amber’s horse startles and flees, over the fence and into the woods.

(You don’t care to imagine what that would’ve looked like on a civilian without activated Aura. Assuming there was anything left above the waist.)

“Ho-oooly shit, I knew Maidens could fly, but–”

“Cut the chatter, Merc, intercept!”

Mercury’s pride bristles at the sternness, which is kind of why you’re putting it to use. “Tch. Don’t bust my balls, I got ‘er!”

He does, actually, ‘got her.’ Concealed down the open road, his position was carefully – if a bit hurriedly – calculated as soon as you had a bead on your mark, to give him a clearer and narrower arc to cover as the goalie in your impromptu game of human soccer.

Merc bolts from the trees to adjust for the trajectory you’ve offered him, then rockets himself skyward in a spinning jump with a blast from Talaria.

You’d practiced this whole clay pigeon routine plenty – though, most of the prior recipients of Mercury’s high-speed, midair, ballistic roundhouses were smaller, less sapient, and sometimes fruit. The Fall Maiden, thankfully for your stomach, still has more structural integrity to her than a watermelon when Mercury spin-kicks her in the spine with his metal prosthetic.

Alright, eye on the ball. You dash to align with Emerald’s position along the road, and call over to her. “Here we go – Hidden Gems!”

“I never signed off on that!” she shouts back, tossing you one half of Thief’s Respite, already appropriately loaded with the Dust you chose. Team attack names amongst your trio are still a work in progress.

Presumably still startled judging by the lack of elemental outbursts, Amber now soars back in your direction, and Emerald syncs up opposite you, ready on the rebound. Both your Semblances are back in action, overlapped, and if the Maiden isn’t too stunned to see, she’ll still see nothing at all.

Em pops off a few plain shots at your incoming target, the revolver rounds dinging off the Maiden’s dwindling orange Aura, until the Maiden-meteor’s within range. Both halves to Thief’s Respite flick out their sickle blades with a loud clack, as you and Emerald shift them into kusarigama form.

With a two-step windup, both kamas are swung wildly on their chains, sending them sailing out to entangle the Maiden from either side before she even hits the ground.

Her chunky impact blows up heavy clumps of moist dirt that you’re spread just far enough to dodge. All slack in the chains snaps away in an instant, and the two of you brace them tight in a tug-of-war, with a girl of ancient mythological power trapped in the middle.

This is why you went heavy on using them with Gravity Dust – the Maiden can kick up a fuss, swirl some wind, breathe some fire assuming she’s allowed even a moment to catch up to what’s happening. But with her limbs entirely pinned, gravitational forces running amok to hold her still, hold her down, and hold her facing only one way, no idea who or what is truly coming at her, well...

It was a major chunk of your overall plan, no matter which set of mix-’n-match elements you had to piece together: You and Emerald combining your two illusory Semblances to utterly overwhelm your enemy, hallucinating an army of fake shadowy foes all around, and the real culprits nowhere to be found. For all the great power of a Maiden, she’s still a human, her mind susceptible to confusion and deceit.

Also, susceptible to a flying kick to the back with a heavy charge of Lightning – Mercury’s caught back up to you, moving on to the next phase, AKA: ‘Get rid of that Aura before Em ‘n May’s arms give out, please and thank you and maybe fucking hurry.’

Dazed, confused, physically drained, now bound and taking piston kicks in the back from a ghost’s very tangible metal leg, the grunting Fall Maiden isn’t panning out to be the unassailable demigoddess from the parables, and you aren’t one of those hapless villains.

The winds she’s trying to conjure whipping around the four of you are building, and you feel that familiar bite of frost, an electrical crackle in the air. All the while, your arms are beginning to burn – less from the short spurts of fire she’s breathing, more your muscles screaming at the strain of holding her. You imagine Emerald’s in the same boat. You need to hustle.

Still, there was no way you were ever just going to whale on her senselessly; you might’ve killed her. You’d made it a point from the start of the plan: No blind firing and no wild swings allowed, everything measured, everything paced until–

“Was that– Hold on, I think that was it! Aura break!” Emerald’s callout rips your attention up to see the vanishing cloud of orangeish slivers, and Mercury lowering Talaria.

“Like we planned. Get it in there!” you shout. The next bit, you’d’ve handled yourself, if you weren’t occupied keeping this chain held tight. No surprises, no mistakes, no underestimating.

Looking pretty damn put-out for having to play nurse, Mercury withdraws a white Atlesian auto-injector from his pockets, pulls back one side of the Fall Maiden’s hair, and jabs the juncture of her neck – more roughly than you would’ve ever let him get away with, under normal circumstances – marked by a hiss from the pre-loaded hypodermic needle.

Admittedly, this wasn’t an initial part of the plan. Salem never said anything about anesthetizing her first, but neither did she say unconsciousness would screw with completing the objective. Call it a weakness, call it a personal hangup, but you prefer to handle this as painlessly and professionally as possible, especially given the requisite beatdown just prior.

Tyrian used to mock you plenty for your excess of coddling and mercy, and if Tyrian was complaining about your choices, you were doing terrifically. Kindly rot in hell!

(And maybe it really is about mercy, about sparing pain where possible. Or maybe it’s just because your craven heart couldn’t take it, to look her in the eye while it happens.)

The Maiden’s struggling against the chains weakens, and grinds to a halt, giving yours and Emerald’s arms a much-needed break. No longer risking a fight against the might of the elements, you three calmly (as if) and confidently (stop lying) ferry your mark over to the treeline, snug between the roots of an old oak tree, her back at rest against its trunk.

Emerald and Mercury empty out spent Dust residue and reload their weapons, while you prepare yourself for the most uncertain stage of this risky operation.

Amber looks younger, like this. You’d say roughly your own age now that you’ve the chance to examine her closely, a few years older at the most. Her face lacks the lines of full maturity, while her tired eyes earlier had signaled familiarity with a power old as recorded time. It’d frighten you worse, but you’ve stared dead into burning eyes far older without flinching.

Who is she, really? What kind of life does she lead out here? Is she happy? Does Ozma make her do his bidding constantly, or does she only fight when monsters with a higher cause like you come breaking into her humble world? Does she wish she could be like the Maidens of old, free to use their power publicly, or did she even want to be one at all?

“I don’t like the look of that bird,” growls Mercury. “We got company!”

“What? What kinda bird?” Em helpfully asks on your behalf.

“The Branwen kind of bird!”

You and Emerald sing out a “Shit,” in perfect harmony.

“Exactly, can we hurry this along?”

You bite the fingertips of your glove and tug it free, stuffed haphazardly under your belts. A quick concentration of regret-frustration-pain is enough of a spark to blacken a splotch of skin on your hand like a tiny whirlpool of tar in your palm. Spindly limbs spear through, probe outwards, tunneling out of the dark portal of your flesh, until a tiny, white-shelled Grimm-beetle has writhed itself halfway out into the world.

Gingerly, you take one of the Fall Maiden’s limp hands between both of your own, clasped snug and secure with the wriggling beetle pinned between.

“Sorry about the scare,” you murmur in sincere apology, as if Amber could even hear you. “And all the roughhousing. We’re almost done here.”

Specialized ichor unique to the Beetle’s strain explodes out of the slits and gaps between your squeezed hands, as the goop inside glues those hands together, and the inherent ability of the that beetle begins to work its heretical magic-stealing function.

The bird Mercury spotted stretches a wing and begins to bank away, then rounds back again, flapping lower to the ground, closing the distance to that odd, violently scuffed-up patch on the old dirt trail. No question that it’s him, and he’s onto your proverbial scent. You need to go-go-go.

Through her unconsciousness, Amber moans wordlessly with an unease she can’t quite articulate, and you’re in full agreement. If you had to be honest, you’re a little bit terrified.

Terrified the power will reject you. Terrified it will see you for a role you refuse, an identity you’re not, and still kill you right here on the spot for daring to proclaim yourself worthy.

Something is happening, though. Your hand feels warmer, like a dozen sharp, heated needles are poke-poking at the surface, but never piercing through. It’s getting harder to focus, to keep your invisibility still cast outward enough to cover all four of you. Emerald is ready to pick up the slack with hallucinations, gaining a firm set to her jaw hammered in by the stress. Mercury stands at the ready for interference, eyes on the sky.

Those dozen teasing needles become a hundred, glowing red-hot, sticking not your skin, but your Aura itself, the skin of your soul. They’re not so shy anymore; they poke, then skewer, their mark made permanent. You might be going insane, because you’d swear you hear whispers, quiet and deafening, shouted whispers, at the verge of your consciousness.

The floodgate opens, then, and you’re burning.

Where is the youngest? I can no longer sense her!

I thought we were with Amber! Is she dead?!

But if Amber died, she’d be here! She’s not here or there!

What is he doing, how did a man even inherit–

Stop that, already! Can’t you hear her heart?

Tsk. And such a frail thing it is.

Don’t pity her! She willingly serves the Witch!

No; a pawn to the Witch, she’s simply misguided. She still wants peace.

Liar, she knows exactly what she’s doing. She’ll end everything!

Is she truly so misguided? Can any of us be certain? We should not judge...

Just ask her when she gets dumped in here with us; it won’t be long.

You’ve got that right. I’ve heard of flirting with death, but...

Oh, you poor thing. You poor, foolish young thing…

And all at once, everything is silent in your skull: alone, completely, but for your own thoughts.

Also of note: You are on fire. Not literally. Except, yes, somewhat literally, too. Your eyes are ablaze in blue, and there is a fire scorching your lungs, and throat, and licking between your teeth like a second tongue.

Teeth grit, fingers clenched into fists tight enough to turn coal into diamonds, you haul yourself back to a state of awareness, all those chattering echoes of the ancient Fall lineage squeezed back into the cupboard. It’s not good enough, but you don’t need to be perfect, you just need to be functional enough to get out of here.

Even so, the full extent of your ‘functions’ is unfathomable at present. Like bearing a separate Semblance for every rudimentary force of the natural world, an impatient energy waiting to be tapped into, tugged and weaved and cast outward. And yet, also the sense of seeing those separate forces aren’t separate at all: all smearing into one another, connected and distinct in an elemental tie-dye.

It’s nothing like tapping the Grimm essence that Salem gave you. Nothing like that devouring emptiness, a black hole beast that must be fed. This is different – like you’re just a self-aware conduit for the localized natural energies of the universe.

You’re... a Maiden now. You. The former Marigold heir. The apathetic boy in the blue mansion, the crying boy beneath the stained glass saint. The broken girl in the alley, the girl in the dark castle. The woman who needed a place and purpose.

You’re The Fall Maiden.

And it is everything you anticipated: terrifying beyond words.

“May!?” Emerald cries, swiftly taking a hammer to the distractions of your mind and body. There’s no time to ruminate, not when you’re under attack.

With your reverie broken, you yank twice to sever the beetle-juice link between yourself and a groaning Amber, banishing the bug now that it’s served its purpose, and leaving some unfortunately gnarly scarring on the former Maiden’s hand. With only a fraction of your normal coordination, you rip your glove from your belt and stuff it back on.

Qrow Branwen has touched down, transformed back into a human, the infamous sword Harbinger whipping out into that murderous scythe. The cursed huntsman must’ve spotted the disturbance in the dirt from combat, from the peculiar imprint you made firing on your back, or caught Amber’s horse fleeing the scene.

Emerald’s still got her own emptiness trick projected on him, adding to your flickering invisibility, but Branwen’s gut instinct has its sights on you all. Godsdamned Misfortune Semblance, actually on his side for once.

“May, I can’t – He’s getting too close, I don’t think I can distract him much longer…”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got a little–“ No, you’ve got a lot. Your Aura reservoir, drained from the attack, from the siphoning, is suddenly gargantuan. Covering your retreat will be child’s play, if you can keep your soul from splitting apart. “Got enough to cloak us, just…” You need more seconds to stop and breathe than you can afford. “Drop the illusion, leave Amber here where Branwen’ll find her, and let’s b-hgh. Let’s bail. Merc, help me up.”

Under the grass, there’s craggy earth asking if you want it to rise, ice that wants to be formed, wind wanting a little input on where it should bend – and sorry, natural elements, but you’re kind of busy right now, maybe call back later?

Rather than new powers, you’re falling back to your old reliable standard, and your regular old Aura responds when you refocus on maintaining your Semblance, cast wide to steadily cloak the team.

Mercury’s doubts about your leadership skill are second only to your own, and he makes it known as he reluctantly obeys, offering you a hand and hoisting you up to brace on his shoulder. “Why didn’t we just kill her? I thought that was the whole point!”

“And what point is there in killing her? We did our jobs right, she barely knew what hit her. The only one of us she even laid eyes on for more than a second was me, and that’s fine.”

“But–“

“For the love of all things worth a damn, will you shut up and help me to the ship before I accidentally magicsplode us all to death?”

From behind your trio, a haggard, liquor-soaked voice calls out, interspersed with grunts of exertion from lifting up a pale, unconscious woman. “Hey! Invisi-bitch! We know you’re out there! You’re not gettin’ away with this – the old man doesn’t forget!”

Aww. He nicknamed you, that’s so sweet. Bad luck for him though; you’re into older women, not older men.

Despite Mercury dragging his clunky feet, which only drags your feet worse while you’re hanging off him, you three valiant villains retreat into the forest. All your attention is sunk into keeping you all cloaked, and Emerald’s using her fleeting juice to trick your pursuer with illusions of local animals, of shadowy figures fleeing the other way, until you hit the shaded clearing where you stashed your getaway ride:

A small, silvery four-seater commercial airship, the last seat of which is mostly cluttered with your luggage. Branwen should still be occupied hustling Amber back to safety, too much to tail you, but you’ll still make it a point to ditch this ride soon and swap to one he, and by extension the rest of Oz’s goons, won’t know by sight. You’re going to take a long, winding, scenic flightpath back to your current hideout, for that matter.

Mercury, still feigning he’s more of an asshole than he actually is, carefully lowers you into the rear-left seat, and you slouch into the faux-leather without caring at all how much forest dirt you smudge on it. Merc hops into the pilot’s seat then – you’re spoiling him by letting him drive when Emerald still needs practice, but it makes him feel cool, and you’re a doting big sister like that.

Em doesn’t even make it to her own seat, yet. She just crumples against your pile of duffel bags and Dust cases in the seat opposite you, breaths thin but heavy, and grabs for one of the hanging handles as Mercury initiates takeoff.

Once you’ve been airborne for a minute, and no one’s caught sight of avian pursuit, the process of relaxation begins. Emerald casually leans onto the back of her actual seat without bothering to get in it. “So. That looked like it really fucked you up. Seriously, are you okay?”

“I feel like someone soaked my brain in mescaline for an hour then fried it in a wok, so no, but…”

Swiveling in your seat, you prop your elbow on the armrest, raising your right hand. Sucking in a bracing breath, you hold it while you search the new, thrumming domain inside yourself.

A small flame, only a bit bigger than a candle’s, flutters to life at the tip of your forefinger, languidly whipping at the air.

“But I will be.”

–[T-minus 1 year, 4 months, 3 weeks, 5 days to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

It comes out of nowhere, and a temperate evening at the rebel White Fang camp in the Forever Fall becomes anything but.

Blasts like a mortar shelling, trees and tents ripped apart with tight spatters of machinegun fire, others smoldering with weak flames. Dust stores ignited, chaotically feeding off one another into various elemental eruptions. The death screams of countless militants, lost and confused without their leader, abandoned to their fates. Leaves rustle, and bodies hit the forest floor.

Adam jumps out of his tent to pure carnage; one expects he can’t possibly understand why and how this could happen in so short a time – it looks like an entire night’s raid passed by in only a minute, like the SDC sent one of their private security firms and laid unholy waste to the entire camp.

It couldn’t have been a gunship flyby! There are sword wounds on the nearest corpses, small arms on the others–

In his presumed disbelief, Adam takes another step forward, and stops. Because his neck has abruptly encountered what could only be described as an invisible razor’s edge.

You ensure Danse’s blade is poised tight against his throat, any shimmy of movement liable to cut deeper than Aura can readily protect, and decloak. Before he can make a play for it, you also confiscate his own weapon, held safely out of reach.

The rebel White Fang leader exhales flaccid fury through clenched teeth, but affects a flimsy calm to drawl, “So, this is it? Back to complete your betrayal so soon, my love?”

Oh, wow, wrong number. It impedes your attempt at a terrifying, powerful demeanor, but you snicker at that all the same. “Having troubles of the heart? I understand. That stress must have been what convinced you to make such a careless choice, last time we spoke.”

Taurus flinches at the vocal mismatch with his presumed assailant, but you’ve let up on the tension just enough that he doesn’t cut himself. Much. “You…! Human bitch! What could this even achieve for you – you savages killed the same soldiers you begged me to command!”

“Did we?” you ponder, then nod toward a smashed-open shipping crate, which is in truth an unsmashed crate and one mint-haired illusionist, after she releases her Semblance. The bloody battlefield fizzles into a plain, old Fang camp. Emerald isn’t quite done; she keeps obfuscating herself, Merc, you, and the big bad Bull, to ensure it looks like the flaps of Taurus’ tent haven’t shifted at all. The patrolling insurgents don’t suspect a thing.

“Or maybe,” you continue, “I wish to establish an understanding between us, Mister Taurus. I wanted to make sure you weren’t harboring any… illusions about the consequences of displeasing me.”

Please, please be buying this. This persona is not your style at all, way beyond your range; you’re slapping together imperious, sexy-but-scary things you remember Salem saying at one point or another, bonded together with the trusty hot glue gun of genuinely threatening to cut the guy.

Whatever your level of skill, it seems it’s working. His raging bluster is penned in, and when you signal with a chin swish for Mercury to step in, passing over Wilt & Blush for momentary safekeeping, Adam only growls.

“Now. Shall we speak inside, or should we empower this movement with a martyrdom?”

He genuinely considers his answer.

“...We talk inside.”

You lower Danse from the man’s jugular, but she doesn’t stray far from his back, held in a ready position should he get feisty. “After you, Mister Taurus.”

Controlling only a fiddly little fraction of elemental energy can be harder than a big, brutish blast, you’ve been finding that out as you practice with your Maidenhood. As you press Taurus inside, you take care to exude a particular chill that brings a hint of the Solitas tundra to the leader’s tent, irrespective of the muggy, humid night outside. You say nothing of why it’s happening, but you’ll let him wonder.

Mercury and Emerald both pick up their cargo, two reinforced black briefcases, and follow you through the flaps of the tent. Emerald slows near the entrance until the hallucinations can safely be dropped, joining Merc just behind you on either side. They both know you’re actually uncomfortable with this leaderly position, but respect it for the impression you’re trying to give off.

Because this isn’t your purview. You screwed up the portrayal last time, but you really, really need to play the role today. You can physically assault him all you like, that won’t win you any boots on the ground, not the way that harsh negotiations will.

You have to reach back to your past, to remember one of the personas you were expected to learn, as The Marigold Son. You reach back to your father’s demeanor, him and his friends in the elite – Winter’s dad, Salisbury, Vanille, Midas, dozens more so shamelessly alike.

Channeling what you remember about their power lunches, you mix it up neatly with the kindly promise of prospective violence Salem’s accustomed to, and hope what you scoop up from the cauldron is passable as a substitute for confidence – you’ve got to be the girlboss businesswoman, scourge of the board room.

You must’ve caught Taurus in the middle of a break in terrorist plotting; a low table has been pulled over from the tent’s edge, its oaky surface stained with spilled daiginjo sake – you’ll assume that was your fault, with the startling fakeout. Lowering onto crossed legs, Taurus joins you on the interior side, pretending he’s still the center of attention, pretending his cushion is a throne.

“What. Do you want,” Taurus seethes.

The air in the tent only grows chillier as you pulse another wintry breeze from nowhere, and yet, when you reach for the abandoned sake carafe and pour yourself a cup without asking, it seems to begin steaming like it was only just pulled out of the simmering pot. You want him to have no answers. Circumstantial evidence, and no way to connect it.

Hopefully, Emerald and Mercury’ll forgive you for the refrigerator treatment, so long as it’s in the name of spooking the guy. A casual flick of two fingers in the air signals them to kneel behind you, and pop the locks on their briefcases.

To your left: Lien, an entire briefcase full of untraceable, uncolored lien cards, in all denominations. As this is merely a demonstration, you’d crammed about Ⱡ50,000 in there, enough to serve as a prop. On your right, Dust – not just grittily smashed-up chunks like one gets in these camps without industrial machinery, not powder cut with lower strength material. Raw, high-potency, refined crystal, in a rainbow of the primary, naturally-occurring elements.

You wonder if Adam’s eyes widen behind that mask, if he is, at the least, beginning to take you seriously. This sake’s actually too bitter for your taste, but you have a drink regardless for the show of coolheadedness; because right now you’re not May Marigold, awkward assassin, you’re May Marigold, uncompromising executive.

“The last time we spoke, you refused to see the many benefits a merger could provide for both our organizations. I hoped that this physical presentation might assuage your doubts a bit.”

“So, you’ve got a bit of money to wave around,” Adam grumbles. “A bit of Dust you can spare. Do you think that’s going to make me trust you? Your ideals? Now that I know you’re a rich human – the exact kind who stomps on the backs of Faunuskind to get where you are?”

Uh, you’re notably a faunus ally, thank-you-very-much. The fact you once stalked and stabbed one through the heart in a grimy shower room shouldn’t be held against your record, because… Well, it was Callows. Self-explanatory.

Gods, though, you really do need to get some faunus friends, diversify Salem’s inner circle a bit. The man before you, however, is just the captain of some plastic army soldiers to place on the map and knock away when the game’s done.

“I was a rich human – born and raised in Atlesian High Society, made to accept their soul-sucking way of life at face value, pretending their world wasn’t built on the suffering of the masses beneath. When I kindly offered to bring you the literal head of the SDC, that was coming from a woman who has been inside his house, walked its every hall, knows where its primary and emergency Dust generators are located, and where he keeps his panic room.”

Taurus’ grip tightens on one of his knees. “Telling me you partied with Jacques Schnee isn’t helping your case. How do I know you’re not just an Atlesian PsyOp?”

No wonder this guy can’t keep his shit together; he only picks and chooses what he wants to see.

“If I was working for the establishment, I’d’ve cut your throat and been done with it. You might notice I didn’t.” You let the asshole soak that one in, and put down another swig of sake. “I hear your recent raid didn’t quite go as planned. Shame. If you’d had us at your side, you could’ve taken that train without a hitch. As it stands – well, I’m sure you’d agree you’ve found yourself in a state of disadvantage.”

“Broke and bitchless,” Mercury whispers to Emerald, who plays off her tiny snort of laughter with a covered cough. You can’t rightfully scold him, not when it tests your own ability to keep a straight face, too. He’s having the time of his life, posturing like this, lording it over a terrorist leader while wearing his confiscated sword.

“The legacy of the Faunus people is overcoming disadvantage.” Taurus pounds his fist on the table, and the sake carafe rocks unsteadily. “And we can overcome it without cutting deals with self-centered humans.”

He’s not buying the straightforward, cooperative line. It’s really looking like the only language this man understands is power, so you’ll have to speak in terms he can grasp. It makes you think, in another world, another life, one you rejected, this is the only weapon you would know how to wield: The mercilessness of a conniving executive.

“If you remain uncooperative, I can’t be bothered to spend the time on you. Yet, unlike you, I prefer the more creative solutions – I prefer to avoid killing unless it’s truly warranted, and I’m not sure if your situation qualifies yet. But... High Leader Khan might have different opinions, don’t you think?”

Covered by that mask, Adam’s eyes are unreadable, but his head tips up a noticeable degree. Alert, just like you want him. The tent has grown cold enough you can spot hastened breath coming in thin white puffs.

“See, this particular human has done her research, and holds the White Fang in great respect. Though I’ve never had the pleasure of her company, I’ve learned how High Leader Khan feels about traitors to her people, what she does to the worst traitors against the Fang. When my associates and I had a sit-down with one of your footsoldiers, it sounded like you… no longer found her leadership worth entertaining? Felt her methods far too merciful to humans like myself, perhaps even... drafted designs on usurping the throne?”

The bull faunus flinches up straight, and barks, “Who told you?!”

Truth is, nobody told you; you cloaked into his tent while he was drilling the grunts and rifled through his stuff. But that version doesn’t inspire so much useful paranoia, does it? The sensation of uncertainty, of feeling so alone, stripped bare under the eyes of an increasingly dangerous foe?

“So while we’re talking about mercy – how much mercy d’you think High Leader Khan’ll have for you, if I were to, say, inform her people of the plans you’ve been formulating these last few months? Especially if I had recorded evidence, stored on servers across multiple Kingdoms on a dead man’s switch, standard Atlesian practice for deals like this. Again, I’m only guessing – never met the woman, would love to – but in Khan’s world, that sounds like the grounds to get branded,” you tap your temple twice, “and we both know I’m not talking about the kind under that mask.”

Emerald’s teeth are chattering behind you, as the chill you’re emanating keeps kicking up notch after notch. Mercury’s handling a bit better with his jacket, even though you can see him enviously eyeing the exit and its promise of seasonable temperatures.

Adam shivers, too. “You don’t even know what that means, human,” he spits.

“Oh, but I do, and can you imagine it? The vast scope of the real White Fang’s influence across Remnant, as it collectively chases you down on sight? Everywhere there’s a fellow faunus, you’ll always have to fear, ‘is that one of hers?’ You’ll be made to dread your kinsmen as gravely as any Schnee-backed hitsquad. From the human Kingdoms to the faunus land-of-refuge, you will never again know safety in community.”

In a cold bitch businesswoman finishing move, set down your empty sake cup, steeple your fingers high, and stare over them.

“So! As it stands, you can either enjoy the many perks that come alongside mutually beneficial cooperation, or have your very own people turn you out into the cold...”

A fierce, final pulse from the Maidenhood – a layer of frost creeps onto the edges of Adam’s mask.

“...And you. Will. Be. Hunted.”

Adam Taurus is silent for a long, long time.

–[T-minus 1 year, 2 weeks, 6 days to the 40^th Biennial Vytal Festival]–

After so many loud, chaotic, even violent meetings on your quest, it’s a pleasure to have a change of pace like this. A simple, sedate sit-down, and with the person you actually meant to go out and find, no less!

Roman Torchwick, minor-league crook, self-proclaimed criminal mastermind, has blown up to become a known quantity here in Vale’s capital over the last few years. He’s pulled off a bevy of heists from the insanely pointless to the genuinely impressive, with his current crusade targeting Vale’s Dust trade.

He’s said to not like working with large organizations, but has enough connections in the local underworld when he needs to pull some muscle. Bar gossip says he’s had a long beef with the Mistral Spider Syndicate, and some love-hate with the limping Xiongs. Just the kind of man it pays to have in your pocket: competent enough, but not too competent.

You had expected to meet him today. You weren’t expecting her.

“...And so, there I am, just back from the washroom and still holding both candlesticks, Cousin Henry’s only gotten through half his steak tartare and he’s booking it, Father’s clueless his trousers are still on backwards, and Lednik Sr. catches none of this – he just ambles straight up to your dad, thumps him on the back, and goes: ‘Good gods, Jim! You never told me you were a gynecologist!’”

Across the table of a chic Mistrali-style restaurant in Vale’s commercial district, Neopolitan quickly covers her mouth with one hand, holding back a burst of silent laughter that bobs her head and scrunches her eyes in delight. She even pantomimes slapping the table a few times, and even so, the teacup in her other hand doesn’t spill a drop, perfectly poised at all times. You’re kind of jealous.

Honestly, how could you have expected this Neopolitan character? Not when even local thugs know so little about her, this enigmatic illusionist trickster who plays it close to the vest, whose social circle only includes herself and her ‘dum-dum’ of a sidekick? Not when her background is a mystery to anyone who can’t clock those high-society mannerisms that were clubbed into girls like you two, or to anyone who never knew the esteemed Vanille Family before their… ‘accident.’

You aren’t the only dead girl at this table, and you do know a thing or two about shedding unfitting names and looks. You know a thing or two about disadvantageous quirks of the body and mind, and how society violently refuses to tolerate them. And you definitely know all about being the daughter of an abusive rich shithead – especially when your abusive rich shithead dads comingled.

If you could go back in time and tell your younger self that attending those miserable upper crust gatherings would turn out to have stocked you up with invaluable, relatable anecdotes to help hasten negotiations on behalf of a witch plotting the siege of Vale, the littler you would probably say: ‘holy crud, how do you have boobs,’ which is quite irrelevant to the topic at hand, but you can’t blame her for getting distracted.

Catty-corner to you both at the table, Roman begins a groan without opening his mouth first, and lolls his head, bowler hat tilting askew. "Gyeh. Ladies, ladies, you’re both hilarious – but might we please actually talk about…" He gestures to the table with a chopping motion, right above your tea and colorful mid-day desserts.

Neopolitan blinks, and tiptaps something into the scroll beside her teacup – given your unfamiliarity with Remnant Sign Language beyond some very rudimentary words and phrases, and despite her distaste for the program, she’s been graciously falling back on some quick text-to-speech for your benefit, if you’re unlikely to pick up a thought she’s signing.

>”About the macarons?”

“No, not the macarons! About why we’re here, schemes, heists, deals! Coulda sworn this was a professional business power-lunch, not a…” Roman flaps his hand like a mouth, and cuts it out when Neo throws salt all over it with a glare. “Former Fancy Girls’... Gossip… Circle. Grubby ol’ plebeians like myself might start to feel a little left out, you know?”

No need to rely on the app, Neo butts a thumb towards her partner while giving you that flat, ‘can you believe what I’ve gotta deal with?’ look. You silently concur, but verbally agree with the dum-dum.

“If you say so. Business out of the way, then right back to the gossip!”

Neo’s jutted thumb quickly pivots to a thumbs up. Roman plaps a gloved palm to his forehead, and keeps it there while stealing a macaron for himself.

It’s tricky, actually, to trim down a global, theologically-heretical quest like the one you’re on, all the way down to the tiny sliver of what’s appropriate to tell a simple thief out for smalltime wealth, glory, and comfort. There’s so much to say, but so few words to safely use and remain convincing.

You seem to manage, because while you summarize the basics and field a few of their pertinent questions, neither Neo nor Roman seem to be hating what you’re laying down, at first.

“...So, in short, your Dust robberies have been putting the city on lockdown, getting your name out there, scoring some criminal capital. But with the costs of operations, the unofficial taxes you’re levied to safely move the product afterward, the security crackdowns from the local council, they haven’t been doing much for you financially, and they’ve become predictable in the public eye. My benefactor and I believe we can rectify both problems, in a way.”

On a whim, you go and dip one of the last of these sweet little meringue morsels in your tea and nibble it. It’s a bit weird, and you make a face – which Neo titters at, but otherwise twirls her hand in a gesture to proceed.

“Up front, you’d just keep doing what you’re doing. Only now, you’re stealing for me, exclusively, at a sixty-percent markup until our time here is through. At the end of which, you’ll receive a considerable bonus, be free to move on to other enterprises, and to make a killing off the chaos the… grand finale of our larger operation will bring about, aside from other hedge benefits for later discussion.”

For the past few minutes, Roman has been examining his weaponized cane. When you first noticed, you worried things were about to get hot. In reality, he dropped a cream dumpling on its side, and he can’t seem to wipe the sticky smudge off. “I’m not usually a fan of big parties. Y’gotta gimmie a bit more to work with here. What ‘grand finale?’ Spill.”

Neopolitan signs something as baby-mode-simplistically as she can, so you can understand: [“Yeah! Spill!”]

“Well, be careful, it’s hot – near the end of the coming school year, Beacon’s gonna burn. I’m here to oversee that project. Unfortunately, Vale Proper’ll be caught in the crossfire, but that’s my problem, and your gain. See, the other criminal enterprises in town, they have no idea what’s about to hit their city, or the intensity, where it’ll be coming from, or when.”

You kick your chair back on two legs and spread your arms a little for show. “But you do. Now, you can sign on with me, hang back, handle some straightforward Dust trade hustling, a few other quick heists here and there if you get bored, and simply… wait to make a clean sweep in the aftermath. Low risk, high reward, chaos the likes of which you’ve never seen, and a good chance to play every other crook in the Kingdom who’s wronged you for fools.”

It was the last two that got them, you can tell. Neo nods slightly, wiggling her brows, and when she turns to her dum-dum, you both can see he’s got a different slant of smirk than he keeps close for gloating. This is genuine interest, and you’ve got Roman hooked. “You talk a big game, lady.”

“Welcome to the High-Roller’s table, Mister Torchwick. While I handle the cards, d’you feel like picking the other players’ pockets?”

“Ooh, you’re speakin’ my language, now. Assuming we say yes – and we’re not! Not yet!” Roman waggles the crook of his cane at Neo, who raspberries him in return. “Assuming we say yes, my illustrious partner and myself… what are we looking at for stage one?”

“To start with, it’s as I said before: we need Dust, lots of Dust. In time, we’ll move on to military hardware. There’s also maybe just one more thing.”

You’re cultivating a real taste for this dramatic pause thing, you can see why Salem likes it so much. To draw it out, you take a long, measured sip of perfectly steeped jasmine tea, while your eyes drift to your right – out the high window-walls of the restaurant, over that gorgeous tenth-story view of the city, and just beyond, up that steep cliff shelf: Your target. The Wizard’s castle. Beacon Academy itself.

“Funnily enough, I’ve got this insatiable urge to resume my huntress education…”

When you lower your teacup, your inquisitive gaze alights on Neo.

“...and I’m in need of one last teammate.”

Chapter Text

“...And as exchange students,” Glynda Goodwitch continues, “I expect your headmasters have already given you a speech on proper behavior here. Thus, I won’t waste any more of our collective time on reiteration.

“You are all young adults in the esteemed position of trainee hunters, a privilege as much as a burden. You should know how to conduct yourselves respectfully and responsibly during your stay at Beacon, and to best utilize this educational opportunity you’ve been afforded. Any questions of nuance not addressed in the provided material can be taken up with myself or other faculty at a later time.

“Before I leave you: our Headmaster is often fond of suggesting that Beacon Academy is not a place – It is an idea, and one which will take root in all who open their minds to allow it. It is our sincerest hope that the hard work you invest, the bonds you form, the lessons you learn here in Vale, will be something you carry with you for the rest of your lives.

“Now. I’ve several more ships worth of students to attend to, so you will have to excuse me. Good day, and again, welcome to Beacon.”

Glynda finishes her preliminary spiel on school policy and bustles onward to the next airship touching down at Beacon Academy’s landing dock, leaving you in the custody of a loose cloud of faculty standing at the fore of the crowd.

While the first-year students all enjoy an undoubtedly compelling introductory speech inside the amphitheater from Headmaster Ozpin himself, the rest of you older students only received the microwaved leftovers from the Deputy Headmistress, in the interest of efficiency.

Courtesy of one Leonardo Lionheart, you and your crew are looking clean in your Haven Academy uniforms, and with piles worth of falsified documents for each of you. Passports, school photos, near-spotless disciplinary records, the grades on your transcripts all above average, but beneath stellar. Third-years, not fourth, to avoid being bogged down with additional tests and interviews for your hunters’ licensure near the end of the year, during the lead-up to Vytal.

All evidence points to a modicum of skill, otherwise unremarkable. The most artificially forgettable students one could ever meet.

You thought it was going to be a harder sell to conveniently play yourselves off as a third-year team no one seemed to even notice existed until now, but a little gaslighting goes a long way. Especially if one of your teammates is skilled at impersonation, and another can outright delude your peers’ senses one by one, each coaxed into thinking they were the sole exception who’d never seen you in their midst.

One of the lesser faculty members without an infamous reputation, a cardboard cutout in a baseball hat and Beacon-branded windbreaker, folds some papers into a makeshift megaphone by his mouth, and brandishes a tablet high.

“Alrighty. Name, team, school year, and your ID’s; captains, sound off because you’ve got some additional forms to fill out.”

Guess it’s time to present yourself, or at least, this hodge-podge persona you’re stuck inhabiting for the time being. Thankfully, this one isn’t as painfully unsuitable as the last one you wore, and one semester’s far shorter than eighteen years.

You refused, just short of the point of drawing steel, the thought of cutting a single inch of your hair for your disguise; whoever tried would sooner find the scissors in their eye socket. Instead, as its sheer length would’ve made hiding under wigs a losing proposition, that’s only left a lengthy, lukewarm dye-job to obfuscate it.

The hotel bathroom looked like a murder scene when you tried it, and Mercury said as much, leaving you and Emerald stumbling through the directions and soaking your head in the off-red concoction. The cleanup was a hassle, but better that than have a maid snitch for fear you’re all killers. Which, fine, you are killers, but that’s none of their business, thank-you-very-much.

Hassle aside, though it’s not something you’d pick for yourself in the long-term, you kinda like the rich violet shade it’s given you, much classier than the bottle might have led one to believe. Surprisingly, it’d been easy to find a set of color-matched purple contacts as well, with a few flecks of your own genuine amber peppered throughout. It’s not a perfect look for you, but it’s not a Marigold look, either, and for this disguise that’s all that matters.

Neo had it a bit easier. Were this a shorter-term operation, she might’ve gotten by with her Semblance alone for a disguise, yet the constant drain to maintain it nixed that option quick. Instead, she’s just dyed all that pink straight black and tied it up in twintails, with green contacts and a gothier getup.

One of the roving faculty making the rounds rotates to your group, whereupon you curtsey deeply, lashes a-flutter, and hold out your scroll. “Malita Monkshood, sir. Leader of Team MMLE (“Mole”), Third-years from Haven Academy.”

“Mercury Black. MMLE, Haven third-year.”

“…”

“Emerald Sustrai, MMLE, Haven third-year.”

Before he can move along, the checker double-takes at the blank spot in his list, noting Neo’s not said a peep to identify herself. Before he can even ask, she impatiently tap-taps the space of her identification flagging her disability status. Comprehension is slow to dawn on him. “Ah. Gotcha. Let me enter that. Miss Lycoris Glisser… Glycerrys– Gluh… Sorry. Glyze–” 

The delight sparkling in her eyes betrays exactly why Neo picked her cover name. Not at liberty to offer her own verbal clarification, and with none of her teammates leaping in to intrude on her whimsy, it’s a while before the checker finally lands on a meekly mumbled “Glycyrrhizin?”

‘Lycoris Glycyrrhizin’ performs a theatrical bow, and twirls her parasol around her wrist. Oh, Neo chose well; she’s going to have fun with this gig.

Neo was also correct in choosing the building to the right, not dead ahead, and the rest of you are paying for your stubbornness. She’s probably waiting by your actual room at this very moment, tapping her foot emphatically, while the rest of you wander the wrong dormitory in search of the stairs, prone to suffer the worst kind of accident.

Accidents like being tackled by random freshmen, who recklessly cannonball themselves out of their dorm rooms and into the hall, irrespective of any dubiously-innocent pedestrians who might be passing through.

This kind of blasé accident wouldn’t be worth noting at all, unless the projectile was a careless streak of black and red, who turns her head up after clobbering Emerald, and stares the three of you down with a pair of horrifyingly Silver Eyes.

“Oof! Gah, sorry, are – are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” says Emerald, offering the girl a hand off the floor. “Just watch where you’re going.”

Black hair with a colored gradient, fair complexion.

“Haha, right, sorry. Um. I’m Ruby! Are you new?”

Prominent cloak. Black dress, corset. That face, those Silver Eyes, they’re–

Fighting to swallow your trepidation, you slide between your teammates and answer as calmly as you can manage. “Visiting from Haven, actually.”

Maybe the lie didn’t work, maybe these uniforms just don’t suit your trio, because for a few, nerve-fraying seconds, Silver Eyes bore into you, ripping open your layers. Your every secret, fault, and weakness exposed, awaiting a single purifying flare from that gaze to fatally incinera–

“Ooh, you’re here for the festival!” Ruby chirps. “Oh, but exchange students have their own dormitory.”

Clueless as to why this girl is a threat, Mercury casually blows it off. “I guess we just got turned around.”

“Haha, don’t worry, happens all the time. Uh. Your building is juuust east of here!” The Silver Eyed Warrior-to-be emphatically points the way with almost her entire body, just in case you pseudo-third-years have forgotten your cardinal directions.

Comfortably unaware, Emerald and Mercury have ambled down the hallway without you, and you steel yourself against your own overreaction. Compelled by social obligation, you leave Ruby loitering in the hall with a “Thanks. Maybe we’ll see you around.”

“Yeah, maybe. Oh, and welcome to Beacon…!”

This is very bad.

“This is pretty nice!” says Emerald. “Like, comparatively. We’ve crashed at worse.”

Piling into the dorm room assigned to Team MMLE for the duration of your stay, you can’t completely disagree.

Compared to the Atlas Academy dorms, so cold and bogged down with pragmatism, there’s a distinct sense of liveliness, of lived-in-ness to the room before you, even cleared out for its new occupants. The floors are clean walnut wood, the whorls and nicks and imperfections visible in the panels, as opposed to smoothed, seamless metal. Even the off-white walls lack the sterility of their similarly-colored counterparts up north.

There’s a window, and gods, you think it actually opens, where chilly Atlas never considered the function. That’ll be good for sneaking out to squeeze in some private Maiden practice. Beneath, you get a nice, low bookshelf, and several work desks all around for independent study, each of which corresponds closely to one of the four, single-sized beds in burgundy sheets.

The room is by no means large, but spacious enough not to knock elbows just trying to go about one’s day. Sharing a single room with anyone but Salem has never fared well on your end, but MMLE isn’t RAMM, and you’re all going to be so busy as to spend as little time in here as possible that isn’t sleeping.

Mercury airs one of your concerns before you can get to it. “Could do with a bit more privacy.”

[“You could sleep in the tent,”] signs Neo. [“Another bed for me.”]

Mercury’s shakier on RSL than yourself and Emerald, so you translate before he snipes back. “Whaddya need that extra space for? You’re tiny.”

[“A girl likes to bounce.”]

The stack of additional class registrations, syllabi, maps, medical forms that you were handed as team captain – it makes a thud thicker than anything made of paper has any right to do, when you drop it on the desk adjacent the bed you suppose must be yours. After all, you’ve just flopped yourself into it face-first and groaning.

“Guhhhh, why do I have to be the leader, again?”

When you roll onto your side, Emerald drops onto the next bed over, kicking back to soak in your suffering. “Uh, because you’re the one who dragged us all into this mess?”

“Because you’re the only one who’s met our scary mystery grand-boss?” adds Mercury.

On a bed at the farthest corner, Neo gives the bedsprings a rest from her jumping long enough to sign, [“Because you’re the oldest?”] As if she isn’t only a couple months shy of you.

“Ugh. Stop being right, or I’ll–“ You splay out on your back, gesticulating at the ceiling. “Order you three to go run a thousand laps, or something. For ‘training.’”

Emerald snorts. “It’s not like we actually would.”

You give a short, delirious bark of laughter, and fling your hands out. “Exactly! Because I’m not a leader!”

“Mm-hmm. Better start on your homework, captain.”

“I hate you all.” No one believes you, not even yourself.

Mercury struts past and steals the school map off your pile of papers, instead of reaching for the one they literally already gave him, falling sprawled onto his own bed and opening it up.

“Wow,” he drawls after a minute. “Lookit that, Em. They named a whole forest aft–“

Automatically, Emerald mimes tearing her hair out.

“We have been here a single day, and do you know how many times I’ve had to hear that stupid joke, already? I’m sick of it. It wasn’t even funny the first time!”

“Hey! Did’ja know we have a whole forest named after you?” teases Ruby Rose, nudging Emerald in the shoulder.

“Oh! Well, heh, that’s no surprise, I… I’m a pretty big deal, after all, so… Heh.”

When Emerald stops floundering long enough to look away from the freshman hovering next to MMLE’s picnic table in the campus courtyards, it’s to find Mercury delivering the smuggest smirk. He receives a flipped bird for his trouble.

The facial response from you is comparatively salty, as much as you can afford in casual company without betraying your thoughts.

You distinctly recall that before your arrival, you told Emerald – your whole team, even – not to get too attached to any of the students here, both natives and transfers.

Even if the team splits up after the school’s taken down, even if Neo dips out to roll with her dum-dum, it’s going to be a rough experience no matter what. No point setting the knife up to get twisted even harder down the line. It’s safest to be cordial to maintain the alibi and otherwise hold a safe distance.

Which is why you’re very curious how you’ve found yourself squirming under the energetic scrutiny of the literal worst possible team to pass through your orbit.

All MMLE wanted was to get some fresh air. All you’d wanted was to take advantage of today’s fair skies, cool breeze, and the hour-long break before Prof– Er, Doctor Oobleck’s History of Remnant 301 to claim one of the myriad picnic tables spaced in corners of grassy patches beneath the shade of sturdy trees across Beacon’s grounds.

You did this in full awareness that, yes, this is a communal space, and that all teams are free to use the tables at will. Being forced into inter-team conversation was an eventuality which could hypothetically occur, whose odds were negligible enough that it shouldn’t’ve be an issue!

Alas, along came RWBY.

Bantering and bumping each other, they settled at one of the tables on the opposite end of the cluster. You were wary at first, but unafraid; you figured that this respectable, two-table distance would remain adequate to enable use of the space for yourselves peaceably, with little more than an amicable nod on either side, and dissuade any further interaction.

“...like these sheet music decals – hey, Weiss, bestie-best partner! You’re all music-smart, can you read these? – Anyway, what are these outer plates made out of? There’s barely any seam when they’re compressed!”

But your biggest mistake of all was thinking you could do some simple cleaning and repair on Danse Macabre out here in the open air, instead of having to weather the fumes in the stuffy school workshops.

It’s not going to be any help in rigging the Vytal, but one critical weakness you’ve just learned about the freshmen is that Miss Rose’s obsession with exotic weaponry borders on the indecent.

Unfortunately, you’d only just stripped Danse down and exposed all her naughty internal components, looking like an absolute harlot with her G-L coil bare for all to see, her bolt removed for a sensual Dust residue scrub, her trigger assembly ready for lube. Shameless.

“Yeah, no, she...“ The wind attacks your bangs, and you almost reach to brush at them with your grease-sopped work gloves. “I thought about shifting Danse to a primary semi-automatic, but I wanted to keep the silhouette clean and open that space for the secondary pistol release, so–”

“Ohmigosh! And this– So it’s two kinds of Dust in the same…? And I bet the coils run parallel while compressed so it’ll still– Nice! Crescent Rose is a bit heavier, so I had to implement a classic mechashift instead. And her name is Danse Macabre! That’s so creepy-cool! Just like my Uncle’s scythe – Harbinger, all super-serious – His name is Qrow, he’s like, really famous, maybe you know about him? Er, anyway, I bet everyone else here has really neat weapons, too!”

If this girl does not have an ADHD diagnosis, you’ll buy a hat, and then eat your hat. No wonder she’s a sniper; with lung capacity like that, she could hold her breath for ages to line up a shot.

Just tell her to fuck off. You can be a bitch, it won’t matter; none of this matters.

“Don’t listen to her,” Weiss calls over. “She only wants to spy on potential competition for the tournament.”

You’d also love to know why exactly Winter’s little sister – the tiny unsociable songstress you remember – is not only attempting to become a huntress all of a sudden, but doing so at Beacon of all places. Was it something to do with that new facial scar? You’re just lucky she doesn’t recognize you.

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing since the day the transfers arrived?” Belladonna drones, to receive a loud scoff and upturned nose from Weiss.

And the same for this one, too; it took you a while to place where you’d seen her before, until you imagined a violent bull faunus lurking in her shadow. Part of you wishes you could grab some tea together and vent about how much of a pain in the ass her ex is to work with.

“Maybe it wasn’t their combat styles; could be she was scoping out their other assets,” heckles Yang, with an incorrigible wink. “Like a twunk whose name rhymes with Bleptune?”

Even this one couldn’t spare you the mercy of being wholly unrelated to your life. Beyond being the Mr. Boozehound Branwen’s other niece, she’s also the other Branwen’s daughter – The Oz-spy who bailed to rule the bandit tribe, whom you’re set to pay a visit after the Vale stage of the operation’s complete. If the rumors she’s hiding the Spring Maiden are true, then… Well. Hope this kid’s not too attached to her absentee mom.

“T-that’s all entirely different!” splutters Weiss. “Besides, we aren’t even certain MMLE are competing!”

Ah, the bait of the indirect, open-ended implication, that sacred mainstay of Atlesian social maneuvering. What kind of Marigold would you be to not pay it off? “Not that it’s a secret, but MMLE’s already been enrolled for the prelims.”

“Better not let your guard down,” Mercury says, leaning back from the table for a back-popping stretch and a hearty grunt. “Rgh. You freshmen might be seeing more of us than you’d like.”

Defaulting to her Scroll due to the crowd, Neo doesn’t even look away from her book to tap out a quip, one-handed, broadcast in feminine monotone. >”So, seeing you at all?”

Everyone in earshot gets their obligatory chuckle out of that one, Mercury muttering into a textbook while the snickers blow over.

Even knowing the grand plan, Emerald seems to get some enjoyment in proclaiming: “He’s right, though. If it were me, I wouldn’t wanna fight us. Might wanna throw the first round just to be safe.”

“Nobody’s throwing anything,” Weiss huffs, “And the tournament’s still months away. Honestly, everyone’s in such a hurry. Even my sister tells me there’s a chance she’ll come all the way from Atlas to see–“

It’s blurted out faster than she can finish, but you can’t help it in your shock: “Your sister?”

Stop, you’re not supposed to know, you’ve never met! You wouldn’t even be left with a reasonable bluff as to why you’d be familiar with her sister beyond the front-facing discourse about their family. Even your own teammates give you a confused look askance.

Weiss purses her lips as if she senses something odd, a few clues short of any real conclusion. “Yes, Winter Schnee. She’s a professional huntress up in Atlas… or rather, down in Mantle; those are the filthy slums beneath, if you weren’t familiar–”

(Yes, your face is well-acquainted with Mantle’s frozen asphalt, its garbage bins.)

“–Come to think of it, she’s actually a Dust mage with a very similar fencing style to your own, it’s almost uncanny–”

(Dozens of late sparring sessions loom heavy over your shoulders. Always ‘one more round,’ one more bout’s worth of reprieve before returning to RAMM. Your opponent griped every time. She also indulged you any time you asked, without fail, and vice-versa when she called upon you.)

“–if she comes down for the Festival and you were in need of some pointers, perhaps she’d even be willing to indulge a spar with a fellow duelist such as yourself. I’m sure it would be quite the educational experience.”

(Willing to spar a long-lost companion, or willing to slay a Grimm with human skin and accidentally come away as Winter, the Fall Maiden?)

Oblivious to the tone inside your head, Mercury jokes, “Fess up, you just wanna watch your sister kick our captain’s ass, don’t you?”

Neo’s scroll cuts in. >”Wreck her Aura before the Tournament? Sneaky.”

Shallowly, you laugh, and flick Ruby’s nosy hands away from the disassembled Danse before she pokes at something fragile and deadly. “Heh. I think we’ll all be pretty busy, but I suppose we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”

“Something is troubling you.”

“Is it that obvious?”

Salem says nothing, so it must be.

Sprouting from a sore, black-rotted patch on the back of your right hand, inside a cradle of uneven bone barbs, the ugly red half-globe of a diminutive Seer bulb now bulges outward.

Nearly two inches in diameter, and half that in height, the experiment is enough to serve its purpose: creating a link back to Her Grace without having to haul a Grimm around in your luggage like Watts. Glowing from within, Salem’s upper body is visible across the connection.

“I just miss the castle,” you offer as a half-truth, knowing Salem is fully capable of wrenching the rest free if she wants.

It’s not the castle so much as the Queen that resides there that you’re languishing without, and the ability to address her without a fractured Aura over your hand for the next few hours. Without having to always run and find a hiding spot in the city, or waiting until the dorm is empty, the lights off, and hiding under a blanket like a frightened child speaking to her imaginary friend – as you are, now.

As the resident Invisible Girl, the blanket feels like you’re doing yourself an insult, but when your means of communication with your superior actively and unpredictably damages Aura and can give you away regardless of Semblance use, the mundane methodology holds. Salem doesn’t want to take chances on her secrecy.

Though Emerald and Mercury have already seen evidence of your Grimm-blood treatment, Neopolitan remains in the dark, and none of the three have seen the face of your Queen. She’s decreed it should stay that way for the time being, and so it does.

“Take solace in the knowledge the Vytal Festival is not so far away, in the greater scheme of things.” It would feel like a platitude from anyone else, and you remind yourself that of course a couple of months is nothing to a woman of her age. “However, I sense you’re holding back other concerns.”

Called it. Not that it’s a hard target to hit; with an overthinker like yourself, there are always ‘other concerns.’

“There’s a Silver-Eyed girl at this school,” you admit, carefully watching Salem’s face in the artificial Seer-bulb. If there’s surprise, it doesn’t register. “I know it’s unlikely she’s had training, but every time I see those eyes, I just…”

The very means by which you’re talking to Salem is proof enough: you’re tainted. Even an amateur Silver-Eyed Warrior would ruin you.

“I see. This girl, you know her surname?”

“Rose. Just like–“ You swallow down the bile, lacking the stomach to go there. “And she’s only fifteen… I’ve heard of sixteen-year-olds getting enrolled if they have a birthday during the first half of term, but two years early?”

Salem’s look is sour, but you aren’t the target. “I surmise Ozma intends to accelerate the growth of another Silver-Eyed Warrior in a trial by fire, not unlike how I tested you. In any case, you were correct: at such a young age, you shouldn’t fear that she’s yet mastered her ability.”

Doubting Salem rarely ends well. You just wish your anxiety would remember that. “How should I handle her?”

“You shouldn’t handle her at all. Need I remind you, dear, that you’re attending a masquerade? Intentionally avoiding her may be equally as suspect as investigating her directly. All in due time.”

One of the bone barbs on your hand twitches, and the whole thing aches a bit more. At least the pain pulls you out of those nightmares of burning alive in silver light. Whether sensing discomfort or simply wishing to hurry along, Salem swaps topics.

“How have you fared with the vault’s location?”

“Whittling down the list, but some places’re still too well-guarded to touch, not without risking the whole operation. Like the site just beneath Beacon Tower? I’ve got blueprints pulled, I know there’s an excavated cavern, but intel stops there, and it could be a trap.”

Beacon’s a big damned campus, far more sprawling than Atlas Academy. At least there, everything was clustered into the school, and the mazelike military compounds beneath, all connected in an unforgiving spiderweb. At Beacon, you’re rooting around basements like a pig for truffles.

“Hm. Even should you locate it, I don’t doubt Ozma has taken liberties with complicating its access, potentially even hiding the Crown outside its confines in plain sight. This is the longer-term of our twin goals in Vale, and the more imminent is your priority. However, do not let your haste impede your focus.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Ma’am.”

“Should you succeed, it will all be worth the while. Not least of all that upon your return, we will be at liberty to make up for lost time, as I expect you’re quite eager t–“

Outside the makeshift shroud of your blanket, you hear a clacking noise, and a creak of hinges.

Salem must hear it too; instantly, the feed is cut, and she vanishes from the half-grown Seer. The bulb goes dark, then begins to wither, and you cough on the smoke of its dissolution as it leaves a healing patch of burnt skin on your hand, and in your Aura.

Rather grouchily, you rip the blanket off of yourself to find Emerald and Mercury standing just inside the open doorway, darkened in silhouette by the brighter lights of the hallway behind them.

Before you can complain about the interruption, Emerald takes the first shot, her poker face already failing to mask her dawning smugness. “Uh, what were you doing here in the dark? Under a blanket?”

“Nothing? I was on the scroll!”

In sync, Emerald and Mercury look to the desk by your bed, where your scroll sits, closed, atop a pile of spiral notebooks. Okay, so you might’ve used a figure of speech, you weren’t being liter–

“Y’know sis, it’s nothing to be ashamed about; we can give you some privacy for that kind of thing, just hang a sock on the door.“

“Oh, piss off!”

With a tablet momentarily tucked under one arm, and her crop under the other, Glynda Goodwitch claps her hands twice to call the attention of the class.

“I’ll ask that you remember: just because Miss Nikos was successful in securing JNPR’s success, this is a test of tactics and endurance above all else; you needn’t focus on victory alone.”

The tall, redheaded warrior gives her fallen opponent a sheepish little bow of apology, and scurries off today’s arena, joining her disqualified teammates by the sidelines.

It’s an unorthodox arrangement for combat classes today. Rather than the indoor arena, Professor Goodwitch has chosen to gather multiple class periods at once to a plain, paved stone stage on the edge of what is slowly, day-by-day, becoming the Vytal fairgrounds.

The exercise is simple: full teams of unarmed first- or second-years would be pitted against a single armed third- or fourth-year, respectively – two different lessons in one. Semblance use is permitted by all combatants, but the Aura threshold for a knockout has been marginally raised, for safety’s sake, everything off the stage marked out-of-bounds.

And now, you’re up. Holding the weight of so many eyes at once is as uncomfortable as ever, while you unenthusiastically shuffle out from Team MMLE’s cluster on the sidelines, and take your place at the center of the platform.

S’not like you had a choice when Goodwitch picked you, personally – probably as punishment for never raising your hand in class – but when it came down to volunteers among the younger teams, there’s no question why CRDL answered the call.

CRDL’s had a grudge against MMLE since your arrival, one which they’ve been generally unable to act upon without immediate, insurmountable retribution, a grudge which is entirely (and proudly!) your fault.

Though it’s nowhere near Atlas’ rates, Beacon nonetheless has its share of heartless students who only wish to be hunters for the power over others it affords them, and are proud to wear their cruelty on their sleeve.

Keeping under the radar in Vale has almost completely cut you off from the cathartic release of regularly cutting down unforgivable monsters. To tide you over, there’s always microdosing on beating up aggressive bullies.

They’ve loathed you since the first time you intervened in their arrogant, chest-puffing shows of dominance – fun games like jerking at faunus students’ ears and tails like they were trying to pull a weed, or putting dorky blonde boys in headlocks so hard you’d wondered if it’d pop right off. It was with utmost relish that you reminded these punks they weren’t the highest thing on the food chain.

(You would know. You’ve met her.)

It’s hypocritical, sure, when you’d told your team by no means should they get involved in local Beacon drama, but… it just happened!

One moment, you’re playing aloof as a bully abuses a classmate, and the next, someone might’ve cornered that bully in an empty, unmonitored lecture hall and beaten him within an inch of Aura-break with subtle aid from the Maidenhood.

Surely not you, though! Malita Monkshood is a good, upstanding young lady, and would never do such a brutish thing. Like, what, were they going to tattle to a professor? Go around telling people how badly they lost? Nah, not these types. Their pride’s their undoing.

Given you’d only ever reared up on them alone or in a pair, perhaps they think that four at once is enough to finally bring you down a peg. CRDL leave their weapons by the sidelines and step onto the platform, spreading to neatly box you in.

You unzip your Dust pouch and pull out an entirely unnecessary crystal of Ice Dust, slotting it into Danse Macabre. It’s crucial to maintain appearances.

All of MMLE’s respective Semblances or lack thereof were fabricated or fudged in some way or another to obfuscate your identities, and as for yourself, there was no way the invisible girl would show her hand.

Malita Monkshood is a documented Dust mage with an ice-shaping Semblance, stealing Ciara’s old trick by allowing the deathly chill to damage your own Aura and fake its expenditure, to mask the traces of magic use.

It’s been trickier than anticipated, holding back from drawing on the other elements, or from reflexively fading from sight with the Semblance you’ve had since late childhood. You’ve been forced to further break your mold and confront combat with overwhelming force, defeating the opponent before the urge to hide even lifts its head.

Glynda swishes her crop in the air. “Begin!”

CRDL collectively drop into battle stances. “You were asking for this!” sneers Cardin Winchester, brandishing fists in lieu of his clawed, titanium mace.

(“You were asking for this,” once jeered Blaze Roscoe, with his knuckles doing their best to pop your spleen.)

For only a second, you’re back in Atlas, and your opponents aren’t several years your junior, and that second is all it takes.

In the panic of your flashback you call for surging ice, and the Maidenhood answers. Twirling her once by the knuckle guard, you slam onto one knee, and sink Danse Macabre into a groove between the paved stones at your feet. A sheet of frost shoots across the small arena, and from within explodes a raging circular pulse of four-foot icicles spearing up around you – like a giant dropped a boulder into a frozen sea.

The wave stops after its third concurrent crash, and you stand, pull your sword from where it’s wedged. Over the tops of the fallen icicles, you can see you knocked three of them out of bounds altogether, while Dove Bronzewing struggles, trapped spread-eagle between four uneven frozen pillars while a fifth jabs at his side, Aura rapidly draining past the threshold.

At the edge of the field, a silent Glynda Goodwitch eyes you with several worrying layers of scrutiny. In a measured motion, the Dust mage swings Disciplinarian at the arena, and the remaining ice cracks, shatters into snow, scatters as diamond dust all around you.

“...Match, Monkshood. Next bout, move along.”

“Y’know what we should get in here?” asks Mercury, to further avoid the incomplete Aura Theory essay glaring at him from the desktop. "Bunk beds. Really free up a lot of extra space." He jabs the eraser end of his pencil towards the plain beds in question, who refuse to wilt under his critique.

Since your own essay’s been finished for a day already, you take up the burden of humoring him. "Is that so? I had bunks up in Atlas, and they weren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Besides, who’d bunk with who?"

"Duh, it's me and Emerald, as the poor kids, and then you and Neo as the weird rich chicks.”

"As if I’d bunk with you. It should be me and May," argues Emerald, "because I was her first recruit. Then you two as the slowpokes."

Neopolitan, lain on her bed and idly kicking legs in the air as she tries to text her dum-dum, wears her lack of enthusiasm for the idea plain on her face. She rolls onto her side, pointing to Emerald and yourself, and signing, [“Who Would Be On Bottom?”]

“Me–“ is all you can finish of your reply before it’s rudely t-boned by Emerald’s “Me, obviously.”

Which, of course, you cannot let stand – Gee, which is better? More feet to fall when tossing and turning rolls you over the side, or a bed at sensible elevation, onto which you can fix a curtain for a cozy hideaway? “No, it’s fine, you can have top bunk.”

“I wouldn’t want top bunk, I’m fine here at ground level.”

“You deserve it!”

Emerald bends for a theatrical bow, with an indignant laugh besides. “But a girl from the upper crust deserves the upper bunk!”

“No, no, it’s only noble for someone born on top to surrender that privilege.”

“Or, it means you’re not cut out for bottom bunk life! Stay in your lane!”

Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Mercury leaning back towards your team’s fourth. “You knew that would happen.”

Neopolitan doesn't bother signing yes. Her wily smile does the work for her.

Fifteen minutes later, it is decided that there will be no bunk beds. One very agitated minute after that, it is also fiercely decreed that the beds won’t be pushed together in order to ‘just wing it.’

Over the course of the bunk bed debacle, Mercury’s abandoned his work desk to grope around its side for the pillow Em chucked at his head. He puts some visible consideration into whether he wants to pelt you with it instead of your partner.

“I still don’t see why we can’t go rent an apartment for the last few months.”

Emerald catches the high-velocity pillow projectile, and fakes Mercury out with an illusory throw before she really wings it back at him. “D’uh, because of curfew checks, genius? They’ll know if we’re not in here when they do!”

“So, just get this ‘computer guy’ May keeps talking about to hack campus security, or–“ Whumf. Mercury growls, hucking the weapon of stuffing-laden warfare back onto his bed and pacing the open floor as he finishes his thought.

“Or we’ll just take the hit and go, and pretend we were out partying every time. I will, no lie, gladly take a few afternoons’ detention for a real place to live. My kingdom for a little legroom and privacy.”

It’s not as if you haven’t considered the exact same thing yourself, not that you’re going to give him the satisfaction. “What, not comfortable sharing with us? Gonna hurt our feelings, Merc.”

“No way, don’t act like it’s easy living, rooming with you three. Gods, especially when you sync up.”

Emerald’s brows knit. “‘Sync up,’ what’re you talking ab– Gah, fuck off!”

“That’s just an urban legend!” you add in solidarity.

Further across the room, Neopolitan’s middle finger is the simplest sign there is.

“Miss Monkshood.”

As one of your newfound peers might say: ‘oh, grapes.’

The week’s rolled around for third-years to participate in a mission shadowing a veteran hunter, and MMLE was not immune, much to your chagrin. Glynda Goodwitch is the first of the patrol to return to the tiny woodland campsite that’s been erected, with Emerald dozing in the tent behind you, Neo and Mercury still off scouting through the muggy evening.

In the forests of the Valish wilds, just south of Mountain Glenn’s outermost reaches, you’ve found yourself perched in a tree on night watch duty, under the supervision of Ozpin’s second-in-command. You’ve been assigned to track, if not potentially engage, several herds of Goliaths whose numbers have swelled abnormally over the last year, as well as ascertain the presence of an Elder Goliath.

If you had to hazard a guess yourself, you’d wager it’s because a few miles away and a few stories underground, your lackeys-by-proxy are toiling to bait them here, and prepare the underground train tunnels leading out of the abandoned city, towards the Kingdom capital.

There’s a bittersweet irony in that, you suppose. At least it means the plan’s on track. It’d suck for Professor Goodwitch to see you smiling about Grimm density, so you keep your stoic frown stapled on.

Upon her return to camp, Beacon’s Deputy Headmistress addresses you with an extra tartness you can’t determine is exasperation, or exhaustion. Leaning against the tree just adjacent to your sniper’s perch, she gives you the occasional side-eye while she links her scroll to the tracker pellets you’ve shot into the Goliath herd.

“On numerous occasions I’ve noticed that when employing your Semblance in battle, your consumption of Ice Dust is considerably lower than that of your peers, or even myself, and to a more chaotic effect...”

Does she know? If she knows, how do you get out of this undetected? Are you going to have to kill and dispose of Glynda Goodwitch to maintain the disguise? You’d better not! This is a simple mission, there’s no way a Goliath or two would get the better of a renowned veteran huntress so easily. Besides, there’s no way you’re ducking out of that without additional scrutiny from Ozpin and–

“It leads me to wonder if your Semblance is on the verge of undergoing evolution, or whether you’ve been inadequately tested for alternate applications.”

Oh, thank gods. This is a ‘concerned teacher’ scolding, not a ‘die, cultist’ scolding.

“Not sure what other applications there could be, Professor. Ice is ice. I make things cold. Fwoosh.”

“Quite.” Glynda readjusts her glasses. “This isn’t to slight Leonardo’s ability to run a school, but if I did not know better, I’d assume you to be purposefully downplaying your skill level. The truth slips through in your sparring, and the various altercations in which you’ve played a part.”

You shift uncomfortably on your tree branch, and become very interested in some leaves overhead. “They started it.”

Which is true; the various bigots and leches on campus did start it. It’s just that more often than not, they started it with someone other than yourself, and you happened to be walking by in the mood to finish it. The disapproving glare askance you receive suggests Glynda’s got plenty to say about that topic, at a later date.

“Let’s not distract from the topic at hand: I’m aware many students intentionally limit their performance to lessen the pressure of expectations set on them. I’m assuming this to be the case for your home life or previous schooling – that you languished under harmful expectations unsuited to you…?”

It’s great that this conversation wasn’t as damning as you feared, but it remains unsettling when people can read you like this, even in disguise. People other than Salem, at least. “That there’s what they in the scientific community call ‘an understatement.’”

Fidgeting, you fiddle with the toggles on your weapon’s scope. You’re not so far away that Glynda can’t suss out your unease, and when she speaks again, you can tell there’s an olive branch extended through a bit of extra warmth, humble behind the regal veneer.

“I’ll cut to the chase. I’m aware my advanced classes carry a certain reputation, especially amongst foreign students, but I assure you, should you see fit to pursue official specialization as a Dust mage on your licensure, I pride myself on a curriculum that is firm, but fair. Beacon might be able to challenge you in ways you’ve not yet been tested, but nothing you could not overcome through perseverance.“

There’s no way you can accept; Beacon’s already tested you plenty, and the ‘finals’ are looking all the scarier on the horizon. It would be nice learning to refine your abilities from a pro, but from Ozpin’s number two? One who knows about the Maidens?

Before you’re pressed into an answer, there’s a rustling in the far bushes too heavy to be a teammate, and Glynda’s ready on her feet faster than you could even push off the branch or raise your rifle. You try not to look too relieved that she’s forced to curtail the conversation.

“It’s your choice, so give this all due consideration, if you’d like to take advantage. It wouldn’t do to let opportunities in Vale pass you by, and the school term will be through before we know it.”

Still sporting your invisibility, you skitter to a halt in a secluded alcove outside Beacon’s impromptu ballroom, strappy black heels dangling in hand. You take a second to catch your breath, and to sort out your infernally unmanageable evening footwear. Godsdamned lady-stilts.

On this, the night of the drolly-named Beacon Dance, your mission goals had been twofold: One, to use the total absence of school faculty and temporary closure of Beacon Tower to sabotage the local CCTS network, and two, to make an appearance at the festivities.

The perks of manifesting a stealth Semblance are many, and in your particular line of work, never stop paying off. Luck was on your side when it came to infiltrating the CCT center. Despite a very suspicious number of Atlesian – not local, oddly enough, but Atlesian – soldiers guarding the building, you hadn’t even needed to knock out a single trooper. The whole affair was almost disappointingly easy.

Semblance steady, you slunk through the rotating guardsmen with impunity, tossing a chunk of gravel or empty can here or there to steal attention, in case one needed to draw eyes away from a door opening of its own volition. Inside, fortune had the elevator doors open before you even called for them – A pleasant ding, an invisible shimmy between the guards inside as they exit, and you were gold.

Inserted into the terminal, the first stage of Watts’ large scale security hack began proliferating across Vale’s systems, the symbol of the Black Queen lit up in a cascade across dozens of monitors in sync. With tonight’s mission seemingly successful, you bailed out with grace, your intrusion unnoticed by a single soul.

Now, all that’s left is to shore up the just-in-case and establish an alibi, putting in time milling around a party. Sadly, it’s hard to play aloof and pretend you didn’t care at all, looking like this. A godsdamned hour on your makeup, and half that on your hair. Gee, who’d’ve guessed letting it grow down to your ass would mean it’ll take longer to braid?

You’d decided to brave the ballroom in a long, black halter-neck gown with matching opera gloves, and tights beneath. Tiny crystalline sequins fleck the material in key locations, denser until they frost the edges, as if you'd only just come in from the Solitas cold.

“Alright, welcome! Late arrivals are still great arrivals!” puffs Branwen’s blondest niece, currently working a shift of greeter duty at the reception podium. “Love the flowers!”

The cluster of wolfsbane flowers pinned just over your right ear wouldn’t be inspiring such admiration if anyone in this school had half a clue what they symbolized. Anyone except MMLE, that is, and speaking of which…

“Right, thanks. By the by, have you seen any of my team around?” you ask, already sliding past Yang’s shoulder.

Blondie-Branwen unfortunately hasn’t, and sends you wandering into the hellstorm of youthful hormones, bad colognes, and wild tonal dissonance on intention – some students doe-eyed and innocent, others in a hurry to rush their dates back to the dorms for a more horizontal type of tango.

You’ve got to question which one of these brats is responsible for choosing the colors for the décor; the chairs and tablecloths might be white, but up above are more pink-and-blue balloons and streamers than a ‘gender reveal’ party. Tch.

The whole thing’s such a weird mish-mash of social finery. The whims of the helmeted DJs subject the dancers to frenetic, poppy tunes for one track, then a melodic classical slow-dance for the next, and back again just as quickly.

This search would be quicker if you were more willing to brave the dance floor, but you are, as ever, a chronic wallflower, creeping the edges and peering through the bodies when you aren’t keeping your head down, struggling to look like you belong. As you’ve got time to kill and need to play it cool, it’s nearly two more songs before you get results.

Two of your teammates are engaged in an exceptionally lazy facsimile of a waltz; Emerald, in an understated, dark green sleeveless dress, and Mercury in the new suit he was so proud to own, even if you’re not sure about the orange accents. Or the bow-tie. Or any of it– Just because you were once forced into a lot of masculine suits doesn’t mean you know a damn thing about which look good.

Emerald is the first to see you, and artfully maneuvers them both your way. “Hey, you made it. Y’wanna cut in? I’m tired of dancing with this dweeb but asking one of the brats feels weird.”

“It’s a miracle I even made it over here without tripping; if you think I can dance in these things, you’re delusional.”

“How’re you surprised?” Mercury teases. “Delusions are her specialty.”

While the two make fussy faces at each other, you scout the surrounding area, unable to see much through the shifting forest of tuxes and gowns. “Either of you seen Ne– ‘Lycoris,’ anywhere, or did she even show?”

Mercury sniffs, and twirls Emerald as aloofly as possible. “No, she’s around. Everywhere, actually. And everyone. I’d say she was being a creep if I wasn’t impressed.”

When you look to her for clarification, Emerald just laughs. “Her Semblance. It’s like she wants to see how many people she can trick by dancing with them as someone else.  You’d think they’d catch on when she doesn’t say a word, but… She’s a pro.”

Yup. That sounds like her flavor of fun, alright.

“I’m going to go check up on her,” you announce, giving both of your almost-underlings an affectionate shoulder punch. “We don’t need to stay too much longer. Your parents might get mad at me if I don’t have you home before midnight.”

Both give you a scouring look for that one, which dissipates as you draw away and out into the would-be ballroom, probably complaining about your sass behind your back. All is as it should be, in this tiny, crumpled little family of yours.

Eventually, do you bump into Neo once she’s not doing her doppelganger stunt. Though still in her black-haired student persona, she’s otherwise undisguised as she shimmies and spins to an electronic trance beat with the orange-haired Vacuan boy from CFVY.

Maybe Neo’s just got a taste for gingers? She has been hanging out with him quite a bit, ever since your teams were accidentally introduced.

“They’re pretty cute together, huh?” asks a sly, rich voice from beside you. “I keep telling Fox to be careful, never catch feelings for a transfer, but if this keeps up...”

Coco Adel sashays out of the chaotic jumble of bodies to stop just by your shoulder. Even with the both of you in heels, she’s still got a smidge of height on you, and despite you having near-on five years of age in advantage, even just one year in your disguise, she’s still emanating those raw upperclassman vibes. It’s not even fair. Your ‘Big Sister of Team MMLE’ credibility is in tatters.

The beret and shades remain fixed in place, that’s the first thing you notice, and the last detail you would ever question. It’s the glamourous satin dress in light caramel that’s new, the glittering swish and shape of it like she’s a walking mocha latte being spilled out onto the floor. She’s also added a small boa for effect, and her neck, wrapped belt, and wrists rife with more black pearls than a boba tea kiosk at the mall.

“She’s a little too shy to hop up to you herself,” she continues, “but my favorite photographer did wanna thank you for stepping in, the other day.”

“If by ‘stepping in,’ you mean stepping on the guy’s skull?”

Coco belts out a laugh that still manages to sound butter-smooth. “I know my partner can handle herself, but there’re days Gianduja goes to bed crying that I didn’t let her ventilate a racist prick or four. Plus, Velv gets all sad if I make a big deal of it, so as long as someone else kicks the hell out of them, I stay out of the doghouse.” You think she just winked behind the shades, there’s no telling.

“Always happy to be of service to the community,” you answer with an overblown curtsey. You’re getting pretty good at ‘em, if you say so yourself.

“And yet, here I find such a noble-hearted quantity here alone, keeping the walls warm. Makes little ol’ Coco think she needs to set a nice young woman up with a dance partner. Don’t want you Haven girls to think we’re inhospitable down here in Vale.”

‘Young woman,’ says the sophomore. Obviously you can’t correct her, but sheesh.

"Now! Spill me some tea – what's your taste? Guys, gals, neither-pals, what're we working with?"

‘Sorry, but I’m already taken by a primordial witch’ will, sadly, not fly here. "Definitely not men," you offer instead.

"Preaching to the choir, chica. See, all the better you ran into me, I've got an eye for this kind of thing."

Didn’t she run into you, not the other way around? Whatever. Coco sets off for the nearer edges of the dancefloor mid-conversation, with the assertive ease of a woman who expects to be followed – You’ve lived with Salem too long not to recognize it, and it’s not worth the hassle to lag back, so you fall in.

"So,” she asks, “you got a type? I used to think I wasn't too picky, but mine turned out to be badass shutterbugs with legs for days."

The descriptor wasn’t for your benefit, and neither was the wolf-whistle, as much as it was a certain brunette rabbit faunus who bashfully ducks her head as you pass the rest of CFVY by.

Neo looks to you as you’re led away, and you shrug. You’re both just going with the flow, here.

"I, uh, guess I tend to like them taller than me, which…” You blows a puff of air between your teeth. “...is a pretty small pool, so I’m flexible. Besides that, uh... Strong, confident, maybe a little older? I guess I usually like blondes or light hair, but I’m not picky about that.”

The both of you nimbly zig-zag through a dense cluster of teenagers, Coco’s compulsion to stop and deliver sultry quips and stir the pot with other classmates thankfully giving you time to catch up as you teeter in these heels.

In the end, maybe you were too picky after all. Having wandered three quarters of the way around the hall with no perfect candidates, your self-appointed matchmaker drifts back towards the tables by the wall.

"Hm... Well, this is a tricky case. Not to say there aren’t options that fit the bill, but I doubt even I could score you a dance from Goodwitch. Tell you what, I'll go case the joint, be back in a few spins, see if we’ve turned anything up. In the meantime, if you do find someone and need yourselves a cute dance night photo, my Velv's got it handled.”

Coco disengages only to point at another mild-mannered wallflower like yourself, this one seemingly taking a break from her team over by one of the half-dozen watered-down punchbowls.

“Hey, Nikos!”

Oh, no.

“Got a lonely lady here needs someone to keep an eye on her while I rustle her up a dance partner. Mind making sure she stays out of trouble?” Coco shoots a finger-gun that leaves you with an implacable pang of nostalgia, and struts off without waiting for a response, raw confidence that isn’t quite spoiled by arrogance.

Unfazed by Adel’s instinctive need to stir up social interaction, Pyrrha just laughs and calls after her upperclassman, “I happen to know she's better at keeping others out of trouble!”

Coco’s head bobs in passive acknowledgment before she disappears into the mob.

There’s some unwarranted shyness in Pyrrha’s placid smile as she regards you again, then nods towards her team dancing a short distance across the hall.

“I hope you don’t feel obligated to stick around on Coco’s account; I’m only taking a breather for a few songs before my partner wonders where I’ve gone.” Pyrrha giggles to herself. “He’s been a lot more confident, actually, ever since you, er...”

Look, it genuinely wasn’t your intention to develop a schoolwide reputation during your fake-student career, but alas. Many on Remnant might say it’s petty, nigh-sadistic for you to derive enjoyment from pummeling the ever-loving shit out of bullies roughly three-to-six years your junior, but your morality’s been a lost cause for years. It relaxes you! ...And gives back to the community!

“No need to thank me; it’s hard enough holding back. There’re a few of those boys who I’d still really love to acquaint with fourth-degree frostbite.”

Unsettling her wasn’t your intention, and you worry you let too much of your sharp edges show through the comment. The truth, as you discover when you look back up at her, is that she’s still just as terrible at initiating smalltalk as you are, but try she does, and you can respect that.

“Er. So! Team MMLE’s from Haven, as I recall? Were you a Mistral native, or did you travel?

“Oh, er. Yeah? Yes? To the first two.” Your clumsy, clipped answer doesn’t bother Pyrrha, whose celebrity status must explain her experience hanging around awkward stutterers; she plucks up the fallen conversational volleyball and sends it back.

“What part of Mistral?”

Uh-oh, think fast. Your alias’ pre-Haven backstory, shit, what was it– You were supposed to be as close to Atlas as possible to justify your looks and social quirks, so: “Argus! Er, most of my family’s from Atlas, but I came from Argus.”

“Ah, myself as well!” Pyrrha chirps, so precious and excited, a bounce in her voice that soon falls flat with disappointment. “Er, but you probably already knew that. Everyone does, even those who don’t share our hometown.” She does a slow shake of her head, a laugh that hardly qualifies. “Aha, all this time, and I can still forget my whole life’s been public knowledge to this point.”

Of all the people you could deliver that lie to, it had to be the Argus native. Worse yet, now you made her sad? Fighting your dry throat, you force out an attempt at comfort.

“N-no, I didn’t, actually! My parents, uh. They didn’t let me watch tourneys, growing up, or follow the celebrity gossip. Didn’t want me to get a taste for fighting and become a huntress, until I tricked them into letting me go to school for it.”

A technical half-truth, but one with legs to stand on, except the celebrity gossip angle, but does it count as following the celebrity gossip when you reluctantly are the celebrity gossip?

“That sounds like it was a lot of pressure,” says Pyrrha, who breaks through with some optimism. “But, it looks like they couldn’t stop you! So, you went ahead and left for Haven? I know a lot of us Argus girls end up in Atlas instead, and Haven’s only our safety net, but in my case, I wanted something new.”

“I had a... brother who went to Atlas, and it was pretty vicious on him. He had to drop out, and it was a really rough landing, took him a while to find himself again.” If Watts or Hazel were here, they’d have their heads in their hands. You’re laying it on crunchy-peanut-butter thick. “So, when it came time for me to make choices about my future, I looked back at that and picked a different path.”

This line of flagrant fibbing seems to be working, and Nikos hums thoughtfully. As she spends a minute digesting the thought, you lean over to the punch table and ladle yourself up another glass in the hopes of remedying that dry throat.

“Speaking of schooling,” Pyrrha inquires, “clearly you’re studying at Haven, but I was curious: where did you go for Combat School? I only ask because I don’t remember seeing you back at Sanctum.”

Blech, what’s even in this stuff? Not to be a punch snob or anything, it just tastes like someone let a tiny dog take a swim in it. Can’t be spiked; Port’s had his eye on it like a hawk. “Nah, St. Camden’s,” you reply offhandedly.

Pyrrha’s response comes on enough of a delay that you finally glance up from your cup. When you do, her head’s tilted, ponytail swished by a few degrees. “I’m confused; my understanding was that St. Camden’s was a boy’s boarding school? I wasn’t aware they’d gone co-ed...”

Welp.

In fairness: this is a natural consequence of your overtaxed brain attempting to smoothly subvert the original lie committed to forged documentation that ‘Malita Monkshood’ very much did attend Sanctum. It’s a natural consequence of reaching out for the very first schooling experience your subconscious had on hand.

Except the natural consequence of these factors combined is fucking outing yourself to Pyrrha Nikos in the middle of a massive party, apparently!

Mouth slack but strangled for words, you blink at Pyrrha.

Oblivious, Pyrrha blinks back.

And then it hits her. One can tell, because she immediately loses a good deal of that prodigious height with how she shrinks in her contrition, a hand over her mouth. “Ah, I-I’m sorry...!”

Great, now you have to incorporate your terrible pre-Academy educational history into your official backstory, on top of the feeling of violated privacy. Some spy you are. Fingers crossed no one who asks ever digs deep enough to start finding contradictions, at least before Beacon’s final curtain.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha couldn’t be more apologetic, to the point it’s a tad exhausting. It’s enough that she genuinely didn’t mean anything by it, and it was your own fault for not having a backup-bluff up your sleeve. Such a blunt implication could’ve cut deeper once upon a time, but you’re the fucking Fall Maiden now, people aren’t going to scratch the paint on your gender with a clumsy shopping cart collision like that.

Inside, your heartache grows fiercer. You know the grand plan will scar this girl. It’s so much worse than the other variable in the equation – the other redhead in the room whose life you’ll ruin, the one made of metal, doing an innocent jitterbug flanked by two featureless, soulless Atlesian troopers a couple dozen feet away.

Going by all that technical data you stole once upon a time, you can afford to be optimistic about her recuperation, but Pyrrha? She won’t move on so easily. You have to believe in your Queen’s work, and that one outcome or another, it’ll be for the benefit of their souls, too. It’ll hurt, there might be scars, might be damage that can’t be undone, but you can’t start healing the wound until you rip the arrow out, first.

Either way, you really need to stop Pyrrha’s waterfall of apologies before someone overhears and the whole thing spreads like a virus, because she’s still going.

“I wasn't meaning to imply – I won't mention it to anyone, if you haven’t... Well, you know.”

“It’s fine.” Not exactly, but ‘fine’ in the way death is fine. Predictable, inevitable. “I know you weren’t angling for it. Believe me, I spent enough time in, er, visiting Atlas to know what it feels like when people are trying to be petty on purpose.”

The younger girl shuffles her feet, seeming a tad reluctant to quit burying you in ‘I’m Sorry’-s until your head can’t even peek out of the pile, but since she says nothing, she must be just as eager to escape the spiny debris of that faux pas as yourself.

When that tension abates, the two of you fall back into a companionable silence for a minute or two, broken up by those thin trails of smalltalk that’re never meant to go much of anywhere: Comments on the decorations, the masked DJs’ song choices, the dancers buzzing about the floor – both teachers who’ve clearly sampled harder drinks than the punchbowl provides, and the classmates cycling through unexpected pairs.

Pyrrha, for her part, always locks back on to one dancer in particular. Out on the floor, that blonde boy you once rescued from Beacon’s Baby-RAMM staggers dizzily out of a very vigorous spin with the other redhead on their team, smooths out the dress that he’s wearing for reasons far beyond your understanding, and catches Pyrrha with a big, excitable wave. A whole lot of pantomime occurs; guess he’s promising her the next dance.

You’d arrived too late to know if this is an egg-cracking night for that kid, or just the result of some bet, and at this point, you’re too afraid to ask – you don’t have the best history with getting trapped in bets to wear feminine clothes. It’s none of your business, you’ll just let it ride.

Running a finger around the rim of her punch glass, Pyrrha’s expression has journeyed from neutral, to excited over her obvious crush, to ponderous – too ponderous for a bright party with such loud music.

“Say,” she prompts, just above the steady waves of electronica. Her eyes never leave her partner. “This might sound strange of me to ask all of a sudden, but… Do you believe in destiny?”

Isn’t that a dance question and a half. As you contemplate, you draw a deep breath that you let whistle out soft through pursed lips.

“Honestly? I try not to. Or... maybe I do, but only because I want to believe we can ditch it if need be. Maybe we’re born with a destiny, but we can still break off the path if it’s headed somewhere we can’t bring ourselves to go.” You shrug, but your feigned impassivity doesn’t show in your shrinking voice. “Not that it wouldn’t hurt like hell, and might only lead to dead ends where we’re all worse off, but… it’s something.”

For an answer you pulled out of your ass, your fellow loiterer mulls it over as if it were coming from someone far wiser than you could hope to be.

“I… think I like that,” Pyrrha replies, after further nursing her punch. “I’ve never enjoyed thinking of destiny as a path we can’t escape. More like a final goal, that we’re always working towards. But perhaps if we change enough, it’s not so strange for the goal to change, as well.”

“I feel you. It took me a while to realize I only enrolled as an escape from one destiny, and even the next one, I couldn’t stick to. Needed some help to realize there was still something bigger I had to do, that I wasn’t going to find at the Academy alone.”

“Mm. I hope it doesn’t sound spoiled of me to say, but being a tourney champion never felt like a fulfilling destiny. For as long as I can remember, I felt as if I were fated to be a huntress – to protect the whole world. I still hope to become one, don’t get me wrong, but... lately, I’ve been wondering if my true destiny is humbler than I first thought.”

Here’s hoping you aren’t the sole reason that ends up being the case, but given what’s coming, it’s probably for the best that she set her sights on something less stressful.

“Although,” Pyrrha laughs, “I think I’d like to avoid wondering about those ‘dead ends,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

“Don’t sweat it. Leave the doomsday thinking to me.”

The buffeting of sound from the ballroom’s mounted speaker system enters a lull, and many dancers bow to, high-five, chest-bump one another as they split off or switch partners. Jaune seems eager to trade off one hammer-happy friend for a more mellow variety of redhead, and gravitates a little closer to where you and Pyrrha have been posted up.

“I guess that’s my cue,” she says, suddenly looking for a place to put her empty glass. “Apologies for getting a bit too philosophical.”

You save her the trouble and take the glass, since you’re closer to the punch bowl, and lift it in toast to send her off. “It’s fine; moody philosophy’s my middle name. Good luck with your hopeless crush.”

The redhead’s blush is immediate and fierce, and seemingly of its own power, a metal spoon on the punch table lifts into the air and lightly plonks you in the side of the head – you deserved that.

The self-appointed hostess who’d intended to find you a dance partner seems to’ve been waylaid by her quest to boost the confidence of a bunny faunus with social weaknesses of her own. Can’t blame Coco for that, and you wish her and her teammates the best – since Neo’s still twirling with Fox, maybe you can text her for any gossip she overhears.

‘Til then, that unexpected question has left you in a contemplative mood you can’t prevent from showing on your face, and the last thing you need is someone waltzing up to ask ‘what’s wrong’ when you’ve got no good excuses locked and loaded.

Might be time to hang it up – midnight’s creeping up on you, and enough people’ve seen Malita Monkshood make an appearance at the festivities for an alibi, even if she never seemed to dance with anyone. You’ll text the rest of MMLE later to let them know where you’ve gone, but as it stands, disappearing without a trace is your style.

You tip back the last of the silty-sugary punch analogue and ditch the glasses, challenging your heel prowess to toddle up one of the curved staircases to the second level of the ballroom. Starting to think someone really did pull one over on Port and slipped in a few drops of booze. In your effort to dodge through the throngs of dancers, your tunnel vision keeps you from noticing until the moment you slide within two feet of the Headmaster.

Engrossed in his conversation with Doctor Oobleck, Ozpin doesn’t appear to suffer the same prickly, battle-ready unease that crackles down your spine and your Aura when your eyes meet but for a moment. Another slow-motion second, and you’ve passed him by, none the wiser.

Not yet. Just a few more weeks. There’s still time until you’re tested.

The stairs and stretch of walkway blur by as your brain processes that near-miss, and the doorway you’re looking for rushes up before you know it, as you walk out onto the terrace of the second floor’s outdoor balcony, grey stone gone a washed-out blue in the moonlight.

No one’s having an emotionally powerful starlight confessions or kisses up here, it’s just you. A stage for a lonely Maiden and her soliloquy.

It’s been nice to pretend. Not just tonight, but the semester up to this point. It’s not been without its stresses, but it’s a novelty to stand here at a Huntsman Academy feeling like you’re a schoolgirl sad her date couldn’t make it to the dance, and not a half-baked cultist gambling against the Gods.

People in that hall behind you are going to die. Happy, innocent, with whole lives stretching ahead of them. Maybe faces you know. For all that talk of destiny, what if Pyrrha doesn’t last the night? What if your team, who you’ve grown fond of over the last year or so, can’t come through?

Is it really worth gambling these lives on a marginal hope of liberating all the world, now and for all generations to come?

No shit, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel great about it.

You pad over to the edge of the balcony – as softly as one can pad in heels that clack over the tiles – and lean onto arms folded atop the railing, cool against your skin. Any time you start to doubt yourself like this, doubt Salem like this, all you have to do is take a look up at the moon.

It’s a beautiful one tonight, belted by its shards in a half-scatter. It’s also viciously mocking you from the heavens – a reminder of the Gods’ eternal hostility toward their creation.

Maybe it’s because you lack a doctorate in ethics and psychology, but you’re pretty confident in your answer to the infamous Trolley Problem. Yes, pulling the lever to abruptly change the tracks and save the lives of the many means the sad soul on the second track will die by your hand, but in the end, your goal is to draw out and slay the sick bastards who began tying people to trolley tracks in the first place.

As to your actual odds of winning that fight, well… ignorance is bliss, but damned if you aren’t willing to try, so long as you’re at Salem’s side. One way or another, it’s better than letting Remnant linger like this for eternity.

A breeze passes through, and you shiver; even as a Solitas girl, this party dress isn’t the most insulated gear you’ve ever worn. The nights have grown a bit chilly as the year steadily advances through the Fall. Your season as a Maiden, your time – the encroaching of death and sudden change, to pave way for new life as the cycle continues.

The tip of your braid glances over the small of your back as your turn to look from side to side at the scenery on campus. To take in this finely constructed illusion of innocence, optimism, and the promise of a hero’s future, this lie built of stone and steel and vibrant youth and ancient knowledge. The throne of an invisible empire.

Soon, both much too soon and not soon enough, this empire’s going to burn.

And you’re about to strike the match.

Chapter Text

You aren’t a woman of faith, never have been, not since you were a child.

Yet in this moment as a woman grown, you perform the weary gestures, recite the plaintive words, in the rhythmic whisper of rote memorization untouched by the years.

You say a prayer – not to the negligent Gods, not to Salem, you’re not even sure to whom – a prayer for Penny Polendina, who you know may yet survive, but will surely never forgive you. 

A prayer for Pyrrha Nikos, who will always be weighed down by memories of guilt for a sin she never commit, and also, will never forgive you.

A prayer for every innocent life that could, but shouldn’t, but will be cut short tonight, in the course of saving every soul that was and will be from the Gods’ tyranny. They deserved a better world, everyone does, but if you win, they could still have justice. As for yourself, you know you won’t deserve forgiveness, but you’re already a monster. Could be you always were.

The prayer is short. This is because you don’t even know what the hell you could hope to say, and cut your losses before your voice grows watery. Can’t have that, not now of all times.

There’s only room enough to take one deep breath, clear your throat. In your hand, a light blinks an insistent red.

You press the button, and raise the scroll to your lips.

“This was not a tragedy. This was not an accident.

“This is what happens when our entire world is left to languish, led into strife, built on the lies of men who proudly claim to be our unequivocal guardians and authorities, but in reality, are nothing more than men. These Huntsman Academy headmasters, for example, already wield more power than most armies, and one was enough of a glutton to grab for both.

“They put on a good show for the cameras; say they’re all in for progress, prosperity, putting an end to the Grimm, we’ve all heard it before. And yet, what’ve we seen onstage today but none-of-the-above?

“Sure, it started as progress – Remnant’s first artificial being with a soul? Revolutionary, a giant leap for the sciences, culture, medicine! It’s just... a shame, that it had to happen in Atlas. Where the good General Ironwood didn’t see a cheerful girl for a new age, but a thing, a walking weapon, and made damn sure she danced on his strings. Maybe our Tin Man had wanted some company he could relate to, but couldn’t comprehend a girl made of metal who still had more of a heart than him.

“So he conscripts this naive six-year-old, and hurls her out onto the killing floor for our amusement, in the hopes he could come back with a shiny new trophy for the trouble. Instead, she paid the price for his arrogance. But then, the General’s not alone in churning out children as expendable walking weapons, their suffering a triviality so long as it furthers his goals.

“Look at– Look at Miss Nikos; how would she’ve known her opponent would be ripped apart with the wrong twitch of her Semblance, when none of these powerful men we’ve placed in charge – in their full knowledge of the perilous matchup – could be bothered to inform her!?

“For what, to keep Polendina’s history classified? Who measures which military secrets’re worth a little girl’s life, another girl’s innocence? What’s Ozpin gonna do to heal her lifelong trauma from a disaster he's allowed to happen on his watch? Does he have a cure for decades of nightmares?

“No, Oz was just playing with children’s mortal lives as his proxy, to win a gentlemens’ dispute against a dictator who wasn’t satisfied merely holding his own Kingdom under the gun, and decided to go on a world tour. Who flew here with state-of-the-art battleships, fully armed, to swarm the skies above a festival meant to celebrate a peace treaty – for a war his predecessors began!

“See, folks, I know a thing or two about the crimes of Atlas’ most powerful; I was born and raised in those same ivory towers. And d’you know what I saw, when I looked away from the glamour, out at the real world around me? Misery, ignorance and inequality. Bandits reign with impunity, in the jungles and the board rooms. Poverty, bigotry, slavery, right under our upturned noses.

“If we turn our backs on what we’re seeing, just bury our heads in the dirt and pray to the Gods for deliverance, I can tell you right now – no one will answer.

“Because the closest things to Gods left in this world aren’t found in the heavens. They build their temples in cushy council seats, and military compounds, high corporate towers and Huntsman Academies. Over generations they’ve rewritten the laws of our world to entrench themselves, to become untouchable by mortals like you and me.

“See how they glorify a state of endless battle, propped up on the sacrifice of the hunters, an elaborate spectacle to distract us – but refuse to turn an eye to the greatest sources of discord that enable the Grimm to begin with? There’s no stopping the horde without healing those wounds in our society that draw them here, but the men who we’ve entrusted with power are feelin’ pretty happy with the status quo.

“Our Kingdoms’ve barely held a fractured peace together for this long, but I assure you – it is not because of power-hungry men like Ozpin and Ironwood, but in spite of them. Nothing will change in our cycle of suffering, nothing, ‘til we scale those mountains, tear these sorts of tyrants from their thrones, and do what must be done.

“So, lemmie ask you, Remnant – when our false peace fades, when we’re put at odds against one another as pawns in a higher power’s game, when the first shots are fired, who do you think should shoulder the blame?

“I know at least one of them, folks, and tonight, I’m going to hold him accountable.

“What will you do?”

The image of a black queen chess piece on a red background blips off the scroll, the UI reverting back to its OS blue.

Holy shit, your throat’s raw. You came packed ready for war, but you didn’t bring a lozenge, or a thermos of that good ginger tea. That might just be the most words you’ve strung together at one time in your entire life. Forget warming up for combat, sneaking in the vocal training to be ready for the speech was the real killer.

Only about a third of that was in the prewritten notes you drafted; you’ll admit you sort of just… ranted a bit there once you cut loose, ran far longer than you’d planned to speak. But hey, Salem’s directive was that your speech had to rattle the foundations, and if even a single person took your aimless, borderline anarchist ravings to heart, then that’s something.

As for that callout at the end… with any other kind of opponent, they’d be running to hole up in a safehouse, if they knew you were coming. Meanwhile, Ozpin’s likely put on the coffeepot for you, though he’ll have to wait his turn; you’ve got an operation to manage. Just need to ensure things out here are running smoothly, or as smoothly as a descent into chaos can.

From your post cloaked up on the highest maintenance skyways encircling Amity Colosseum, you peel your eyes away from the stage, where various pieces of Penny Polendina lie deactivated, and the arena’s occupants flee to their airships for evacuation.

She’ll probably be fine. Probably. You’ve gotta stop second-guessing that faith and look away, before impulses compel you to do something moronic like go down and scavenge her body yourself, in the hope that Watts can bolt her back together. No, she deserves so much better than you gave her, and that includes deserving better than being reassembled by a snob only doing it to spite her dad.

Speaking of Watts and his role in tonight’s plan, the Atlesian drones haven’t swapped teams yet, so Neo must still be doing her thing to upload the final stage of his hack. You’ll check on her when you zip over to rendezvous with Emerald and Mercury, after you’ve caught your breath.

It takes patting down three of the various pouches and pockets on your combat gear before you find a small canteen of water, still chilly thanks to its Ice Dust lining, and take a few liberal swigs on your way over to the roof’s outermost edge.

Goddess, it’s already going to hell out there.

The Grimm sirens haven’t stopped since a third of the way through your speech, to the point your brain’s filed away their cacophony as part of the background. Like a swarm of black knives, Nevermores and Lancers and the occasional lonely Ravager have descended on the Atlesian airfleet, who light up the sky with gunfire in an attempt to hold the beasts at bay, and explosions when they fail.

Wreckage plummets back down to Remnant in fiery scrap-metal meteors, indiscriminately smashing into the surrounding terrain, the forests, and the city of Vale itself. What looks like a thumb-sized, candlelight glimmer from this altitude, you know is an entire city block ablaze.

People are hurt, and scared, and it’s your fault.

Don’t bother denying it, you need to remember it’s for a good cause, and hold tight. You need to remember you’re no longer Malita Monkshood, no longer an innocent student. To that end, you’ve already ditched the school uniform and squeezed back into your proper combat gear, your honey-speckled lavender contacts popped out, hopefully never to be needed again.

Tied back and out of the way in tight wrappings, the purplish dye’s mostly washed out of your increasingly-blue hair. Having gotten fed up with the color by this point, you’d tried in vain last night to dye it again with a close enough palette match to your original shade, in a rush for a return to normalcy. The result is messy; you’re still rocking a few warped patches of faint violet gradient, a shimmering oil-stain iridescence.

Hair color doesn’t really matter as Vale descends into chaos, and people can call you vain if they like, but you still wanted to look your best. After all, you’ve got a big date tonight.

Er. With… with destiny, is what you were trying to do there; you’re not dating your Goddess’ ex-husband. You’re entirely too loyal, and too possessed of a sense of taste. Would’ve been an ethical conflict about your schooling, too, as your stand-in headmaster right up until just minutes ago.

You guess tonight marks both the second and third times you’ve dishonorably dropped out of a Huntsman Academy, if factoring in your Haven transfer student status as a twofer. If Salem’s plans move fast enough, maybe you’ll hit Vacuo while you’re still young enough to fake through a few months of Shade and make it a full house.

Just as you start to let your mind wander with frivolous thoughts like these, your silliness gets blown over by a distant series of fearful civilian screams, which drag you kicking and squirming back to the uncomfortable present.

Such devastation was not your intention, that goes without saying, but then, how much more’d be allowed to happen if the cycle continued? You think back to the Brothers’ extermination of all life, irrespective of the goodness of those souls, only to let it grow back again as a new crop for the bloody harvest. How many more times would such a thing have to happen before someone stops it?

You’d prefer it to be ‘zero,’ and you’re gonna do your damnedest to make it happen. So, aren’t these embers just one final controlled burn to stave off the wildfire?

For the year-or-so you attended Atlas Academy, and to a lesser extent your whole life in the Kingdom, instructors and so-called authority figures made it abundantly clear that it was the correct and noble thing to do – to be willing to make the ‘hard choices,’ even on behalf of those who don’t understand, those held under your power, and to know the meaning of sacrificing in the name of the greater good.

Well, General. This plucky young cadet sure took your teachings to heart, didn’t she?

Strangely, though, the military of your homeland doesn’t seem too thrilled that you’ve followed in their own glorious, patriotic example. Their ships seem to be... oh, right, dying in foreign skies as expendable pawns in their leader’s egotistical dickswing.

This is what Atlas wanted to pound through your chest and tattoo on your heart: a willingness to do the same. To submit to an authority that doesn’t give a damn if you live or die, unthinking, unquestioning, of just what that ‘greater good’ entails.

Salem trained you better. If you’re going to fight for a greater good, it won’t be defending one singular Kingdom, or one privileged class, or even just for the people of today. You’re going to fight for a greater good that encompasses all life on Remnant both now, and into the future. The only end that justifies means of this magnitude can be the end of the Gods’ eternal cycle of injustice.

Except…

Except those’re a lot of big fancy words, and sophistry only gets you so far when you’re an unsettled twenty-something watching the collateral damage of a horrific siege on a scale unseen since The Great War, and knowing you flipped the last switch.

Don’t lie to yourself: you’re trembling. The enormity of what you’ve done can’t be escaped no matter where you turn. You've vomited. And not just Grimm ichor, but your own gross human bile.

This is shaping up to be the worst, and most momentous night of your life. You wish Salem were here, or you were with her. You miss her. You want her to tell you this is okay, hold you close and say you did well. That all of this chaos and hurt will be worth it, in the end. But you can't go back to your Goddess with your mission unfulfilled.

So before it can dare to falter, you’ll douse your heart in righteous anger and let it burn through the night.

Lifting a woodsman’s axe and a mace respectively, two of Adam’s White Fang radicals exhibit a particular excitement in their body language as they back a pair of human freshmen into a dead-end alley between Beacon campus dorms, weapons brandished high.

They don’t get that far. Mister Mace hears an interrupted grunt, reeling around to see Axeman’s head snap grotesquely to the side, eyes wide but sightless, skull freshly ventilated in a plume of red mist. Axeman drops like a sack of crap.

“Remind me,” asks Emerald over your shoulder, “why we’re killing our own guys?”

“Okay, first things f– Hold on.” You chamber another round, charge a shot, and put Mister Mace down with a scorching slug through the ribcage before he can dive into the alley and menace the kids inside. “First things first, they’re not ‘our guys,’ they’re Taurus’, and secondly I gave explicit orders, which they’ve unsurprisingly broken.”

When the trapped students escape hand in hand to find a safer hiding space, you sit back on your haunches, posted on the tiled roof of a building just across the campus’ main thoroughfare. Behind you, Emerald and Mercury have kept their scrolls up, recording the unfolding carnage with varying levels of reluctance from your vantage on a campus rooftop.

Mercury zooms in on an Atlesian drone soldier finally succumbing to Watts’ virus, unshouldering its rifle and unloading wildly into the side of a building. “Explains the Fang, but you’re popping Grimm, too. Grimm we broke our backs for months to lead here? Remember?”

You stand sharply, weapon stowed at your side, and clamp a hand on Merc’s shoulder, another over your chest. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t know this was your operation! Ten thousand apologies, my liege. Please, lead us! Manage this unprecedented assault against an unfathomable enemy! Go right ahead! I am at thy beck and call!”

He blinks at you, nose wrinkled, then scoffs like an angsty preteen and returns to recording the chaos. Thought so. At least Emerald chuckles at the display, watching you both out of the corner of her eye.

“So, what now? Do we actually have anything important left to do, or is it all you showing off?”

“No, I’m gonna do the full rounds one last time before I head on up, see if there’s anything else I need to take care of. While we’re split, I want one of you to keep texting Neo about the invite. If she wants to go back to playing petty crooks with Torchwick, that’s fine, but I don’t want her to miss the last flight if she’s feeling like a change in scenery.”

Odds are doubtful, since unlike the other two you recruited, both alone at low points in their lives, Neopolitan already had a good thing going for herself when you arrived. That said, you’ve developed enough camaraderie that you want to at least try to ask her to join – and that requires keeping track of her and her dum-dum’s condition in this hellscape.

Another huff from your opposite side. “I don’t like her,” Mercury pouts. “Too smug for her own good.”

Though she doesn’t look up from her scroll, Emerald interjects: “Why do you think we wanna keep her around?”

Their squabbling’s so wholesome. “Alright, I’m off. And hey.” You point two fingers to your eyes, then reverse it to them. “You two stay safe, got it?”

“Pff. Got it, big sis,” Emerald sasses.

“Tch. What she said, except less of a suck-up,” says Mercury.

Meh, you can live with that. After giving yourself a patdown to ensure all your belts and gear are snugly secured, you borrow from Neo’s repertoire and sign your comrades a [“Goodbye, losers!”] while fire begins to sputter beneath your feet. A running start across the clinking ceramic tiles, and you blast into the sky… sort of.

Since you didn’t grow up with a combat Semblance, you might’ve overcompensated training your Maiden powers for offensive techniques to play catch-up and round yourself out, and left fallen by the wayside were certain utilities. Utilities like, oh, y’know, being able to fly worth a damn.

Levitating a few feet above the ground is no sweat, but sustained, steady flight without wobbling like an airship with a broken rotor was really the type of thing you should’ve had on your critical to-do list before the Big Night. It wasn’t, and now you’re paying the price.

Rather than smoothly soaring the skies without a care, you’re stuck launching yourself in long, superpowered jumps with a blast of flame and wind behind you, then trying to pad out your landing with those unsteady, balanced jets of the same, hovering as long as you can while still maintaining your Semblance lest you get shot out of the sky.

Earlier, it left you leapfrogging across the highest rooftops of Vale, hopping the river between the residential and corporate districts, only attempting to fly properly when the distance is too great – like scaling the cliffs onto the Beacon campus – and your wavering flightpath when you do is liable to get you airsick.

Call it anxiety, call it perfectionism, but you can’t sit still tonight; you’ve been launching yourself back and forth between the city and the school to keep a personal eye on the unfolding of a plan that now wrecks you to have to claim as even partially ‘yours.’

For the time being, you’ve continued to explosively hop-skip along the edges of Beacon’s campus, only touching down when a point of interest catches your attention. In the interest of more quickly making it out to Vale Proper for your final scouting run, you’ve cut across close to the main tower – Ozpin’s lair – and glide to a somersault stop atop some flat-roofed faculty building or another you’d never had cause to visit.

Unfastening Danse Macabre, you (click-clack-shunk) shift her into ranged mode, greeted by the cobalt holographics of her hard-light scope. No intention to shoot anything yet, you just didn’t pack your binoculars.

Adjusted for mid-to-low lighting and long distance with a few taps to glowing keys projected on the edge of the scope, you cradle her stock into your shoulder, brace her on the raised lip of the roof, and start to get a better lay of the land.

At first, nothing but loose handfuls of low-level Grimm, sniffing and scraggling. Only when you pan around to the west do you fish up a catch, and find a shock of red hair attached to a familiar masked militant leader. Though, he seems to be leading precisely jack squat right now.

This is beginning to explain a lot – your explicit orders, to be disseminated throughout the rebel Fang cohort, held one tenet above all others: no kids, no noncombatants. Scare them, shoo them, sure, but the goal is to engage all non-autonomous Atlesian military assets, any grown huntsmen-for-hire alongside the Valish PD, any licensed Beacon faculty who become a problem, but no noncombatants.

You made it clear this was all supposed to be psychological warfare on a grand scale, not to act like some directionless, murderous bandits. To leave harrying random humans to the Grimm and focus on utterly destroying highly-visible noncritical infrastructure. Focused riot, not slaughter.

Except, that’s just about exactly what you’ve seen White Fang soldiers doing this entire night, and is it really any wonder their loose cannon of a leader is leading by example? Taurus is detached entirely from any of the squadrons from the dropships, roving the campus with a hand on his blade, but–

Okay, here’s what tweaks a nerve: He’s not cutting down every human he sees, either, which is… not what you notice he’s ordered his grunts to do despite your orders. Though you’re glad fewer people are being hurt, passing up on free human casualties is not Taurus at all. Something’s up.

From your sniping perch, you finagle a seated position with Danse Macabre propped atop your knee, and free up a hand to find your scroll while you keep a bead on the man. You thumb to the contacts entry dubbed ‘Bloody Bullocks’ and hit >Call.

Down at ground level, Taurus skids to a halt on the stone footpath, withdraws his own scroll, flicks it open… then closed again, buried back in his pocket.

The audacity. This man is actually ghosting the raid leader in the middle of her very first raid! You adjust your posture to keep him in-scope, and, again, pound that call button.

Taurus slows his powerwalking another few steps, shakes his head but keeps on stalking onward, winding down a path you can’t quite follow around the tower, towards an admin building and the school’s dining hall. A third time, you call to no avail.

You lock Taurus in your sights – or rather the space a few steps forward – account for distance, and loose a single, solid non-Dust slug near his feet. The small explosion of paved stone a mere foot or two away doesn’t draw his attention or clue him in to your displeasure at all, and the man soon disappears behind the tower altogether. Gods! Dammit!

Well, that figures. You really do get what’cha pay for when it comes to hired goons, and you paid almost nothing at all, so why’d you expect any different?

Let’s try your other red-haired pseudo-subordinate – propagating Watts’ hack of the local Atlas war machines has gone off without a hitch, so you know they made it that far, but you’d prefer to hear it from the man himself. You flip down the contacts to ‘N’s Hetero Life Partner’ and try one more >Call.

Finally, someone actually picks up. “Y’ello, you’ve reached Torchwick Enterprises, unfortunately we are a little busy at present…”

Were it not for the muted explosions you’re hearing doubled in the sky above you, you might be fooled that it’s a voicemail recording.

Abandoning your current sniper nest, you stand and spin, eyes to the sky, wondering if you can find the ship Roman’s commandeered. In hindsight, you kinda wonder why you thought you’d be better able to tell which is his; they’re all Atlas airships, made to exacting specs, totally identical. How would anyone– Right, it’s the one laser-blasting its fellow craft.

Not that you’re too terribly averse to seeing Atlesian ships blown out of the sky, but your operation’s already hanging by a thread and you need your pieces to move where you want them.

“Yes, I can see you’re having a wonderful time. You’ve done enough damage; they’re going to retaliate if you don’t make a break for it. Set a course outside Vale and find drop pods for you and Neo. Abandon ship.”

“Abandon this sweet baby? Oh, no-ho-ho, no dice, lady, I just got ‘er! And I bet she’ll fetch a hell of a price once I find the right fence to help me pawn her off.”

Is this man serious? “That’s– To who, jackass? Bandits? Menagerie!? What militia out there’s in the market for merchandise as hot as an entire Atlesian battleship? Why am I even arguing with– Put Neo on the scroll.”

You can almost hear Roman wildly gesticulating with his cane. “Excuse me?”

“There are three brain cells between the two of you and she apparently has full custody today.”

“Good luck having her type, she’s already got her hands full.” There’s a series of bloops and a growl, as you can only presume Roman is struggling to navigate the airship’s controls. “Because Little Red decided to drop in for another visit, and we’re making sure it’s the last!”

Should’ve known she’d try to be a hero. “Are you still pissed about– She’s like, sixteen! You’re a grown ass man, act like it! Just… I don’t know, blow her off the side, do a barrel roll; she can do that Semblance thing of hers, it’ll be fine.”

Roman clicks his tongue a time or two. “Y’know, you seem to care an awful lot more about some snot-nosed huntress than my beautiful new bartering chip. Any reason for that?”

(Because you know what happened to her mother. Because you know what would happen to a Silver-Eyed girl like that if you let Ozma get his hands on her. Because you might be able to save her from getting involved in all this, if you succeed tonight. Let her live out the rest of her life in blissful ignorance until Salem’s victory, whichever way the chips fall.)

Silence runs long while you’re lost in your thoughts, and Roman fills the dead air. “Alright, Ghost-girl, how about I call you back, because– Shit, Neo! Look, your pity project just knocked her off the ship! I’m going up there!”

Already, you can detect the minute sounds of shoes pounding through metal bulkheads.

“Did she have Hush with her?”

Clanking footsteps on Atlesian metal slow down to a power-walk. “What? Yes?”

“Then she’s a lot safer than you’re about to be! Listen, carrot-top, I owe Neopolitan a lot of favors from this last year, and I’m pretty sure that debt’ll be square if I ensure her dum-dum’s ego doesn’t get him killed. Or did you forget you’re sharing airspace with a battleship-eating Wyvern, now? If you’re gonna be difficult, just mash buttons ‘til you find the autopilot, rig it to touch down off the coast where you can scoop it up later, and get your ass to a drop pod.”

“I can’t just sit on my hands doing nothing about the brat! Red’ll still come for me in here!”

“What’s she going to do, arrest you? You think she brought handcuffs? She’s not a cop! And she’s not gonna kill you either, she’s only a dumb, plucky kid! Just – be a fucking grown-up and go find Neo, or else I’m telling her how much you fought me on this, I swear.”

On that final note, you thumb the >Disconnect button and cut the call. Gods, you royally fucked up with some of your picks didn’t you? Taurus is AWOL, Torchwick’s fumbling critical life-choices and might screw himself over... at least Merc, Em, ‘n Neo you can trust to not be messing around much.

Stowing Danse Macabre for a few seconds, flame gathers in your fists and feet, all hidden beneath your Semblance as you jet-jump across the Beacon campus skyline. You circle a bit further around the main tower, and land in a skid atop the nearest empty rooftop when you spot some notable commotion in the courtyard: another large cluster of your ex-classmates battling through the area.

You post up prone at the building’s edge and adjust your scope.

Pyrrha Nikos has seemingly found a healthy way to vent her frustrations at whoever is responsible for all this (It’s you! It’s your fault she’s hurt and you know it!) by ripping both Grimm and Atlas military hardware apart by the ton.

If Vytal had gone the way it was supposed to, she would’ve crushed the competition, given she’s literally crushing one of Watts’ brainchildren – a chunky base model Paladin-290 mech – like it’s a fucking soda can.

She’s pulling out all the stops for her Semblance tonight, as the huntress-in-training drags a half-dozen armed drones and additional mechs towards her at once, crashing in an ugly metal mass around that first unfortunate Paladin.

The machines’ casings shatter. Liquid coolant sprays like blood. Limbs on the outside flail or fire blindly into the air. A mesmerizing display of brutal, victimless violence.

Fist clenched high, one last squeeze crunches several million lien worth of advanced military hardware into a great, fizzling ball of scrap, one which Nikos gives a slight spin, then rolls across a flat footpath on the courtyard to collide with a herd of distant Grimm.

The damage to the various Dust-fueled power cores can’t take such treatment, and the smashed-mecha bowling ball explodes into violent metal shards, spearing down the startled Grimm pack.

Unlike the rest of these kids, most of whom only have training in battling Grimm, Nikos was born of the tournament circuit. She’s fought eclectic, unpredictable foes since she was old enough to grasp a sharp twig.

It doesn’t matter that she’s roughly six years younger and too much of a chronic, incurable sweetheart to consider it, forget the fact that you’re a newly-minted Maiden, forget your Grimm-soured blood, this girl’d still have nonzero odds of ripping you apart, and you’re not even made of metal.

And that’s assuming she’d even be alone at the time; she’s got plenty of friends, to boot. All the while Pyrrha was sweeping the battlefield in under a minute, her teammates and a few other assorted trainees have also been milling about, covering the corners for Grimm.

Things look real quiet down there now, enough that a person could actually think, which at this point in the carnage you’re pretty jealous about, but you imagine you can safely mov– hold on.

Adel’s girlfriend, er, Scarlatina, she’s... just perked up about something, or at least her rabbit ears have. She’s gesturing pretty animatedly to the others. Might be something she overheard now that the mechs’re scrapped and silent? Maybe another wave is approaching, or some Grimm; she’s already backing away pointing over to the–

To the dining hall. Where Taurus sulked off to.

Godsdammit, this is absolutely about what you think it’s about, isn’t it? If grown men raging over teenage girls upsets your plans any further tonight, you’re going to have an aneurysm. Please, please say Belladonna’s not over there...

A tap to the holographic scope cranks back the magnification so you can start a sweep on the area, hoping you can still find the faunus where you last recall. She’d been hanging back and holding the line near the entrance with Winter’s sis–

Another tap scales it right back in, because a sprinting Pyrrha nearly shoulder checks aforementioned Winter-adjacent sister on her way down the courtyard path with Velvet. Little Weiss twirls on a heel and falls in with them, their mini-flash mob even absorbing Xiao Long – where did she come from?

You raise up onto a knee, balance Danse again, and go for your Scroll. Over and over, you try to raise Taurus, so you could ask him his location and get any other response than the one you’ll hate to hear. So you can tell him to stop being an idiot and get him back on task.

No answer from his scroll. Again, no answer. No answer. Your gut twists in a corkscrew.

Since those other kids left in the courtyard seem to be handling themselves, you pack up to follow wherever the odd quartet – Scarlatina, Nikos, Xiao Long, and the Middlest Schnee –  had fled a few minutes ago, on a curving stone path that runs exactly where you hoped it wouldn’t.

Beacon’s main dining hall is primarily surrounded by greenery, so you’re stuck planting yourself much further back and struggling to see through the trees, debris, cracked glass, and smoke.

It could just be a coincidence, right? There’re only so many footpaths in this school, and the tower is one of the main points of convergence. Maybe your wayward goon took another fork in the road once you lost track of him. Or, when you took your eyes off them, the kids could’ve actually been headed for another building… right?

Haha. No. Of course not.

Because you can’t have nice things, tonight – Because where five children and one volatile terrorist go in, five young adults come out; filing through the side doorway, the entire group shaken.

The new addition to their number is the one you dreaded, but expected: A rattled and limping Xiao Long emerges protectively hefting Menagerie’s would-be princess in her arms, the latter clutching some kind of deep abdominal wound but still kicking, going by the twitching of her cat ears.

Scarlatina’s movements stay stiff as she nods to the others in parting and dazedly lopes down the path to rejoin CFVY. Winter’s sister, white dress stained, exits propped up against the shoulder of an ashen-faced Nikos, who mechanically flicks something wet off Miló’s javelin tip. The substance, in both cases, is more colorful than ichor, and does not dissolve.

You pan right. One tall arched window is shattered cleanly, offering a narrow, but unimpeded slot to peer through.

Broken chairs and splintered tables litter the room, amassed in a prickly wooden heap at one end. They’re dark enough to help obscure the lower body not blocked by the window’s edge, black clad legs hung up on broken furniture. Abandoned beneath their feet, a bone-white mask with red markings and slits sits in halves. The legs aren’t moving.

Hm. First, he ghosts you, now he is a ghost. Sucks to suck, asshole.

He just had to make the situation worse on Nikos, too, the bastard. She’ll be thinking she’s taken two lives tonight, when you’re not even sure you could say it was one; not when Polendina might pull through, and Taurus was something closer to a tumor to excise, a zit to pop. Pyrrha shouldn’t be stealing guilt that’s rightfully yours, for being the reason he was here at all.

However, it hucks a wrench into your post-Beacon plans – while the rogue Fang were never going to listen to you, you can’t help but wish you’d kept Taurus alive long enough to shred your promise and sell his ass out to High Leader Khan the second your boots touched Mistrali soil: Tranq him up, tie him down, heave him over your shoulder (realistically: ask Hazel to heave him over his shoulder) and make a beeline for the hidden White Fang headquarters.

Dumping Adam’s conspiring, traitorous self at the foot of Sienna’s throne would’ve been a worthy gift to pad out your preliminary negotiations on Salem’s behalf. If Khan felt you were polite enough, maybe she’d’ve let you watch what came next – you’ve heard tell about that Cerberus Whip of hers. In a word: brutal. At least the secret that you’d left the proverbial gates unlocked for him tonight is one that dies with him and his rabble.

Ah, well, it can’t be helped. You’ve got business in the city, first – finishing this circular sweep before the final act – but once you get back on campus, you’ll make a point to slip on through and check if anyone’s already nicked his sword off the corpse; it’s not as valuable as the traitor himself, but it’d still be a nice gift to offer up to Khan, as tokens of respect go.

Somewhere over the course of your reflection, those kids’ve trudged off towards the courtyard where their classmates had amassed. Since nothing’s presently eating them alive, there’s no reason for you to loiter – back to business. No distractions!

Stowing your things, you spin and work up a jog, hitting your stride as you hop one foot onto the rooftop railing, and launch into the sky. An uneasy streamer of flames trails behind your zig-zagging, leaping flightpath over the front of the campus grounds, once more flinging yourself over the lofty landing dock of Beacon, gliding down the cliff rise and above the smoke-stifled lights of the city.

Though dense pockets of Grimm have emerged across Vale proper – forest species from the teeming wilds, amphibious monsters hopping out of the bay, flocks of fliers swarming the airships – their influx remains a stable trend towards the school. All of their kind answer the siren call, the bellowing of the Wyvern, the strongest of their family currently in attendance.

Logically, you don’t need to fear it, as Grimm don’t ‘smell’ you as easily with Salem’s blood in your system. Nonetheless, it is a huge fucking dragon, and you find yourself mildly bending your trajectory to bow away from its circling swoops through the clusters of Atlesian battleships – if you’re going to die tonight, you’d prefer it not be getting gobbled up as a deep-fried Maiden Nugget.

With a deafening roar, the Wyvern snaps a smaller frigate in half between its mighty fangs, and you’re forced to airbrake hard with a gust of wind to keep from getting splattered under the rain of hulking debris, plummeting with a raucous crash an uncomfortably short distance ahead.

You wonder: how many Atlesians were still on that ship, and how many genuinely believed in their cause? How many lives were just extinguished because Ironwood couldn’t keep it in his pants?

Maybe you should’ve just gone up Beacon Tower, done your duty, and left – this ‘last scouting run’ through the city was the fastest, flimsiest excuse you could come up with to buy more time and psych yourself up, but instead all you’re doing is moping moodily as if this all isn’t mostly your fault to begin with.

Letting your propulsion cut out, you tumble into a slide atop the airship wreckage, a long white strip of steel from the underside of the hull, and catch your breath.

Ugh. Who were you kidding? There’s clearly nothing more to see out here; the Grimm are all advancing successfully towards campus, the drones are following orders, Taurus’ Fang are a lost cause but technically fulfilling their purpose. Salem didn’t make you her Maiden Vessel just to get cold feet before the climax.

But then, just as you’re about to double back, just as you’re about to shake off the jitters and go face your destiny at the top of that tower, fate decides to play another mean, mean trick on you.

Because as you turn, street angles and intersections align just so, and out of the corner of your eye, a couple of blocks away, you catch flashes of Auric energy you couldn’t possibly mistake: The graceful, honed and deadly ballet of a weapon you’ve known for a long, long time. You haven’t seen them in years. You know them by heart.

All that ‘I’m going to tell myself I’m strong and fiery, unfeeling and determined, and can’t be distracted from my mission’ tripe sails right out the window real fast, after the right distraction comes along. You’re already in the air and on the way before you realize it, clearing block after block in short, flaring bursts of elemental power.

This is absolutely another waste of time, irresponsible, you have more important things to be doing, you should be completing your Goddess’ mission free of delay, but you swear (to yourself and to her!) you’ll get right on that soon enough.

However: be it out of nostalgia or complicated emotional debts, you are not about to let Winter Schnee of all people get swarmed to death by a bunch of pathetic trash-Grimm before you can win several petty childhood arguments left hanging between the two of you.

You need to say hello. You need to say goodbye.

You need to hear her say your name.

You need to see her, even if only one last time – even if only so she can see the real you for the first.

Chapter Text

Clink. Tink. Slosh. Clink.

Committing the cardinal sin of playing with her food, Winter had lazily dragged her spoon through the off-white mass of mashed potatoes on the cafeteria tray. She’d need the energy for your shared Specialist Prep block at the end of the day, but an odd preoccupation left her ineffectually sculpting a starchy, shapeless art piece, instead.

“So, it seems the remainder of HGTS have no intention of joining the military, despite our stellar exam results thus far. Now, they want me to join them as Mantle-based freelancers when all’s said and done. Worst of all… They’re beginning to tempt me.” Winter glanced up. “And your team?”

“RAMM doesn’t give a shit where I end up,” you’d grumbled around a bite of lukewarm wheat biscuit. “They’re all still jockeying for cushy officer commissions, so y’know they’ll be leaving me in the lurch even if I do become an ‘Ace-Op’ like the General wants. Guess you’ll really escape this hellhole without me, after all.”

“It’s hardly as if I would be traveling far,” Winter had said. “Besides, we’ve always been thrust back together against our wishes up to this point. Why expect any different from the future?”

“D’aww.” You tilted backwards in your seat and feigned a swoon, and the hand not presently holding a half-eaten biscuit was pressed to your heart. “How sweet; I’ll tell my parents they can go back to drafting the prenups. We can honeymoon in Argus.”

“Tch. Shut up and eat. I swear, you’re far better a fit for my team’s tedious humor than I am.”

It’s her, alright.

Having turned her vacation to support a sister through the Vytal Festival into an excuse to overwork herself – which is so like her, honestly, so like the both of you – Winter Schnee has found her way back to ground level from the flying Amity Colosseum, and begun to engage Grimm freely at a residential district intersection not far from a Grimm shelter in a local subway station.

Engaging single targets even of unusually large size isn’t appearing to faze her, but the Dust mage is being taxed trying to cover both sides of the street at once, as well as stretch her makeshift defensive line any time a fleeing civilian draws close with hell on their heels.

Winter’s clothes are a far cry from anything you’d ever seen her wear. She still looks every part the Solitas woman, in a winterized blue-leather longcoat, clean white on the cuffed sleeves and lapels, and you think her gloves, too, beneath the overlaid grey armor plating. Another band of gray armoring is belted over the white thermal underlayer, and she doesn’t seem to be as daring as yourself in the footwear department – her heeled black boots only climb to the knee, not the thigh.

Capping it off is the warm blue scarf fastened with a big brooch of – Damn, was that Robyn Hill’s emblem? Did they hook up? Sheesh, everybody starts knocking boots the moment they’ve got you out of the picture.

Once you were too dead to keep fifth-wheeling in the HGTS dorm for homework cram sessions, polluting it with the funk of presumed-guyhood, Hill must’ve become Schnee’s new study-buddy. And by ‘study’ you mean anatomy and by ‘buddy’ you mean you really need to stop spacing out about very attractive women whilst rocketing through the air on magic-projected firejets at breakneck speeds.

If things were different, you might savor being a bit extra with your entrance. Now’s hardly the time. Instead of descending from the sky in a shining firebolt for a dramatic uncloaking, you drop your Semblance midleap and careen towards the burly Alpha Beowolf making its run for Winter’s unguarded back.

Calling on another force of wind, you spin yourself up enough of a twist to upscale your landing into a corkscrew kick, Danse unsheathed, activated, and all-but-beheading the Beowolf in that single followup swing. It can’t even howl its dismay.

It’s not enough for the beast’s head to fly free, but it precariously sags onto its far shoulder while the body judders and falls, smoke beginning to spill from its corpse. Following close behind, the three smaller members of the Alpha’s pack are too enraged by the loss of their leader to smartly back away, before you dispense similar judgment upon them. For the crime of threatening to deny your reunion, the sentence is ‘sword through the jugular,’ to be carried out five seconds ago.

Winter finishes bisecting a small Lancer and checks over her shoulder for the enemy which has, surprisingly, already been taken care of by an enigmatic blue-ish-haired stranger she’ll vaguely recall from the tournament’s early rounds. Minus a few key aesthetic flip-flops.

“Where did– All students need to move toward the Grimm shelters with the civilians,” Winter rattles off on autopilot, gesturing her parrying dagger towards the designated subway entrance across the street. Even as she speaks, a man lugging a shocked toddler hurries through the gate and down the stairwell.

When it seems you’re not moving and Winter turns to continue her hurried tirade, something pinches her brow tight and widens her eyes a few degrees.

You smirk like a little shit, and dip into a deep curtsey.

That first, false recognition grows frail and begins to snap apart, Winter focusing behind the deception of your mission’s student alias to the lie into which you were born, close enough to the truth of you. Bright gold eyes like she hasn’t met in years, expectant and familiar.

“...Marigold?”

“Heya, Winn.”

You’ve actually pictured this in idle daydreams, before: If you ever got to bump into your childhood friend-rival-confidant again, what it would be like, how long it would take her to realize the new you? Would it play out like that old cliché – the awed whisper of your last name, the ‘could it be’ or ‘is that truly you?’ Confused, surprised, maybe a little relieved. You’d get to nod tranquilly, playing it all cool while she slowly reaches out in disbelief to t–

In three sharp clacks of heels on asphalt, Winter Schnee stalks forward and slaps you hard across the face.

“Ow! What the hell?!”

“You’re ALIVE!?”

“Not for much longer if you do that again!” You rub your chin and fortunately find it attached. “Gah, what’ve have you been lifting? You’re a Dust mage, you don’t need that much beef!”

Naturally, you are exaggerating. Even with the reckless amount you’ve already wasted tonight, an Aura reservoir bolstered by the Maidenhood is enough to withstand at least… seven, maybe eight hundred of those slaps. Not that you’re keen to tempt her, as she looks to be in just the right mood to try and find out for sure.

“How can you be so– That was you who messaged me the day we graduated, wasn’t it? Where have you been?!“

Honesty’s the best policy, right? Go for it, she won’t believe you. Might even be good for a sorely-needed laugh. “Uh, Land of Darkness, big haunted castle? Joined a Grimm cult; I drink ichor for breakfast, now.”

As expected, the terrible secret dings right off Winter’s forehead; she doesn’t even hear you through the furor of her indignation. She shoves you weakly in the chest, like you’re both nine years old again. “We thought that we killed you, you asshole!”

Alright. Winter Schnee is swearing. You’ve royally done fucked up now.

Er, more than you already know you’ve fucked up tonight, at least – A side-order included with the entree. The fact that you’re now sporting irresponsibly long hair, a softer face, slightly higher voice, and form-fitting combat gear that flatters your now-extant curves does not seem to merit discussing upfront, not under the barrage of Winter’s fury.

This little heart-to-heart is interrupted for a spell by a few rambunctious Creeps trundling down the street. Blades drawn, Winter keeps conversing (shouting at you, really) while she descends upon the Grimm targeting the shelter, feeding her irritation into every precision slash.

“Do you even know how I felt when they announced your– I cannot believe that I cried over you, you absolute– We each attended your funeral believing that we were the reason you were dead!”

When you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Danse at the ready, you slide in to hack open the lower jaw of a Creep trying to sidle around the other ex-heiress. Ssssssshink-shunk.

“Who’s ‘we,’ you mean you and HGTS? Because of the stupid dare? No, y’wanna know who killed me – RAMM killed me, Atlas killed me, bigotry killed me! Besides, how can you even call it my funeral? An empty coffin and a trumped-up eulogy about someone who didn’t exist, buried under the wrong name?”

“And what…”

Pause, for Winter to concentrate on Aura flow, on the equations and theorems necessary to conjure a shimmery-white Boarbatusk from a summoning glyph, and send it charging down the street. When a few moments have been bought, she returns to you.

“And just what is the right name, if I might ask?”

You are an assassin on a bloody mission. You are The Fall Maiden. You are the deft hand and the unseen blade of your Goddess – So why does it still scare you so damn badly what the reaction might be, why does it make you hiccup as you reply, barely audible over the battle: “May? May Marigold?”

Winter’s expression sours, and regret rapidly stirs in that two-second span before she spawns a glyph and shoots a fireball over your left shoulder, plugging yet another Lancer in the abdomen with explosive results. When her attention flips back to you, it’s a greatly strained, but earnest smile.

“Then it’s a pleasure to meet you. Additionally: you are an inconsiderate bitch, May Marigold, and if Robyn were here with me, she would factually verify this.”

Hearing Winter cursing casually is good for the soul, even if it’s directed at you, and (somewhat) well-deserved. “When you’re right, you’re right, but I think we both agree it’s better she isn’t.”

A loud hiss slithers around a street corner behind you, only seconds before the King Taijitu that produced it. Both Winter and yourself move towards it in tandem, and relocate the defense closer to the subway-shelter.

Hitting your battle stance, you keep prying and ask, “So, she still up in Atlas? Rest of the old team, too?”

“I originally wasn’t going to attend at all, but when they…” Winter keeps facing opposite you, warding off the constant outpouring of Creeps, but still has time to glyph up a platform for you; how sweet of her. Unnecessary, but sweet.

Pretending for a moment you’re not the Fall Maiden, you leap and rebound off the runic circle the old fashioned way, to gouge Danse up the underside of the white Taijitu’s open maw. The beast rasps in pain, wheezing venomous spittle.

“...When they heard my sister would be competing, they pooled lien and purchased the airship tickets in my stead. Joanna all but threw me up the ramp herself, and Robyn ‘personally exiled me from the Kingdom’ until after the festival. I’m unsure how she’d enforce this, but she would try. You remember how she is.”

Incorrigible? Captivating? Nosy? A damn sight better at running a stable team than you’ve proven to be? Sigh. Yeah. Yeah, you do. “Speakin’ of Robyn, what’s the deal with the brooch? You two get hitched while I was off the grid?”

It was intended as a throwaway joke to get her groaning. Instead, Winter gives a short, sharp laugh while she glyphs up a small, earthen barricade from cracks in the street.

“I’m sure she certainly wishes, but she would encounter considerable hurdles if she proposed to us. They may call me a spoiled ice queen all they wish – unlike the other three, I refuse to be married in a burger pub, no matter how cheap the reception would be to cater.”

That sends you; actually makes you lose your grip on Danse’s hilt whilst you’re wrenching it from the white Taijitu, and you rush to grab it before you’re caught stumbling. “Us, the other three?” Shooting a look over your shoulder to ensure your temporary partner is occupied in the other direction, you call on the Maidenhood to punch a merciless gout of orange flame straight down the great snake’s throat. “As in, the whole team? Everybody’s involved, full stack?”

“Three plus one is, indeed, still four the last time I looked.”

Damn, Hill doesn’t play around. Not, uh, not that you’re downplaying your own romantic achievements – Being the consort-assassin-science-project of an undying witch queen is nothing to sneeze at – but still.

When it rears up to avenge its counterpart, you dodge away from the remaining black Taijitu’s toxic bite, and rather clumsily bump your back against Winter’s. She’s sturdy enough to help straighten yourself up, until she shoves backward with a dismissive grunt, and in doing so, starts up your momentum in a charge towards the furious snake-Grimm.

“Yeesh, you four work fast. So, Robyn Schnee or Winter Hill, which d’you think would piss the Jacques-ass off the most?”

The nimble black Taijitu slithers left; you promptly juke right, lining up your kill.

“Oh, I’m quite dead to my father, and have been for some time.”

“That makes two of us.”

Boosted by a whirlwind you hope goes undetected, you cartwheel flip to straddle the head of the hulking snake, and soundly wedge Danse Macabre into its burning eye socket. The beast hisses, black tongue spasming, then hits the floor. With a chipper hop, you dismount.

“But, parent-wise,” you ask, “did you ever manage to get your Mom out of Atlas? Whitley and Klein?”

Burrowing out of a borehole left by high-velocity airship debris, a dozen Sulfur Fish pour out of the breach and scuttle towards you both. The hole is soon plugged by an out-of-place Death Stalker that gets itself stuck squeezing through, hissing and jerking its pincers beneath the surface.

Winter glyphs together a shotgun of icicles, and blasts the bulk of the tiny swarm before they can sync up and merge. Her answer is slanted with a mild suspicion. “Mother has been attending a ‘rehab program’ in Argus the last few years, with her dear son as moral support, and butler for service staff, if you must know. The divorce proceedings are taking an age. What I’d like to know is why you were so insistent in your cryptic message – I still haven’t forgiven you for that, by the way. What did you know that we didn’t?”

Oof. Right. Never thought you’d have to explain yourself. At least your nudge got Willow, the twerp, and the Schnees’ stand-in father figure out from under Jacques’ bony billionaire thumb. Safely out of the way for the long-awaited day you torch Schnee Manor to the ground, to match the mound of ash that’ll be the Marigold Estate.

When Winter’s back is pressed against your own again, you quickly copycat her maneuver and blast the remaining Sulfur Fish with icy spikes, the beasts giving one last insectoid scree as they dissolve. Playing hopscotch over the acidic puddles left behind, you tee up with Danse and slice into the trapped Death Stalker’s head like a golf ball.

“What, can’t a dead friend help a living friend out with her familial woes? Call it paranoia, but I had a sneaking suspicion this–“ You flick some smoking ichor off the tip of your sword. “...might happen to Atlas Proper someday; I didn’t want your family and HGTS caught in the crossfire.”

“Speaking of our old team – our team, and you, that is. Marigold, I... May, I have to apologize; there was something I never had the chance to tell you, back home. I realize it was something I should have voiced earlier, but we’d all been bogged down with honors courses, and you were so distant–“

A resounding, rattling screech of metal comes from behind you. A civil defense volunteer in a muddied blue track jacket stops pulling down the reinforced shutters to the Grimm shelter entrance, cups a hand to his mouth, and calls out to yourself and Winter. “We’re at capacity down here, we’re closing this one up!”

The clamor resumes until there’s a final thunk, and the shelter’s sealed, leaving yourself and Winter loafing around in the middle of a city under siege.

Rather than resume her unfinished thought, Winter seems to sweep it off the desk with irritated reluctance. “Hmf. Much as I still have a thousand different things to say to you – just as my partners do, I’m sure – I should move out. There are other shelters that need protection, and then I’ll need to join the effort to sweep the school grounds...”

Workaholic Winter, back at it again. You have absolutely no grounds to point fingers with how you yourself can get sometimes, but would it kill her not to fight until she collapses of exhaustion? Maybe you can nudge her plans; it’s only a guess, but you’re pretty certain who she’s desperate to find.

“If you’re looking for Weiss,” you notify her, pointing up the path to the Academy foregrounds. “Last I saw, she was by the dining hall side of the main tower, with some of the other kids. You’ll want to pull her out quick – her team too if you’ve got room on those summons of yours, one of ‘em was wounded pretty badly.”

Winter’s screwed up expression suggests she very much wants to do just that, to stop helping the wider public and fly to her sister’s side. She remains tethered back down to Remnant by a combination of a noble heart, and those stodgy ‘hold-the-line’ mantras the both of you suffered in Atlas. “I trust my sister to take care of herself. The night’s not over, and we’re not done fighting yet.”

If you can’t convince her, she’s going to get herself killed, and you can’t abide that, even in a pointless world-held-hostage like Remnant. A bit more bass creeps into your tone. “Look, you’ve got to give it up, get everyone away from the battle. Listen to me: Beacon’s lost, Winn!”

“And just how can you be so sure of that?” she asks, as if she hasn’t had evidence mounting all around her the entire night. Moreover, she’s just drawn the attention of a lumbering Ursa Minor, separated from the eastbound horde and heading over to gamely trample the two of you.

This is… N’yeah, this is a point of no return, even the air you breathe thick enough to smother with the significance. How much do you weigh Winter’s survival against the chance you’ll be hurt, hated, killed over the truth?

Actually, that’s a stupid question.

You look up to the moon, peeking through the clouds and smoke and clash of airships, and brush your bangs back. Sword sheathed, you peel off your right glove and stuff it under your belts. Stalking around your friend in a bit of a huff, you place yourself just shy of the line between herself and the approaching Ursa.

All it takes is a seed of unease, that negativity directed up your Aura pathways – Irritation-guilt-fear all pour across your shoulder and into your forearm, which blackens rapidly. The gnarled mass that boils from within matures into the sharp, curving bone-sickle of a Mantis-Grimm’s foreleg.

“Because I was sent here to make sure of it!” you shout, gouging the arm-blade into the Ursa just behind its shoulder and ripping upward. The beast staggers, stopped dead in its tracks.

Rather than joining you with a helpful finishing thrust as she might in ages past, Winter lags back and blanches, white as her hair. “Y-you actually joined a Grimm cult!?”

“I warned you upfront!”

“And I assumed you were being a brat!” Incredulity raises Winter’s pitch to a shrillness comical in any other context. “After that anonymous message, I thought there might be a chance it was you; I harbored suspicions that if I ever saw my friend alive again, she’d be – well, ‘a she’ – but not that she’d have joined a coven of monster worshipers in the interim!”

You roll your eyes. The Ursa Minor, collapsed after your blow, still has the audacity to try staggering to its feet. You gouge the insectoid blade further, bringing the Grimm back down for good, before it can rudely interrupt your conversation.

“M’kay, you’re making a lot of baseless assumptions that I don’t appreciate. Firstly, my boss doesn’t worship Grimm, she just knows her way around them. Hence, strategically funneling them – not that, uh, not that it’s a perfect science, obviously; Ironwood really botched things off-mark, scaring people with his army...”

Winter’s larger sword seamlessly shifts to absorb its main gauche, whereas Winter’s own motions have grown sluggish under the weight of abruptly heavy thoughts, until something clicks together at last.

“Wait a minute, I remember now – that speech at the Colosseum, that voice, that… that was you.”

Now unneeded, you let the Grimmified appendage melt away into your own. It was only used for a short minute, but the burns and split skin left along your arm mean hissing through your teeth once or twice while tugging your glove back on. “Got it in one.”

Breathless like your admission squeezed it all from Winter’s chest, she wonders in disbelief, “How? Why?”

“Was anything I said wrong?” It’s an easy to question to ask, because it was hard work stacking certain technicalities and half-obscured truths into something that could stand on its own, without betraying Remnant’s secret history.

“Yes! No! It wasn’t– It’s hardly about the falsehood; it’s about the conclusions you’ve convinced people to draw! The Marigold I remember wasn’t a radical anarchist, wouldn’t incite people to riot!”

Glove refitted, you roll your shoulder and neck, staring deadpan at Winter all the while. “The ‘Marigold’ you remember was a clueless rich upstart, breaking down beneath her own horrible secret. These horrible secrets of Remnant at large, our history, the players moving pieces on the board – she wouldn’t learn those ‘til after she ‘died.’ Thankfully, one of those players thought I was worth saving, and now, I have a chance to save so many more!”

“Even if your aim is to help, I can’t in good conscience condone a plan that unleashes this kind of chaos!” Winter objects, gesturing northward to your homeland. “Robyn might be desperate for ways to better aid Mantle, but none of them would ever hinge on stirring up this much fear all at once!”

Robyn, Robyn, nyeh, she’s smart and hot and idealistic, we get it. “Of course they wouldn’t – Whatever you all’ve been doing back home, Robyn’s fighting skirmishes, not a whole war. It’s about the big picture! My boss – she’s powerful, she’s been around for a hot minute. She’s not the most in touch with her humanity, but it’s not like she’s got any love for the Grimm, just because she knows how to use them to her advantage.”

Winter’s stopped responding. Her ponytail flicks in the wind as she slowly shakes her head, staring, stunned. The quiet chafes worse by the second.

“And she’s got me, now!” you press on, perhaps a little desperately. “At least if I’m there at her side, I’ve got a hand in it. Everything you see tonight? This would all be happening one way or another, but as long as I’m her pick, I can nudge it, change things where I can, protect people who’d’ve been lost, set more people free when it’s all said and done.”

“Look all around you!” Winter sharply protests. “This isn’t protecting anyone; innocents are getting hurt, here!”

“Innocents were already getting hurt! And they’d keep getting hurt forever, into eternity, for things they can’t even always control! For being born in the wrong place, at the wrong time, to the wrong people, some for the crime of being born at all, just for trying to live! We never asked for this!”

“Yes, Remnant isn’t a perfect world, and life isn’t always fair, but that can’t be the only reason you’d throw your life away becoming… this! I know you were smarter than that! What started this?!”

H’okay, tough topics. Take a deep breath, and try to be like Salem was with you: carefully curated, but relentlessly truthful, even about the unbelievable. Let’s see how tight you can condense it.

“Would’ja believe me if I told you I got deployed to assassinate a body-hopping wizard lich who’s lived countless millennia, indifferent towards or complicit in permitting every major authoritarian abuse in recorded history, who devours and absorbs the souls of his next victim when his host body fails, fighting in the name of blind obedience to Gods who’ve forsaken their thrones?”

With her brain having fried itself attempting to parse all the insane gibberish you just spouted her way, Winter blinks, blinks again, twice. “No, no I would not.” She stares at you as one would a person with extensive cranial hemorrhaging, and you cannot blame her.

“Welp! Didn’t think you would, but all I’ve got for you tonight’s the truth, and we both know the truth hurts. That man looking down on us...”

The street isn’t at a good angle to see Beacon Tower outright, blocked in part by the cliffs, but you bring your forefinger to stab the air just where it would be. Where Ozma is waiting for you.

“...is a manipulative despot, responsible for so-so-so much more hurt than you know, for much longer than you’ll ever believe. Someone has to stop it all, Winn. And that someone chose me to be her vanguard.”

Winter Schnee is a smart cookie. Even without a proper vantage, she follows your finger and puts the pieces together quickly enough. “In that speech, you said… you said there was a man you were going to ‘hold accountable,’” she says ponderously, “you were talking about… Ozpin?”

“Ding-ding-ding. That’s correct.”

“I can’t even believe this – first the Grimm arm, now you tell me you’re… you’re actually going to kill Professor Ozpin, of all people. You sat by while a city goes to hell, all in order to kill my sister’s headmaster, because of some delusional fantasy quest?!”

“Minus the ‘delusional fantasy.’ You’ve got no idea what that man is actually capable of; not a Semblance, either – Real magic, and magic is deadlier than…” You stop, cued by something tense and unknowable in the silence, save for a short screak and rattle of metal.

You turn back to face your oldest friend.

There it is, and you wish you could be surprised: the lethal tip of Winter’s sword, held up and out, trembling mere inches from your chest. Trace your eyes down its blade, and you can find the unsteady hand that wields it, Winter far too overwhelmed with feelings at which you can only guess to keep it still.

Here and now, those cool blue eyes couldn’t come across as fierce if they tried; her stance is sloppy, her poise is a joke. Not like the dozens of duels in years past, not when you’d find her sword just before your chest like this, crack a smarmy joke, concede the round, and start again.

You clear the remaining distance yourself, grabbing Winter’s blade near the end and slowly lifting it, until the sharp point prods into the soft, weak flesh just below your chin. Raised at a shallow angle to accomplish this, you look down your nose at the huntress holding the other end, and issue an honest question with unnerving calm.

“D’you actually want to kill me, Winn? Because I’d let you.” The sword’s tip jitters, as does its bearer. You hold it firm in place. “Death doesn’t exactly scare me like it used to, so long as it means something – but are you absolutely sure it would? Can you honestly say you believe I’m completely wrong, without any evidence to prove it?”

“I – I don’t…”

“No need to be nervous! I’m not,” you chirp, yet another half-truth. You’ve got countless fears tonight, but she can’t be found among their number. “Besides, if I’m really more Grimm than human now, as soon as you kill me, you can summon me right back! You’ll get to boss me around for the rest of your life, and I won’t even be able to tease you. Dream come true, right?”

That’s not the only power she’d gain, if she thrust the sword in here and now; there is a nonzero chance that Winter Schnee is about to become a Maiden, but not the Winter Maiden, and the irony almost makes you laugh... But only almost. Should you have warned her, first? About the secret bonus prize?

“I can’t even know if you’re yourself anymore,” Winter argues, weakly, gently trying to wriggle her weapon from out between your fingers, which refuse to let it lower into a more neutral stance. “Or that this isn’t a trick – why else would someone I cared for commit to… to all this, I don’t...”

In a way, you wish it was a trick. You’d take a lot of lies over the harrowing truths about this world you’ve come to know, but now that you’re awake there’s no going back to sleep, no matter how exhausted you’ve become. You sigh, shake your head, and fix your friend with a resigned look.

“Robyn isn’t here right now. She can’t hold our hands and help us figure each other out. We’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.”

Fingers bent tight around the metal, you forcibly tilt the blade to an angle, and cease channeling your Aura over your neck. You don’t do Winter the kindness of breaking eye contact as you drag the cold steel firm against the flesh just beneath the side of your jaw – its steely bite cutting just deep enough for thin rivulets of blood to trickle down its brilliant silver length.

Red, not black. Mortal, not Grimm. May, not just Marigold.

“If you think I’m lying, think I’m evil, if you can convince yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt you know better, and putting me down helps more innocents than I could ever save, then... do it. Wounded animal, throat bared, it’s all yours, Winter.”

In a way, it always was.

Once again, you find yourself waiting patiently for death. Except, lo and behold, a fatal cut never comes. The sword lowers when you let it loose, and Winter’s gaze follows it, both drooping towards the rubble-strewn asphalt.

“Mari– May.” She swallows, voice pinched. “Whatever you think you’re doing… do you truly believe in it, this secret cause of yours?” The huntress draws her sword closer to herself, to better examine the bloody stain you’ve left. “Do you genuinely believe it will help more people than it hurts? That it’s for the best?”

You smile, small, strained, and sincere. “With all that’s left of my heart. Yeah.”

The soft, yet scouring way Winter’s looking at you is something you can’t quite parse. It’s like she hates you, but she wants to hold you. Like she wants to kick you to the floor so she can put a blanket over you. Punch your face bloody then gently dab it all off.

“There’s no time to fight about this. Whatever your aims, I’m not going to stop you tonight; I’ve other things to do.” Your fellow ex-heiress stows her sword away, tiny droplets of your blood dripping from the downturned tip. “Meaning we’ll be parting ways. I’d insist it wouldn’t hurt to keep in touch now, but you’ve apparently allowed the destruction of a primary CCTS hub–“

(“That part wasn’t my idea, actually!” you butt in, but your butt is rebutted.)

“–so I’ve no clue how long it will be until that’s a reliable option. Much less if I’ll ever see you again. I suppose the team will think I’m out of my mind, if I tell them you were here, tonight. Even if Robyn uses her Semblance, they’ll never believe me, might think you a hallucination brought on by the trauma of the incident...”

Why does she sound so broken up about that? You’re nobody, you’re dead as far as the world is concerned. Still, as you stand here under flickering streetlights, the testy adrenaline of an active combat zone crawling like ants under the skin, face to face with a former friend-rival-confidant, you’re taken with the urge to do something you should’ve done a long time ago.

So, you pull Winter into a hug. Not a tight one, not inescapable, and doing your level best not to smear your blood on her jacket. Which. Uh. You already failed at that last one. She doesn’t glyph you away, or rethink her stance on stabbing you. Her continued silence is the thick sort, chock-full to bursting with thoughts and no words. You fill the void.

“When you leave here, go get your sister. The horde’ll be drawn to the campus – they’re ordered to nest there. Just focus on getting stragglers a good distance away, and that includes other stubborn hunters who’d love to go down fighting, like yourself.”

“I had no such intentions,” Winter protests into your shoulder. “I have a home to return to, now. May… Whatever you’ve done tonight, you know I wouldn’t tell a soul; we don’t have much extra space, barely enough to go around, but we always meant to save a place on the team for you, after graduation. Even this Grimm business, we know a doctor that’s discreet! You could– you could stop playing with forces so far out of our control and just come home to us.”

The offer feels familiar, feels like a gilded revolver barrel to the forehead, ‘just come home’ sounding like a weapon raised by a friend, except you hadn’t gotten to hug it out with Ciara, before she squeezed the trigger. Maybe the difference is that Winter truly cares, or maybe that she still doesn’t understand just what you’ve become.

“No, I really can’t stop now, even if I wanted to. There’s a target on my back, ‘til the day I die.”

You straighten up your slouch, then lean back until Winter can see your face. She visibly recoils when your eyes flare with heatless blue fire, and a faint whirlwind stirs around you, a smattering of snowflakes blending with the hot soot on Vale’s breeze.

The shifting, snowy air creates a small cushion beneath Winter and yourself, slowly inching you both off the ground. This invisible elevator silently dings to a halt five feet in midair, roughly the limit at which you can trust your command of the elements before you begin to dangerously drift.

Here, you let go of a wide-eyed Winter, grinning tiredly (but no less like a brat; you’ve got a brand to maintain) as she flails at the loss of contact, suspended and swirling opposite you in this snow-flecked vortex. Her amazement with the magically assisted flight and inexplicable frosty precipitation are short-lived, compared to her fascination with your burning eyes.

The Schnees, being New Money, cared much less for the old legends or Fraternist faith than the Marigolds, and only ever darkened the cathedral doors come the holidays for the sake of optics. It wasn’t much, but it was enough – enough to have heard the legends and fairytales, to know the general gist, to have seen the ceiling-high stained glass portraiture.

“A Maiden…?” she breathes in bare disbelief, an unfamiliar reverence you hardly deserve. “T-they’re real? You’re–?”

Easing off the throttle, you bring yourself and your old friend into a safe descent, until four boots hit asphalt. The world seems to grow louder the instant they do – this tenuous bubble of peace surrounding your achingly personal conversation is waning, and the tide of Grimm back to nipping at your heels.

To drive the point home, you raise a finger towards Winter for ‘one moment,’ and pace a short distance backwards. You magically pry a fist-sized slab of earth from the ground, levitated just above your palm. Into the chunk of rock you pour fire, fire, and more fire, until it’s grown red and sizzling hot.

Raising into a baseball pitcher’s stance, leg up high, you wheel back and hurl the projectile at an unlucky Beowolf sniffing across the street. Admittedly, you do fudge the trajectory a bit with wind – you’re an assassin, not an athlete – allowing the lava-ball to detonate on collision with the Grimm’s cranium. The headless beast crumples onto the sidewalk, smoking.

Wordlessly, you look to Winter, your arms smarmily outstretched for imagined applause.

It doesn’t come; she’s too busy processing – that hatched from the awkward little boy from the mansion down the lane comes an unhinged woman who smells like spent Dust and ichor and ozone, and now stands as high as those holy women traced in colored glass. A Maiden who didn’t belong, until she carved and poisoned and burnt herself to fit.

All the while, a war is happening on Winter’s face, too many emotions competing for you to get a read on her thoughts beyond the dumbfounded, desperate stare and half-mouthing of words to herself. Body language reading like a tight-coiled tension begging to spring, cut loose, do something to make sense of this mess, say something to make it clear. Seconds tick by, pile up, and silence prevails.

Ultimately, leaving Winter speechless is the right move; you aren’t sure your heart can take whatever she might have to say before you go. Y’got no answers for any of her pertinent questions, or even a few of your own, for that matter.

It’s probably time to cut this short, and so you face away from her, nerves too frayed to do this dead-on.

“Wish we had more time, but you were right; we’ve both got work to do. As long as you stay safe, we’ll meet again, I promise. If we can’t chat sooner, my job’s got me a trip up to Atlas planned in the next year or two.” After giving a lazy mock salute over your shoulder, your feet begin to scorch the ground beneath as you ready your flames. If you blast off fast enough, she shouldn’t be able to see your eyes begin to water. “Maybe you four’d all be ready for my boss’ bigger perspective by th–“

That familiar tip-tip-tap of heeled boots on asphalt is getting closer, by your reckoning, not further away, which makes decidedly little sense. Not unless her heart’s done a 180 and she’s veered back to her plan of stabbing you. If so, you’d prefer to watch your own murder, at least to check if you can catch a fading glimpse of her lighting up with radiant Maidenhood before your eyes shut for good.

On that note, you twirl around to find Winter much closer than expected, all-but in your face.

With a stolid determination on her features, brow set, the other ex-heiress reaches up to grab you by the armored vest with one fist, snatches you by the back of the skull with the other, roughly wrenches you down as she surges up fast and–

And she–

She’s kind of– 

It, uh–

Lips are–

Um?

Winter Schnee’s lips are tender and tangible against yours, warm and electric as a springtime storm, so unlike her icy namesake, yet freezing you in place all the same. Time itself has tripped over its own shoelaces, stumbled to a halt. Helpless but to stare, you’re slow in closing your inexplicably dewy eyes. Here on this hellish battleground, she’s closer than she’s ever been.

Were her eyelashes always this long? Even going into battle, her makeup is applied with deadly precision. Where’d she pick up that sexy streak of faded scar tissue across her nose bridge? Unwisely, one of your mental threads attempts to extrapolate from the powerful grip in which she holds you, as to how well her physique’s been honed through life as a proper huntress, unlike your skulking stealth.

She smells like weapons-grade Dust residue and the salt of battle-sweat, snowy slush and Mantle smog, the familiar notes of hellebore in her floral perfume. The ephemeral, tingling ozone her glyphs leave behind, only known to those who’ve spent time so close. She tastes like traces of ‘black’ coffee, and the creamer smuggled in when none but yourself could see, tastes like someone else’s home.

Her body is sturdy as it braces your own, her heartbeat a tremor in allegro rattling even through your respective armor, making her presence undeniable – but gods, do you try. You try to deny it.

Either you have absolutely no idea what is happening, or you’re not brave enough to consider the implications. Maybe there’s not a reason for it; it’s just a thing that’s happening. It’s happening and, but for an instant, there is the furtive flicker of tongue.

Your mouth only cracks open in surprise. Nothing more.

The Grimm essence inside you recoils; it has no clear sentiment to latch onto, only confusion, and it wants no part of the craven, mortal portion of you that pretends it isn’t sure if it hates this or not. Whether you should pull back, or push in.

(Coward. You know what you feel, aside from the fear.)

You don’t recall giving your hand permission to clasp atop the smaller one gripping your chest harness, or the other to curl against her nape. They defy you and do as they will, and they deign to touch, as carefully, needily, and implausibly as you are being touched. Your brain still does not understand what is happening, of course. Winter presses a quiet noise against your mouth, and your ears burn.

After ten seconds or ten thousand years, Winter’s lips hesitantly fall away from your own, and your shared breaths are split again. Yours, faster than hers, rushed to draw in air and blurt out:

“What was–“

Thap. Your words are jammed back down your throat, as the other woman forcibly claps a gloved hand over your mouth, upside down. If you weren’t already stunned to stillness, the intensity of her wet, glacier-blue stare would root you in place, as would the pain in her words. She speaks them with a slow and wobbling keel that betrays her voice’s risk of breaking, if she’s any less restrained.

"I’ve been forced to carry that around for six years, and all the baggage attached. Now, I've finally delivered it. I don't owe you anything anymore, even to a Maiden. None of us do. But– But if, someday, you were to change your mind, if you gave up this life before there’s nothing left of you… I trust you’ll know where to find us."

And just like that, the glove leaves your mouth as it hangs slack, and Winter spins on her heel. Aura pulses through her, neatly projected into a luminous summoning glyph the size of the smashed cars lining the curb.

What, and this is crucial, the hell.

The lucent white Manticore isn’t yet fully formed when she mounts it, and it lifts her into the air as the process completes. As a consummate professional huntress, she performs one last quick gear check before her departure.

That couldn’t’ve actually just happened. She can’t feel that way, she can’t possibly; it’s probably just the adrenaline, baseless emotions running high between you both, but she just…

Satisfied with the snugness of the equipment over and under her coat, Winter wipes her eyes against her sleeve, then takes a solid grip of the Manticore’s mane for midflight balance. She’s exhausted the checklist of busywork with which to stall. She looks at you, where you stand stunned mute. Her eyes aren’t silver, but they scald you all the same.

“Goodbye, May.”

Don’t go, not yet. Not like this.

You try to say something, need to. Ask her to stay, to wait just another minute and explain, even just to reply – nothing comes from your dried out throat but unsteady breaths, made visible through the chill you’ve unintentionally pulsed out of the Maidenhood.

What were you talking about, Winter? Why? Since when? How long? And how do the others–

A sweep of air musses up your hair, and the summon carries its rider high into the sky with a few fierce flaps. You watch, as her Manticore becomes a shrinking mote of light, the mote a speck, the speck vanishing over Beacon's cliff rise.

In a momentary lapse of control, your powers have continued to leak and glitch, sparks rippling over your arms, the earth beneath the pavement churning in protest.

By the time you’ve swallowed the lump in your throat, by the time you can speak aloud again, it’s been too long. You’re dignified enough, at least, that you don’t call her name.

Instead, your scream is wordless, and the elements scream with you.

Repress it.

Repress it all, that’s what you have to do.

Stuff it down, don’t think about it, not tonight, maybe never. You need to be on your game, your Goddess needs this from you. Don’t… don’t get caught up in lost causes. That’s what she always says, and it holds true. Don’t think about it. Don’t ask why. Fuck. You’re asking why. Stop.

This unhelpful mental state hounds you ceaselessly, even as you flee from that district as fast as your blast-jumps can carry you, in search of a new environment that won’t remind you of that moment freshly branded into your memory.

Having added yet another uneasy, emotionally confusing parting from Winter to your life, you decide it’s time to finish this last loop through the city to survey the operation. Although, ‘operation’ is a stretch this late in the game, it’s mostly raw chaos. Salem has always embodied the virtues of chaos versus Ozma’s law, the yin to his yang, so it’s expected, but it looks so different in person than on paper.

You still can’t find the earpiece for your scroll, misplaced amid your battle supplies, so you’re stuck holding your scroll to your ear with only a single arm blasting fire to help feather out your rooftop leaps.

“Em? C’mon, Em.”

The other girl picks up with a huff. “Where have you been? Things are getting tense out here, really tense.”

“Yeah, no, I got… caught up in this thing, ran into some huntress, i-it’s fine.”

You aren’t streaming video and can’t check her face, but the little noise Em makes sounds doubtful, at best. “Sure it is. Anyway, I got a text back from Neo. Says she’s gonna stay in Vale, but… ‘is open to future tea-time or teamwork,’ if we ever come back, and… ‘thanks for yelling at my dum-dum?’”

“Somebody’s gotta do it.” The next roof you’re aiming for is a bit less flat than it looked, and you wobble your way to the edge for your next fiery vault. “So, the Bull’s bought the farm, and Neo’s dragging Torchwick offstage.”

Mercury drearily completes the thought, as he joins the group call: “Meaning, it’s down to the three of us out here.”

Your boots clak-clak-clak along the metal roof of a warehouse, until you hit the corner and vault yourself across a street and two stories higher than the last. “Pretty much. These Fake Fangs’re running wild without a leader and you know they won’t listen to me, the drones’re automated but we’ve only got so long before Vale’s techs spoof a shutdown signal, and the Grimm are… Grimm.”

When next she speaks up, there’s little of her casual sarcasm in Emerald’s voice, growing legitimately unsettled: “May, can we just– can you please go do what we’re here to do, so we can get out of here?”

“I know, I hear you; I only backtracked for a final check-in and some signal strength, I’m already on my way back as we spea–“

What’s this?

Oh-ho, now there’s a sight. A target of opportunity like no other, and the perfect way to vent some of this chaotic emotional frustration.

“May…?” asks Emerald.

“Look, I know you’re gonna be mad, but I just jumped past something, and I should really–“

Something on Em’s end thuds like a fist on brick. “Seriously!?”

“It’s not personal! Not solely, anyway; this one’s relevant long-term! Both of you, meet up and make sure you aren’t tailed, start heading for the pickup point. I’ll tie up these loose ends and be there in an hour, two hours tops.”

Emerald groans her frustration as she leaves the call. Mercury’s voice is all that’s left: “Hey, don’t get killed this close to the finish line. It’d be a hassle.” His feed clicks quiet, too.

Engaging with Winter was emotionally messy, dangerously intimate, and woefully complicated. This detour? It’s as simple as can be. Mercury’s in luck; nobody’s going to get killed on this side trip, not in what you need to do. That’s because your Goddess already made it abundantly clear, in the final confirmation of the siege:

(“You are not to kill James Ironwood.”)

But he doesn’t know that.

From three stories on high, you land with a thick, spiderweb crack in front of the venerable General, splattering the Imp he’d just been lining up in his sights. You even make sure to flare a pulse of weak but showy flame up your body as you uncloak, accented by the dissolving Grimm’s smoke. You look mysterious, magical, dangerous.

The General, meanwhile, looks like he fell straight out of the unlicensed porno spoof of a movie about a killer cyborg. The man’s running around with one third of a tattered black shirt on, and his uniform dress pants are starting to shred in spots, too, both revealing the heavy cybernetic prosthesis composing nearly all of his right side.

He’s wearing his trusty gun belts, though, that much hasn’t changed, though he’s added some kind of small-but-thick metallic briefcase gadget to his kit, seated over the small of his back. Maybe a new ammo pouch, or an autoloader. Both pistols of Due Process are undoubtedly high-tuned and impeccably maintained.

The thing about James Ironwood is that he has never directly said an unkind word to you in your entire life, never directly did you a bad turn. He comes across as an amicable personality, even-tempered for the most part, oftentimes with an unexpected quip or anecdote that can quickly rescue him during one of his awkward speeches.

He commonly espoused the usual, idealistic virtues of chivalry and honor and the shepherding of the weak. He sang your praises to your parents as well, warming them to the idea of your future as a Specialist, before they could think to rescind your tuition and haul you back to the manor. For all intents and purposes he behaved like a reasonably normal Headmaster towards you.

But this isn’t about what he did to you, directly, it’s not about the surface level.

This is about Atlas.

This is about manspreading across two council seats to ensure maximum leverage over legislation, this is about shutting down the Mantle Laborer’s Union while shielding the SDC, this is about barring marginalized students from much-needed support at the Academy on the grounds that they’re too politically disruptive. This is about no accommodations for faunus whose traits encounter specific problems at his school.

This is about the ‘most powerful military on Remnant,’ about imperialism, this is about greenlighting off-the-grid detention facilities, about ‘enhanced interrogation.’ About anti-faunus profiling. About jamming a funnel under the kingdom budget to reroute more-more-more into arms research and production, away from the common good, away from Mantle – freezing, filthy, beat-down Mantle, the ghetto that is the Crater.

This is about Penny Polendina, who shouldn’t’ve been sent to fight. A technological and philosophical miracle who deserved a more fulfilling life than to be ‘combat ready.’ About Fria, an old woman long past ready to die, only kept alive to keep control of the Winter Maidenhood in the General’s fist.

James Ironwood has never once spoken a harsh word or raised a hand against you, and he is the mortal human you hate more than any other alive.

It’s true, his stranglehold on the Kingdom’s still incomplete, and there are sectors his influence has yet to secure in an iron grip. He doesn’t completely dominate the corporate sphere, and can’t entirely be blamed for the actions of Jacques Schnee. He doesn’t have as much sway with the Old Families, so he can’t wear all the blame for what the Marigolds did to you, only for defending the society that encouraged it.

Even so, in the eyes of so many in this world, he is Atlas, and for so many years, you’ve dreamed of watching Atlas fall.

“Been enjoying your Vytal Festival, Headmaster?” The tone your voice takes is unfamiliar, crooning and dripping venom like sickly-sweet caramel, saccharine disgust. It’s easy to lean into.

Recognition comes more slowly for Ironwood than it did for Winter; one was your dear friend, and spent years by your side, even during the phases where you both wished that wasn’t the case.

Ironwood only ever knew you as a son of wealth, from a powerful family he was often invited to schmooze and network with. As that moody, quiet kid of ‘great potential’ who said little and less every party.

There wasn’t more of a chance ‘til you became his student, near-immediately fast-tracked onto the rigorous, soul-numbing path to a promotion to Specialist, maybe even his freshly-established Ace Op division. He analyzed your statistics, your test responses, your behavior around others, from a distance he tried to take you apart and see if you’d make a useful toy soldier. He wanted you in his pocket, just like Polendina.

And for all that effort… he never truly saw you at all; you were utterly invisible to him.

Unlike Winter, though, his brows don’t climb, his eyes don’t widen in a complicated rush of unspoken emotions. Recognition, from James Ironwood, seems to come with a flattened, steely stare as he reloads the white half of Due Process.

“So. Amber’s mystery assailant makes her presence known. I confess, I don’t see what you think you’re accomplishing with your ruse, or why you chose to poorly impersonate one of my late students to do so, but it was a waste of your time. You can’t expect me to believe you’re that boy while flaunting those powers, or have you somehow forgotten that men can’t become Maidens?”

Snrk. Okay, as usual you’ve been trying very hard to let your anger give you a dangerous, razor’s-edge mystique, but you can’t not laugh at how badly he’s missed the mark. “Wow,” you push out through a snickering grin. “You’re right, and you’re right, but you’re still so utterly wrong!”

Ironwood holsters his first pistol and turns to reloading the second. “Did you think the disguise would evoke some sort of guilt over losing a student to unsavory circumstances? Enough to unsettle me in combat?”

“Well, no – because I’d never be so stupid as to think you gave a damn that I died, especially if you’re trotting out ‘unsavory circumstances’ when you could just say, ‘bullied to suicide’ and save a few syllables.”

“Cadet Marigold’s disappearance was never confirmed as–“

There’s no time for his bullshit. You stomp the fractured ground and jab a finger at the man. “Did you even punish the rest of RAMM after that video leaked? Change the school’s policies at all? Publicly support queer social issues? You don’t have to answer; I’m asking because I know it’s ‘no.’”

The General pretends to inspect his guns. “The incident you’re referring to, though tragic, was handled by the book. There was no reason to put alternative measures into place, or give preferential treatment.”

“By the way,” you forge on, “did’ja show up at that sham funeral I’ve heard so much about? Did you speak about me, because I’m dying to hear what garbage you’d’ve made up whole-cloth to sound like you knew me past my class performance and my last name.”

He must’ve missed the point during your flashy, fiery reveal, so you reiterate – fade into invisibility, then take a few steps closer before shimmering back into view, near enough now for him to see the disgust glinting in golden eyes.

Various logical contradictions based on bias and prejudice are clashing with one another, and if you squint, you can nearly see the numbers and equations spinning around his head. He doesn’t like the results he’s getting, but they’ll all keep coming up Marigold.

“No… It can’t be.”

“Yessir. I know I've probably racked up a hell of a lot of tardies from class, come to think of it, a whole box full of demerits for missing surprise musters and dorm inspections. It’s a shame to have that on my permanent record, but what can you do?”

Denial is flimsy in James’ voice. “You couldn’t, you’re… you’re supposed to be dead.”

“Not for a lack of trying on my part!” you insist. “Unless you thought it was just some freak gust of wind that pitched me off your gaudy city. Didn’t they poll the city security cams?”

(They did. You’d know, because Watts found the cam backlog while prowling Kingdom security servers a few years back. They also had the leaked video of the incident off Delmar’s scroll. Watts, uncharacteristically agreeable after you both reviewed the latter, did not complain as much as usual when you asked if he’d erase them.)

“It was an oversight, ███, you should know–“

Oh, fuck this. One hand briefly braces on Danse Macabre’s sheath while you wave a finger on the other.

“Ahp-ahp, gonna stop you there. It’s May, now. May Marigold. You get the first one for free. But, you call me that again? Misgender me again? The second strike, fair warning, I’m gonna have to slug you. One more after that, and… eh, you don’t want to go there. Just putting all my cards on the table.”

Honestly, this is why you prefer to handle your missions silently and invisibly; you rarely have enough charisma for coercion like this. Ironwood doesn’t seem to pay your corrective threats any mind, he has other things to indignantly yammer on about.

"Whatever you’re pretending to call yourself now, you were the – I don’t understand! You were one of our best students that year! One of the most disciplined, one of the brightest futures, you could have been one of my Ace-Ops, been the pride of Atlas! And you're working for Salem?!" He spits her name like a dirty secret, volume cut by half.

“’Working for’ implies I’m getting a paycheck. This was never business, it’s my pleasure to be hers.” Your ponytail swishes side to side as you shake your head. “She saved me, fixed me, loves me, and to top it off, she’s mostly right? Not infallible – like, who is? – but I’ll gladly cast in with her over the only other player in the game.”

Whether or not James sees you for who you are, he’s beginning to understand you’re not some easy mark. As he paces a few steps back and forth, he adopts a more ready stance.

“It’s become apparent to me that whatever artificial method the Witch devised to steal the Maidenhood without fatality now enables even men to claim the power; a concerning development. Ozpin will need to hear this.”

And there it is. “That’s two, sir.”

This dramatic foreplay was escalating out of control. There’s no walking away from this to cool your heads, no. This was only ever headed in one direction: Vanishing from sight, you charge him. Danse can take five, you’ll only need fists for this one.

Maybe two or three times a year back at Atlas Academy, the General himself would, for training and morale purposes, come down to personally oversee combat classes, and students dumb enough to know better would take him on. This privilege was only ever extended to third- and fourth-years, even among students in SpecOps Advanced Placement like yourself.

It was considered an honor, if not something of a hazing ritual for the most foolhardy of the senior classes, to get your ass kicked by the Headmaster. An outlet for the those hardheaded students with some hubris, those bent nails that still needed pounded down with a pistol whip before they were truly humbled into good little military soldiers.

You quite literally dropped out of Atlas before your turn rolled around, and your day to face him had been indefinitely postponed. Yet, here you are, making up for missed opportunities! And much like those spars, you’re not intended to kill him – you can’t go all out for at least another year or two. It’s only a taste test, but you’ve waited such a long time to sink your fangs in.

Ironwood lays a line of gunfire down along your initial path, bullets spitting above your shoulders as you weave a serpentine. Popping your Semblance on and off as fast as a toddler throwing a lightswitch rave, you become a disorienting, strobing Marigold ghost. With a bit of Maidenly assistance, you displace yourself with a whoosh of air with every second-long cloak – here one moment, gone the next, coming from too many angles at once for even two pistols to track.

For your next trick, you stop circling him to run a curve up the wall of the building to your right, gaining some altitude over your old Headmaster. Due Process lets loose, tiny bursts of broken brick hot on your heels.

Just when he’s about to catch you, you vanish once again, and whereas his shooting follows your arc along the wall, you launch yourself in a flip over his head to land behind him.

When his guns run dry, he flips them to hold by the barrels, reduced into clumsy hammers. That’s when you strike: Reappearing from nowhere, already inside his guard, you nail your knuckles to the underside of the General’s jaw – no elements, no boosting, just dishonorable fisticuffs.

It’d be nice to savor his reaction from close up, but hey, you only warned you’d hit him once. Plus, everyone knows he’s got an absurdly strong right hook, one you won’t play around with. Before he can retaliate, you fling yourself backwards to your starting position with a wind gust, and feign passivity, fixing your ponytail’s wrappings.

“Now, sir, if I’ve made my point clear,” you offer, “maybe we can have a polite conversation?”

The General reaches behind himself to pull the silvery briefcase contraption off his belt. A switch is flicked, and two sets of metal slats on either side of the frame slide free from inner compartments.

“Ever since the assault on Amber,” Ironwood explains, sliding the white half of Due Process into one slot with a resounding clack. “Precautions have been undertaken, given the new Fall Maiden’s likelihood to be found insubordinate at best, or hostile at worst...”

You hadn’t been quite sure what this briefcase thing was supposed to be. But from the moment Ironwood’s second pistol is slotted in place, the assembly’s main casing ejects a section forward. A thick barrel jabs out, its big circular opening level in the center, with more metallic framework supporting it above and below. With the General gripping his pistols like crooked handlebars to heft it up, the way it’s held means it sure looks like a big fucking gun.

“…I see now that our worst fears have been realized. Fortunately, I came prepared.”

(There is a very crude, tone-deaf wisecrack you want to make here, about the confidence levels of a man trying to have a dick-measuring contest with a girl dosed on necroestrogenic compounds, but you’re trying to get in the fighting mindset.)

“Nifty toy. I wonder how many Mantlers went hungry and homeless this year, all for want of the lien that little number cost to build. Quadruple digits, for sure.”

“You were Atlas-born, why do you care so much about Mantle?” gripes Ironwood.

“Why don’t you? You’ve got a controlling share in the leadership of the city treating it like a vassal-state full of serfs! When’s the last time you ever visited the Crater? Have you ever slept behind a Mantle dumpster during hail season before? Newsflash: I have!”

Ironwood’s nostrils flare. “I didn’t come to Vale for childish socioeconomic debates. We came to selflessly offer Atlesian strength to shield our fellow Kingdom from the likes of you.”

“And that’s just it, isn’t it!? You actually believe your own bullshit – your Atlesian exceptionalism – that you’re actually strong enough, capable, worthy of taking charge on behalf of the rest of the world.”

It’s rather unladylike, but you spit on the cement for the sake of theatricality, and your lungs seize in a cackling hyena laugh that evokes an uncomfortably familiar nostalgia, the ghost of a woman long dead.

“Don’t fucking flatter yourself, sir. With our tyrant-Gods gone off to buy cosmic cigarettes, there are only two people left on Remnant who can hope to stand at the top, and I’ve met them both. We’ll never stand on their level! And ever since Salem lifted me up, made me a Maiden, made me her sword – you can’t even hope to stand on mine.”

That should rankle him. In reality, it’s less that you’re all that great, and more that the man across from you is so, so small inside.

“Surely you understand my difficulty believing the soft-spoken, stuttering student I attempted to offer a dignified future instead became this ranting, power-drunk fanatic. Unfortunately, I don’t expect it will matter.” In a rare display of dry sarcasm, Ironwood chuffs. “Salem sent her sword to a gunfight.”

Technically, yours is also a gun – whose isn’t, really – but now, you feel compelled to leave that form stowed to prove a point. “And if that doesn’t make you think twice, there’s really no helping you. Go ahead; show me the indomitable strength of mighty Atlas, Headmaster. Show me all that power you wanted me to serve and die for.”

Bluffing. You are bluffing, here. He looks like he’s pretty rattled from fighting, so he can’t be at full Aura capacity. On the other hand, you’re nowhere near maxed out yourself, having burnt so much on your Semblance over the course of the evening.

“I’m not completely certain who, or what you actually are. But it’s plain to me that the power you hold doesn’t belong to you. I can only hope there’s a reasonable woman in your final thoughts.“

“There’s always a woman in my thoughts, but she’s a few hundred thousand years too old, and the lucky runner-up’s a Mantler who’ll make your life a living hell. You don’t come out of this fight a winner, James.”

Confidence is a good look on you, but this isn’t properly sized, and even a passing look could tell it’s not a perfect fit for you. Not when you’re staring down the kind of gun that looks like it genuinely could waste an amateur Maiden in a single blast.

Even so, you belong to Salem, and Salem’s the scariest thing in town. Next to her, nothing’s that intimidating, and you carry her with you wherever you go, living in your veins, coursing through your heart on every beat. So bring it the fuck on, army man.

A switch is pressed, and a mechanical whirr emits from within the core of the unknown weapon, the dark inside illuminated by a rapidly-blooming greenish luminescence.

“Goodbye, Mister Marigold. I’m sorry.”

“Strike three, James.”

Reliable as ever, your Semblance answers your call for the oldest trick in your book, and you fade from view before your opponent can get a steady bead on your center of mass. Danse Macabre is drawn, Dust channel engaged, humming with a mechanical bloodlust.

James begins holding his breath, brows furrowed, predicting your likely location. Trigger discipline is no longer being enforced.

Blended with the snarl of complicated feelings for the last Atlesian with whom you spoke tonight, you scrape together a full bowl of anger towards this military dog and feed it to the Grimm essence. Now that he can’t see you, can’t take notice and someday muster the remaining Silver Eyes against you – knowing you’ll need the reflexes, sharp Beowolf ears jab upward from your head, perked and scanning.

A metal finger clacks against a metal trigger’s surface.

Down the lineage of old magic, you call on the lightning, and promise that you’ll play its thunder. From the manifold soul into your chest, crackling across every nerve, outward onto the frame, thrumming over your limbs. Feels like your every vein’s a buzzing wire, every drop of blood a battery. Already, your Aura protests, and you turn a deaf ear. This is going to hurt, but that’s never stopped you.

Calling on earth, you lift a pair of sprinter’s starting blocks beneath your feet, solidifying your half-crouched stance, your low hold on Danse. The lightning coursing in you leaps to marry the Lightning Dust in your sword, accelerating its vibrations by a dangerous degree. Ambient heat is pulsed ahead, and cold behind, to prepare the runway.

In the time since you became the Fall Maiden, it’s true that thus far, you’ve been slacking on learning supportive skills, like how to properly fly. Instead, you got ahead of yourself, and learned to do incredibly careless things like this.

Releasing the frenetic charge of elemental energy inside you, that is you, you visualize your desired position relative to your foe, your destination just beside and behind him. Carried on the crashing wave, you draw tight and surge forward as if there’s no distance between you at all.

Because there isn’t, any longer – no time or space between your body and your target. The world smears around you in a blinding blink. A constellation of tiny stars flare, an Aura explodes, and your thirsty blade finds no further resistance in its slanted, skyward arc. A sonic boom rips through the street at ground level, windows fracture, shattering in a glittering storm of fragmented glass.

Teetering on his remaining leg, the embodiment of Atlas cries out, crumples – Ironwood hits the ground like felled lumber. A pillar of green-trimmed, white-hot death fires aimlessly into the sky above, carving the tail off a passing Atlesian airship before his hulking gun thuds onto the asphalt.

Uncloaked, you banish the Beowolf ears just as soon as they drink in a man’s shout of anguish, far more valuable with the amped audio quality. Because he’s nothing more than that, when cut down from the heights of his projected importance: He’s not the epitome of all Atlas’ strengths, not some brilliant, untouchable ideal. He’s just a man.

Albeit slightly less of one in volume and mass, now – you didn’t catch where his left leg flew off to, when the lightning-rush wore off. You’re more concerned with your own wounds. It hurts like nobody’s business to move that fast, almost like guinea-pigging for Winter’s time dilation glyphs all over again, times a thousand. Like channeling your anxious energy into raw speed, rewarding a violent backlash when you overdo it. You feel like a foil-wrapped burrito someone tossed in the microwave. You’re sizzling a bit.

Since your Goddess gave you an order, you can’t relish your small, personal victory just yet. Gotta clean up your mess before you go play with the other toys.

From the Maidenhood you draw ice, frigid as the homeland you share with the man groaning and cursing behind you, and encircle it around Danse for greater precision. Her internal Dust relay’s kicked back off for safety while you use her to carefully freeze over the wound, on the last raw nub of thigh Jimbo’s left side has got left.

It’s an imperfect solution, you know. Electrocauterization is something you doubt you’ve got the fine magic control for quite yet, and doing it with flame sounds like flirting with infections that you can’t afford for the bastard to develop, not if you’re keeping in line with Salem’s orders to preserve him. Besides, someone’ll find him in time to get it wrapped up.

As for yourself, the Anti-Maiden laser only seared a chunk of your left shoulder and melted one sleeve of your suit in the process, nothing that Aura can’t fix for the most part. There’s no need to check your Scroll for it; you’ve got a sense for your own Aura reserves, and while you’re not in ultra-imminent peril, that stunt did you no favors, damaging yourself with unpracticed intensity – and this was only a warmup for your real job tonight.

Grgh, why’d you have to be extra? Maybe you should’ve just attacked him normally, rather than allowing him to whip out his Gun Gun.

Speaking of which, you circle back around to his front, where General Ironwood wastes his precious strength attempting to drag himself over the asphalt towards his fallen Anti-Maiden cannon.

You don’t want him getting too hopeful; for his own safety you jab Danse Macabre against the thick whitish casing of his gun and push it just inches past his reach. Gripping your sword tight, you crouch fast, kneepad crushing his prosthetic hand to the asphalt before it can reach one of the pistol grips.

“Remember the part where I told you so?” you ask.

Danse Macabre’s electrokinetics are reactivated, its humming point already etching cosmetic scratches into the cannon’s casing with the littlest pressure.

Normally, you would need Dust for this, but you’re saving your supply for the main event. The Maidenhood’s got your back instead: a trail of steam is the first sign, then the gold alloy glowing brighter as fire is channeled directly into your sword, superheated.

The General’s strained eyes go wide again, almost delirious, as they jump from you to his Maiden-killer. Danse Macabre leaves its outer casing molten, and begins to skewer through Due Process’ final, merged form – does it have a name too? Miscarriage Of Justice? – at an unforgiving pace.

And gods, this feeling – looking into the face of a man as you melt his weapon, his last line of defense, an extension of the self, right in front of his eyes. All his undeserved sense of power and security seared deathly bright, his authority dribbling apart as soupy gray slag, half-fused to the ground.

Is this what Cinder felt, all those years ago? Because if so, you’d almost, almost understand why someone would do it. It’s exhilarating.

Since you’ve got him stunned into silence, you take advantage of having the General’s attention. “For the record, Salem commanded that I not kill you, a disappointing order which I’ve humbly chosen to obey nonetheless, and – Pff, there I go again, with that good old Atlesian subservience to authority, am I right?”

Ironwood rasps, and continues to reach his unfettered hand for the ugly metal art piece that was once the ace up his sleeve – or, on his belt, as it were. Weakly, he tugs at one of Due Process’ handles, to no avail. That thing’s molded to the street, now.

“No, she suggested that I intimidate you, and I would hope the whole–“ You flick fingers, casually, at the frozen-over stump. “Would be an icebreaker. But here’s the thing, sir: this is just the beginning.”

Exhaling stale venom into the night, you make sure there’s still a pleasant smile on your lips while you verbally twist the knife.

“Told me yourself that I was one of the best infiltrators in class – across all four grades, in fact – when you scouted me for Specialist Prep; that I shattered stealth exam records, that your strongest scanners could hardly pick me up as a blip… And that was before I had this kind of power. You ever try thermal imaging on a girl who can change temperature at will? Pressure sensors when she can fly? Don’t get me started on laser grids.”

“A power you… Rgh. Don’t deser–“

In a petty performative use of Maidenhood, you harness earth to grab a small, loose rock and ping the General in the nose with it. Nothing damaged except his dignity. When you have his attention again, you lower your voice, soft with certain danger.

“I want you to tell them personally, James. Weyland Marigold, Jacques Schnee, the Salisburys, the corporate-industrial consortium, heritage preservation committee, military board, whoever’s left on the Atlas council, even that Winter Maiden you’ve got chained up to an IV rack – everyone.”

Dazed with pain, his head is starting to loll, and you snatch a grip in the General’s hair to jerk his eyes back to where you can make contact with your own. All around them, blue flames of Maidenhood blaze bright, to ensure your point’s made abundantly clear.

“I want you to let ‘em know I’m coming. That they can run, they can hide, surround themselves with all the guards their fortunes can afford. That they will not know the day or the hour, won’t see me coming, won’t hear me, that when time’s up and I do come calling, there is nothing on Remnant they can do to stop me.”

The lack of any retort but hisses of pain and rasping breaths is delightful. Despite your so-so attempt to mimic your Goddess’ intimidation style, he’s gotta know it’s (almost) true, close enough to count – that with Salem’s gifts and guidance, you’re potentially the deadliest thing his Academy has churned out since its inception, and worst of all: he has absolutely no control over you whatsoever.

You’re about to leave him to soak in that, when something clinks off the cracked sidewalk a ways to your left, and shatters. Cursory investigation reveals… fragments of a broken arrow? One more explodes to shards there before your eyes, and you can hear a third break behind you.

“GENERAL!”

Oh. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

The distance of a couple blocks can’t obscure the fact that Specialist Cinder “I’m An Atlesian Knight With Even Less Autonomy” Rhodes in her spiffy white uniform is lowering the bow-form of Midnight after a half-baked attempt to nail you in the back at long range, and is beginning a breakneck sprint to her superior’s side.

Rhodes, sure, you’ve kept an old grudge for her tucked away, but you don’t want to kill her or anything yet, not upfront, you just… want to shake her up a bit, maybe even wake her up a bit, first. Have one of those good, honest venting-our-grievances scraps, like you ‘n Winter used to have in your teens. For that, you’d need a less chaotic arena and more time to monologue at each other about your ideals.

‘Tis with great reluctance that you’re officially giving this one a raincheck. You’ve already splurged on two personal distractions from your duty, and your account’s going to overdraft if you don’t focus up. Sorry, Rhodes; promise to kick your stuffy ass right up itself some other day.

“Oh, yikes,” you coo at your former headmaster, making to stand. You finally lift your knee off his hand when you rise, and lightly conk at his metal-laced forehead with your heel before you go. “Who’s gonna tell her she’s got one less boot to lick, now? In any case, it has been a tremendous pleasure catching up, sir, but my Queen requires me elsewhere, so if you’ll kindly excuse me, I’m…”

Cinder’s shorn the gap down to a mere block away, pounding pavement so fast you’re surprised her tacky beret hasn’t flown off. Further behind, you can see – shitshitshit, Goodwitch ‘n Branwen must’ve spotted the laser flare, too. You’re out of here.

Danse Macabre is swiftly compressed and sheathed in her home at your hip. Concentrated combustion energy from the Maidenhood surges beneath your feet, and you ensure a small buffer of air as you charge up for your steep, rocketing flight. Aura wells up in your fingertips as you prepare to duck under the shroud of your Semblance, to blast off for the cliffs of Beacon one last time.

“...I’m off to see the wizard,” you conclude. “This wonderful wizard of ours.”

Chapter Text

“...Which is when I knew, you know? It wasn’t anything to do with the magic, even if that makes her special. But that magic, the immortality – You’re the only asshole on this planet who’d have a chance to love her as an equal. D’you know how jealous that makes a girl? Knowing she’ll always be outclassed in orders of magnitude by some ungrateful, soul-devouring wizard?”

Professor Ozpin, revered former huntsman, peerless educator, current Headmaster of Beacon Academy, does not deign to answer you. The awkward silence prevailing in his office atop Beacon Tower is scored with the backdrop of Grimm howls, crackling gunfire and bassy, distant explosions.

“And the worst thing? I think she’d take you back. It’s this gut feeling that if you actually, genuinely changed, made amends and joined up, she’d let you back into her life... And I’d be nothing. But you won’t; if you haven’t caught wise after this long, you never will.”

The Headmaster doesn’t contribute to the conversation, forcing you to do the heavy lifting.

“I’m not stupid; I’ve known for a long time I’m only a few steps removed from a housepet who knows how to use a gun. But you’ve gone and fucked up for the last thousand generations, and I’m still out here being good for her, so… What does that make us? Rivals? Colleagues? Am I better for her than you ever were, even when my short life’s just a flash in the pan?”

No commentary from Oz. You heave a lengthy sigh, and continue thinking aloud.

“Y’know something else that’s unfair, now that I think about it – if you get stuck with a shit body, you can just die and keep playing the lottery until you land a winner. Not all of us can be so lucky. Wonder which one you’re going to end up stealing, next.”

Ozpin, still, does not answer.

His difficulty may come in the form of the blood-tarnished golden hunting sword sprouting from deep within his ribcage, spearing him into an arched wall of oversized clockwork gears. Dangling like a coat on a rack, a butterfly on corkboard.

Death has this way of making one a lamentably poor conversationalist.

As for yourself, you’ve been resigned to sitting flat on the floor against the pillar to his left, looking up at your antisocial company. You’d get more comfortable, but you’re fairly certain both desk chairs were obliterated over the course of your scuffle.

“Meanwhile, I’m stuck like this. If you’d met me before, would you have told me the same as you did that girl in Mirage, centuries ago? Strangle my soul to death playin’ a man to hide my Maidenhood, all to protect your interests? My Queen at least takes care of her best tools – you leave yours to rust, or be misplaced, or pitched out. What would you have been to me, Oz? If she didn’t get to me first?”

With the battle having been over for several minutes, your foremost goal in Vale is checked off the list. The culmination of years of planning, finally brought to a head and overcome.

The lull after your victory finds you seated in a field of glass and debris, legs clumsily-splayed, killing time cleaning the sword in your lap. Not Danse, that is; she’s still lodged in the ex-Headmaster.

Turned out to be a good call, plucking Wilt & Blush off the Bull’s corpse on your way back – you’d worried it might weigh you down in the final fight, where in truth, it meant another blade at the ready for a surprise combo, or to sustain the attack whenever your own was briefly knocked aside. You didn’t yet know how to work the trigger or Dust channel, but a sword is a sword, and one you can’t rightly present to Sienna Khan all bloodied and burnt like this.

Ordinarily, you’d wait until you were home to bother, but what else are you going to do, when you’re too rattled to stand? Aura’s demolished, and you’ve more than had the wind knocked out of you. Maidens aren’t fragile by default, not by a long shot, but if anyone was liable to make it look that way, it’d be the wizard who created this power you hold to begin with.

On that note, you want to smack yourself for not anticipating that a wizard with a clock fetish would be dangerously skilled in time dilation magic. Studying old documented footage of Ozpin’s days feigning youth, playing at being a regular huntsman, was never going to give you a real inkling of how he fights when the chips are down and the curtains drawn.

Though, you’re forced to concede it’s partly your own damn fault you’re so busted up – for rolling up to the final battle with so much of your Aura already wasted on irresponsible detours. On stalling out, on protecting random civilians, on fighting by Winter’s side, on putting the fear of your Goddess into Ironwood…

Oof, if you’d actually hung back to smack sense into Cinder, you’d be dead right now. That’s a thought.

Somehow, you’re not a pile of pulp, HGTS isn’t welcoming the shiny new Fall Maiden to their ranks, and neither is Emerald suffering a spontaneous case of burning eyes, so you’ve done alright so far.

Just… an inordinately generous interpretation of ‘alright.’

As it stands, your clavicle on your sword arm side’s got a mild fracture, as does one of your cheekbones, and the bridge of your nose is on fire. Pretty sure you could count your total intact ribs on a single hand, and one of your molars isn’t where you left it last. You’re a little too tired to scour the floor for it.

(One of your temples throbs, vision swimming in a whitish pool of spots for several seconds.)

You could also stand to find a sponge, or a mop, to like... Soak back up some of this blood you’ve left everywhere. Pretty sure there’s supposed to be more of it inside you than not. At least for some of your wounds, your suit’s successfully detained some of the escaping liquid, turning you into a mildly attractive water balloon full of coppery fruit punch. Oh! And pain, radiating out in angry red pulses from a hundred different bruises and burns and breaks across most of your body. But hey, at least your legs don’t hurt much; that's something!

Granted, hah, that one’s an incidental side effect of not being able to feel your legs.

At all.

Gotta be extremely optimistic here, because if your Aura can’t manage to heal the nerve damage down there once it’s regenerated, then, uh… then you’re gonna have to get real creative, real quick, or you’re not getting out of Vale.

Historically, you’ve not practiced much at manifesting Grimm legs, their animalistic shapes often too hard to manage without ruining your skeleton, but you might not have a choice.

Besides, you’ve ruined your bones plenty tonight – when you try and turn too far in either direction, you receive a shrill, pinpoint blast of nauseating agony in your back as something solid slides around that really shouldn’t, by your estimation, be slip-sliding.

It’d better not come to Grimm-legging it up though, because gods, do you not wanna have to fuel an angst session and scald your lower body with burns and contusions every time you need to stand and shuffle to the bathroom.

Alas, until your Aura’s back, until you can fully assess the damage, you’ve got jack to do but sit and think, with nothing but a homemade Oz-pincushion for company. You look up at him again, his eyes closed and face composed even in pseudo-death.

This jerk probably went for your spine as soon as he realized you had him cornered; why not spite your assassin by leaving her useless from the waist down, trapped at the scene of the crime slightly delirious from blunt trauma and blood loss, shooting the shit with your corpse?

He'd tried to rub it in, just how many closely-kept agents Salem had sent over the years, how many she'd held close and lavished with affection, only for those assassins to be broken at his hand and promptly replaced. As if it’d scare you, break your heart, make you doubt your Queen’s intentions. No, all it means is you have to be the one who doesn’t fuck up. Be the one who gets it right, and you become the foremost of all Salem’s servants across every age, ever, automatically.

But still, he pitied you, and you loathed him, in both cases on behalf of people who’ve been dead, or should’ve been dead, for a long, long time.

Beacon Tower wasn’t tall enough for the ride up to let you do much more than catch your breath, much less generate a safe buffer of unwarranted swagger. If you hadn’t personally used it during your time as a ‘student,’ you’d’ve accused the thing of moving this slowly on purpose; the quiet rumble of the machinery not enough to mask distant booms outside.

The elevator proudly chimed a pleasant ‘ding!’ announcing your arrival, and out you stepped. Jitters contained in the clench of your teeth, a hand on your sword-hilt, ill-relaxed but ready.

As expected, you didn’t need to look far. He was waiting for you – the more enigmatic of your two former Headmasters, the servant of spiteful Gods, the man who spurned your Queen’s heartfelt sacrifice, the Chessmaster, the Wizard, your target.

Ozpin.

Poised by the far window with its broad westward view, Ozpin barely acknowledged your presence.  Nearly statue-still, the only exceptions were his rubbing of aimless patterns on the head of his cane and stealing infrequent sips from his legendary mug. All of it a charade pretending to ignore you in the way that screamed ‘I’ve been waiting ages, what kept you?’

That had to be it. After all, as you strode up the length of the office, you found the chair before his desk had already been pulled back, and a similar mug already sat, steaming, waiting just for you.

Adjusting your swords to keep from clonking on the chair, you dropped down and wordlessly took a seat. This had been a gamble on Ozpin’s part, to be sure; you wondered what odds he’d gambled with, how much he’d still been expecting you to fly right at him, sword drawn from minute one.

The professor lingered to watch unsettling twinkles and sparks burst across the wartorn skyline a few seconds more, before he found his own chair.

You’d been half right, by the way, about Ozpin putting on the kettle after you broadcast your threat. Yet, where you’d expected black coffee – given the way the man was always said to be chugging the stuff around the school – when you took a whiff from the mug you’d been left, you found instead the sweetness of hot cocoa.

Facing any other opponent, you’d expect it to have been poisoned. You sipped calmly, even with the muted furor of flying monsters and airship guns making it a challenge to play along with the faux-friendly tone. You did, however, burn the tip of your tongue, and waited until the old man’s eyes were closed to blow a puff of ice-charged air onto the drink before you tried again.

“Yes,” Ozpin coolly began, “I know why you’re here. In case you were hesitant to open with the particulars.”

“Wow, really?” You sarcastically gestured with your mug, and the cocoa within sloshed. “Having hot drinks ready-made is clearly the behavior of a man caught by surprise.”

Ozpin hummed noncommittally and drank from his own, setting down the mug with a clink on the glass.

“I was surprised, I’ll admit, to learn I had been sheltering the new Fall Maiden in my very school, all this time. To successfully conceal such a large facet of oneself for so long…”

What, just being someone else for a semester? Try eighteen years.

“Your deputy came the closest to figuring me out, if it helps. I’d say you should give Glynda a raise, but…” You bobbed your head towards the window, to the battle Beacon had already lost.

“It bears saying, Miss Monkshood–“ Ozpin stopped then, to examine you. “Would I be remiss in assuming ‘Malita Monkshood’ was merely a pseudonym for your student alias?”

You’d already revealed yourself to his tin-man bestie, so the cat was out of the bag, anyway. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s May Marigold, by the way.” You raised your cocoa in a limp toast. “Charmed.”

Ozpin did not reciprocate this toast.

“I see. I’ll admit, Miss Marigold, you are something of an anomaly. Most malicious actors who attack a Maiden do so with deliberate, fatal intent. You accosted Amber to rob her, true – yet provided the opportunity, you elected to spare her life, even took measures to minimize her suffering in the matter, when it added risk and gained you nothing to do so.”

“And? I was there to become a Maiden, not a sadist. Didn’t want her to hurt any more than it’d take to relieve her of the power, plain and simple. Your point?”

Ozpin had finished his beverage and slid it aside, leaning his elbows onto the desk while he threaded his fingers.

“Your behavior begs the question: Is that the role in which you’ve attempted to cast yourself: A persona not unlike the noble hero-thief of folklore, who steals from the powerful and gives to the weak? Who – if your impassioned speech earlier tonight was any indication – believes herself something of a revolutionary for the people?”

You chuckled, fingers absently flexing on the mug’s warm ceramic surface. “I gave up on fitting into a mold a long time ago. Still waiting on that point.”

Ozpin’s fingers flickered across the hard-light display of his desk computer, and a half-dozen holographic screens popped into existence at various angles and sizes, tinged ice-blue. Screens loaded with footage of your illustrious self, from those times you’d spent more than a little time uncloaked.

“Even your actions tonight have not gone wholly unnoticed,” Ozpin noted, gesturing in example to the freeze-frames from news airships and police drones, city surveillance cameras. Moments you’d paused to take a breath here or there, the numerous unnecessary side-trips you’d taken, lives you’d saved by the dozen.

“...Fighting to rescue civilians fleeing from Grimm you brought into the city, repeatedly intervening against the White Fang terrorists, seamlessly collaborating with a foreign huntress to protect an evacuation shelter, among other things...”

Don’t talk about her, you’d grumpily thought in his direction. Don’t even dare invoke her name.

Loudly, you slurped the last of your cocoa and smudged away the chocolatey ‘stache with the side of your glove. The mug clonked on the glass tabletop, followed by your boots as you crossed them, kicked up on the edge. “Gee, officer, I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again.”

The Wizard was undeterred by your sass, and peered at you skeptically over his glasses as he continued his tangent. “You grievously assaulted my colleague, but ensured he would live from an injury which otherwise might be fatal. And let’s not forget the mere fact we’re having a… marginally civil discussion at this moment, in lieu of immediate aggression.”

“That’s one low bar you’ve got there, Professor.”

“We have your benefactor to thank for that,” Ozpin drawled, brows pinched. “I digress. I merely notice how your actions are so very, very incongruous with the archetypal role of the ‘Assassin,’ so unlike the vast majority of your predecessors acting in her name. Many of them, plucked from the milieu of the ‘Trickster,’ or portraying the ‘Femme Fatale,’ or even–” 

Ugh, give it a rest. This man loved his fairytales, alright; probably because he personally starred in most of them. At least Salem only sat you down for storytime when it was relevant, she didn’t try to press the topic. Still, there’s only one real answer that came to mind, and you shut him down when you interjected.

“I’ll tell you what ‘archetypal role’ I am. I’m The Girl in the Tower, when no shiny white knight like yourself came to save her. And when this princess couldn’t stand that fucked-up life, she jumped, and landed in that deep, dark fairytale forest, full of outlaws and monsters.”

Ponderous, you summoned some bone-speckled Grimm flesh over your exposed left arm where Ironwood fried your sleeve away or seared it into your skin, only long enough to gesture with it. “Though, I guess the monsters got to me first this time, huh?”

The sight of you calling on the Grimm essence didn’t faze the man, which should come as no surprise, if he’d tapped city security to spy on you and Winter. Chances were he’d come across that moment you gored the Ursa, and set his expectations.

“Your existence poses an interesting premise. You attempt to play archetypes of Hero-thief and Assassin, Savior and Destroyer, Maiden and Monster. It seems to me... as if you are quite conflicted within yourself, between what you really are, and what you’ve been encouraged to be.”

Your fingers fell back to the side, and clamped white-knuckled over Danse’s hilt. “Story of my life, old man.”

“And yet, despite such grave uncertainty in yourself, despite the evident presence of empathy, you’re intent to see this through.”

“I’m not just some hired gun off the street, I’ve got a cause to believe in. I swore to Salem I’d do it, and…” You swept your free hand back and forth between yourself and the professor. “See, one of us actually prefers to honor our vows to her.”

Ozpin put his hands on his knees and stood then, procuring his cane from where it leaned against the edge of the desk, and ambling back to the window.

“Ah. So, this is one of those cases, is it?” he asked. “It’s been more than a few generations since she’s taken this angle with one – at least, that I’m aware of.”

Now, you aren’t that dense, but you needed a bit to put together just what conversational leap the Wizard had taken, chasing up the cutesy breadcrumb trail left by that undeniably lovestruck lilt in your voice when you spoke of your Queen.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” you said coldly, standing up to follow. “No one’s business but hers and mine.”

Ozpin didn’t look at you. His weighty sigh came crawling from somewhere immeasurably deep in his chest, and he readjusted his spectacles, lenses flashing white as they captured the flickering lights of the losing battle outside.

“There have been so many like you,” he murmured, rife with pity. “Nearly as many as there have been of me.”

And that hurt.

It wasn’t news to you, by any means – You’d assumed that likelihood as far back as the first night Salem kissed you, and she told you candidly, further down the line: that you were far from the only consort she’s taken over the eons, and… what else could you do but accept that?

Were you s’posed to be bitter and jealous? She’s lived longer than all known civilization! Hell, you’d probably feel worse if she told you she hadn’t, and you’d hafta singlehandedly carry the burden of trying to make up for such agonizing loneliness. You, the antisocial ex-socialite, who’s never known any other Winter kissed you touch but hers.

But there was a difference between discussing such things in a private, intimate conversation with the woman herself, and having it flung in your face by the only living person who scorned the place you occupy at her side. Framing it like it made you lesser, that your love can’t be real. Replaceable, disposable.

Tch. What did he know? If he truly grasped what it meant to love her, you wouldn’t’ve been standing there, form creeping inch by threatening inch towards a battle stance.

Were you pitted against anyone else, that would’ve been the second-best moment to cloak, behind creeping in unnoticed from the start. But against a Wizard, and one who’d already sussed out your Semblance at that? No. This was going down fair and square, face to face, mano-a-Maiden.

“All it takes is one. How many ‘like me’ ever get this far?”

“Few.” Ozpin stepped further into the open space of his office, and briefly examined his cane – The Long Memory, he once called it in an interview – “I’ll note that far fewer proceed any further than this.”

That was more of a relief to hear than you expected, even from the mouth of an enemy.

“My Goddess believes in me, and I believe in her.” You mirrored the man, and began to follow him into the clearing. Double-checking that Wilt & Blush were snugly secure on your alternate side before returning your fingers to dragging over the rugged wrappings on your own sword’s hilt. “How much faith do your omnicidal Gods have in you, Professor?”

While Ozpin was not the type of man wont to roll his eyes, you could feel that energy dripping off him. “By no means would I call them–“

“Salem lived through their purge – you didn’t suffer like she did. Even if she beats you but fails to kill them, it won’t be Salem who wipes out Remnant. That’s your Gods’ conscious choice. Between the two of us, I’m sworn to the lesser evil.” Even if it’s hard to stomach at times, you knew this deep in your heart. “It’s not too late to stand down, Oz.”

Ozpin gave a dismissive hum. “I could say the same to you, Miss Marigold. For what it’s worth, based on your time as my student, you seem to have been an eloquent and dedicated young woman. I am sorry that it had to come to this.”

“Nice try with the past tense,” you chuffed, and Danse’s edge screaked against the lip of her sheath while you drew her at the ready. “But neither of us is really going to die tonight. Until Salem’s plan is complete, you and me, we’re gonna be meeting up like this for a long, long time.”

One of Ozpin’s brows jumped towards his hairline. “Oh? Given your apprehensive disposition, I hadn’t expected such reckless confidence. Do remember; I could perish as many times as I must, and you need only die the once.”

Your subsequent spurt of laughter was, admittedly, a teensy bit manic. “I’m only here today because I’m incapable of dying when I’m supposed to,” you observed. “Remind you of someone we know?”

“Quite. It’s increasingly apparent why she chose you.”

Unhurried, twirling his cane once-twice-thrice as he went, Ozpin came to a halt and turned. “Would you... care for the first move? Ladies first?”

You shook your head. “Age before beauty.”

“Very well.” And with the gauntlet thrown, Ozpin then brought his cane to bear.

Which is to say, he’d already slammed the tip into your sternum before you knew he’d even moved, using an uncommon spin on a fencer’s style with a rounded blunt weapon.

Then again, your reaction speed wasn’t completely rusty. Utilizing your skidding backwards momentum from the hit, you grabbed at the end of the cane with your empty left and wrenched it hard enough to weaken his stance.

Headmaster Ozpin had no reason to hold back on his athleticism any longer, and leapt over your head, snagging his weapon from your grip in the process.

Fine, you’d thought, let him get overconfident! Now, would this turn out to be hypocritical in the end? Duh-doy. But at the time, you’d needed to stay psyched up.

As the professor landed and adopted his ready stance, you crossed up your feet and lunged forward in a flèche, hoping to return the favor. Oz’s cane easily parried your impulsive thrust and sent you stumbling several steps behind him, positions reversed once more.

It served you right for trying to match him in his own style, not when you’d had years to get rusty with classic, dignified, tournament-approved technique, and grown more familiar with your bastardized hand-and-a-half style.

Switching to a comfier two-handed grip, you began a torrential rain of sweeping, cross-body cuts, and Long Memory intercepted every blow before they could paint red across the old man’s chest.

That cane wasn’t normal wood, you realized when each clash was accompanied by a steely clang and spatter of sparks from the point of contact.

The fine wood must’ve been enchanted, in some way infused to be sturdier than any conventional metal you pithy mortals had access to. Hoping to saw through it by catching him in a prolonged, pressed block wasn’t an option, either, as Danse’s Dust-boosted oscillations weren’t leaving more than a scuff.

The fight proceeded at the same, amateur pace for an unnervingly long time, neither party drawing on their real abilities. A game of chicken, waiting to see what the other would do, and when they’d feel pressured enough to unleash the beast – some, perhaps more literally than others.

If the current meat suit the old man was wearing hadn’t been well past its prime, you might’ve felt prouder claiming it wasn’t you that blinked first.

You had just parried a horizontal strike downward, and forced Long Memory’s tip to clack into the floor. As you raised a boot to slam it out of his hands and completely disarm him, the old man interrupted you with a boulder-splitting barehanded strike. Alone, this presented no problem.

Problems were presented.

As you knocked the punch away, another painfully collided with your shoulder, and another further back, and another, another, as phantom afterimages of a mage abusing his time dilation swirled spirals around you.

Real wounding wasn’t yet a threat, but the dizzying, jackhammer force and rapid ticks of Aura loss were palpable, ghostly fists and feet crunching against your mortal shell at machine-gun speeds.

Worst of all, you lost the advantage of winning the tug-of-war over his weapon, with the Wizard having let go of his cane, thrown dirty hands, and grabbed it again before gravity could get a word in edgewise.

In your humble opinion, an escalation of hostilities was warranted, and you weren’t going to wait and see just how long of a cooldown his magic required. Before Oz could give it another go, you thrust out a scalding ring of flames around you, warding off the wizard’s fists. Your counter drove him back, thankfully, but allowed him to retain his cane.

The gloves were off – figuratively, at least. No longer just the headmaster against the assassin, but the latest incarnation of the lonely hermit from the Story of the Seasons, against that of the fourth and final girl he granted power.

In some respects, the fact this fairy tale was partly based on the magical family he once raised with Salem would make the man, figuratively, your father – and you’ve been dreaming of patricide since long before you were a Maiden.

(Or maybe you’re just a Mama’s Girl.)

After that trick of his, you needed breathing room to think, and you needed it now. Charging up a seething amount of heat in your left palm, you trained a fingergun on Ozpin’s skull and drove him back across the room with a litany of pinpoint firebolts. Some he narrowly ducked, some he deflected, it nonetheless got him well out of your personal bubble.

On the other hand, it placed him over near his office desk, which – exhibiting brawn poorly matched to his bookish exterior – he promptly clamped a hand beneath and flung straight at you.

The curving, metal-legged table revolved once in midair, then split evenly around an uppercut from Danse Macabre. Overcharged with a fire-molten edge, her blade effortlessly carved through wood, glass, and clockwork gears, only to reveal a leaping Ozpin hurtling in just behind the broken halves.

His cane whipped in towards the side of your head, and unable to angle your sword in time, you mitigated the damage and caught the bone-rattling strike against your elbow pad.

You pivoted from melee to magic to give your throbbing arm time to recover, and flipped hot to cold, as well. The moment the Headmaster’s feet hit tile, you pounded the floor with freezing blasts which glazed sizable patches of the ground around you both in a sheet of gritty, dull-white ice.

Ozpin was hardly deterred. He unstuck his own feet with a smash of his cane, all the while you skated circles around him to build momentum, then leapt into the attack. And again, and yet again. Clanging, growling, grunting.

The speed of your clashes accelerated, seemingly without limit. While your opponent enjoyed the ease of abusing his time dilation affinity, you had to accelerate with reckless blasts of heat and wind all to achieve the same effect.

Damn near teleporting at this point, the Headmaster appeared ahead of you at the fore of a bright, blurred stream of fading afterimages. You could swear you saw his cane glow green before he struck you dead-on with a home run swing.

For a fraction of a second, your bones were jelly. Your skin, hair, you were high-speed jelly head to toe, until your face hit the northwest, floor-to-ceiling window – now that felt solid. Your wrecking-ball collision obliterated that entire segment of the glass wall panels, and as your pain-rattled reflexes reset themselves, out you flew.

Ozpin loved to move at hyperspeed, but you were all slips into slow-motion that night. You’d been staring facedown by the time you had a hold of yourself, and for all that it swarmed with Grimm en masse, the real fight was back indoors.

When the nauseating thrum in the back of your skull subsided, you set to kicking out twin jets of wild flame from your boots, and cast yourself in a curve around Ozpin’s tower office. The tight cyclone you weaved around you gathered up the countless chunks of broken glass left twirling midflight.

Once you’d banked around to the northeast window, you primed the pane with a fireball before erupting through the splintered opening in a cloud of hot, sharp resentment. With a twirl of a blade and a hand flung wide, you maintained the air current until you held the cyclone around you, dragging another thousand jagged glass shards from within-and-without of the building, to form a shrapnel shield.

Again, you had forgotten this asshole had a clock fetish. The sharp, glittering hurricane defense you created meant little to a man who could tap into that old magic long enough to dance between the fragments, part them as harmlessly as a decorative bead curtain, and painfully plant a foot in your ribs.

The storm of glass went flying to the four corners of Remnant, as you yourself were sent flying backwards towards the east end of the office, and one of the pillars by the elevators.

Your free hand caught the pillar, and another jet of flame from your feet as you hooked your body inward spun you around it like an angry tetherball – twice, thrice before you disengaged and slung yourself back at the headmaster (with, admittedly, a little more air-magic course correction to account for your dizziness).

Ozpin had been ready with a prime parry, forced instead to brace Long Memory two-handed as you came in hot and meteoric, the weighty impact of colliding weapons skidding him back half the length of his entire office. The ice along your trail was scraped into shavings under his heels.

You shoved off into a high backflip, pressing the assault again as you landed. Confidence in your ability to pierce his defense was thinning, and you needed a good, proper hit to restore it, even if it meant being cheap. Why not? Requisite recharge aside, time magic superspeed was as cheap as it gets, the bar was already lower than low.

So, you made it flashy – worked your wrist and twirled your sword in a fancy double-moulinet on the approach, then spread your stance. With the goal of really selling the feint, you leaned your everything into one brutal, blatantly telegraphed downward swing, and Ozpin lifted his cane to block, braced in both hands.

Just before you brought Danse Macabre down with your right arm, towards Ozpin’s already firm overhead block, you began to conjure a clawed and gnarly Grimm arm from your left; Ironwood’s Maiden-killer gun had already burned most of your sleeve off, so tearing the rest was no great loss.

The exposed skin burned and malingered, rippling dark devouring everything from bicep down, blunt fingernails overtaken with the sharp talons. Seeing this, the Headmaster loosened his guard warily, more mobile, prepared for a swift follow-up from your bony claws…

Claws which stalled midswing, then retreated to your opposite hip, the distraction having served its purpose.

Whether your ploy worked, or perhaps Ozpin never knew Danse Macabre could telescope, it doesn’t matter: Compressing to machete-length for only a moment, your sword ghosted right under his high block, ignited in Maiden-fire as it reextended, and carved a shallow, diagonal slash across your opponent’s shoulder.

It goes without saying that dual-wielding’s not your forte by nature, but you knew an opportunity when you saw one. Whilst you completed the first motion of your attack, your Grimmified hand flew to the sheath on your offhand side. In that stolen second of Ozpin’s broken guard, you ripped Wilt free clamped in beastly claws, for an upward, mirrored swing cutting parallel to your first.

The Wizard hissed in pain as the paired strikes connected, and he kicked back several feet for some breathing room. The greenish glow of his enduring Aura calmed quickly, but the rips in his fine suit, tiny scrapes of red, and smoking embers you’d left behind were proof enough.

“Chah…! Hah. Well done,” Ozpin chuckled, patting away the flames as though they were dryer lint and cat hair. “First blood goes to you, I’m afraid. But it wouldn’t do well to rest on your laurels. The night’s just begun.”

Languidly, Ozpin stretched to limber up and flipped Long Memory back into a forward grip when something began to change. In his face and his stance, you could see it like sharks circling beneath the ocean’s surface, war’s thumbprints mashed across it all. A lethality slipping over his eyes as a second lens, sharpened. Like another man entirely.

The mercurial headmaster disappeared, then, and out came the Last King of Vale.

And he came out swinging.

All told, you lost count of how many of Ozma’s lineage (Ozzes, Ozzi?) you’ve had to fight your way through tonight – flotsam dredged from the sea of souls, poured back into the mold of this latest body in the hopes of gaining an edge.

After which point he usually proceeded to knock the living shit out of you, and you’d knock the living shit out of him, and sooner or later his living shit mustn’t’ve been as securely lodged as your own – because once you skewered him to the wall, it finally flew right off into the ethereal plane. Off to drift around Remnant ‘til it finds some impressionable boy to consume.

But now that you think about it, maybe, uh…

Maybe it should worry you more that you unintentionally dozed off for a good half-hour, there. You’re no doctor, but you’re pretty sure you recall a combat medicine class back in Atlas that said sleeping while concussed is something of a no-no.

As you reassess your state, however, you receive a dab of mercy in finding your Aura tentatively throwing a grand reopening celebration by patching up your wounds.

To be honest, you’re a little scared to try moving your legs, to actually know for certain how screwed you are. Not that there aren’t still options, it’s just– No, y’gotta rip the bandage off. Which is actually a poor choice of words when you’re still in dire need of bandages and okay, okay, you’re stalling.

Here goes.

…

GAH! Fffuh-huh-huuuucking fuck!

Wait, you can feel that lancing pain.

Ha! It hurts like you’ve got magma drooling down your muscle tissue, but you can wiggle them again, to some degree. Sluggishly, aching from pins and needles aimed at their very core, and with some shuddering groans on your part, none of which are full dealbreakers.

It’s a start, if only just barely. Okay. Okay, no learning to walk with Grimmy shadow-legs; your near-future outlook’s brighter already.

Don’t want to rush things and worsen it, even though you can’t reasonably sit around all night, else you’ll miss the exfil rendezvous with Hazel… or worse, one of the Wizard’s cronies will come check up on him. You could take Branwen on a normal day, and this is… not that.

Since it’ll be a minute before you imagine you’re good to even stand, it’s high time for you to place a very important call. To give your ravaged, extra-crispy left arm a break, you peel off your intact right glove with your teeth, and let it fall in your lap.

Remorse-fury-fear sloshes out from your heart and down your forearm, clotting in the back of your right palm. From the resulting whorl of dark burning your skin, a few sharp bone chips precede the familiar, shallow Seer-like bulb that prods and bubbles and click-cla-click-clicks its way out of your hand.

The magical connection is made in just seconds; she was ready and waiting for your call. You’re thankful for it, since you really needed to see her right now.

Stone-faced, Salem asks immediately: “Is it done?”

By way of answer, you hold your hand out to the dead man decorating the wall of his own office. When you hear her hum of approval, you angle it to better point at the blasted-open expanse of wall and shattered windows, out at the burning night. The great Wyvern roars itself hoarse on another flapping pass around the tower, muffled by the crumpled Manta fighter currently crunched in its jaws.

Once you finish the display and bring your hand back in, Salem’s severe expression has eased, now a serene satisfaction.

“Finally. I knew you could do this for me, dearest,” your Goddess purrs, and sweet endorphins course within your veins. Her eyes flick again to the ruined walls and rubble around you. “You’ve no idea how long it’s been since I held Vale – even in part, like this.”

Glimmering from the flare of an exploding Atlesian airship in the distance, Danse Macabre draws your eye, and subsequently, the man she’s lodged in. “What do you want me to do with the body? Do… do you want me to leave it? Get rid of it?”

“No, leave it be. They must see for themselves their infallible leader has fallen. The impact on morale is more valuable than the ensuing confusion should they believe there’s a chance to find him.”

Salem shifts just barely from side to side; you’d imagine crossing her legs. “And speaking of morale – that was an... interesting choice of words and deeds tonight. Rather than instigate fear, you sought to preserve their hope, but snuff their faith, and stoke their fury.”

Rrrright, the speech improv.

“I was only…” You stall uneasily, turning each word over before you continue. “I thought it… would be more useful if the people were angry? A-anger draws Grimm faster than fear, right, so there’s that, and I hoped if they were angry at the right people, it would help us in the long run.” You scratch your cheek. “Not to mention, set things up for a better world if the whole plan succeeds, best-case scenario and all.”

“There is no need to hide your thoughts from me, May. I’m well-aware you wish to seek revolution on Remnant. You will recall, as I imparted during one of our earliest talks, that I have already attempted such a strategy before, more than once, to no success.”

At least she isn’t upset you played fast and loose with the interpretation of her orders, and she’s correct that it didn’t work well in the past, but…

“But you didn’t always have the Maidens, or the relics, and… With me, you already have one, we’ve got leads on Spring, the Lamp, Winter and the Staff aren’t going anywhere– And if the people turn against Ozma’s lieutenants, the instability will make it easier to build support and take them…?”

Oh, gods, you sound pathetic. Maybe you should play up your likelihood of a cranial bleed, and she’ll let this fumbling slide.

“You’re genuinely convinced,” she muses, a cosseting curl to her lips. You might as well have just admitted to believing in the Tooth Fairy. “I do not entirely disapprove, though I am concerned. It is acceptable should you retain sympathy for the population of the present, but do not let yourself forget our aims are broader and higher. Sacrifice is inevitable.”

As chastisement goes it’s on the lighter side, yet you grimace all the same, giving a subtle bow of the head that brings a wave of dizziness and swimming eyes. “O-of course, Goddess.”

Placatingly, Salem waves a hand and shrugs off the concern she already knows you’re feeling. “In light of your successful command of the Vale operation, should Mistral proceed apace, we will… reopen discussions regarding our strategy for your homeland.”

Really? You’d had to get a tad hands-on here in Vale, because Salem was loath to get so close to the Wizard’s home base, but you’d kinda assumed your Queen would take the reins again now that he’s temporarily knocked off the board. If you’re actually put in charge of choosing the approach–

Well, you can’t fuck up, first and foremost, but as long as you’re not compromising Salem’s victory, you’ll be able to do some real good! Plant some seeds, whip up some sparks, and… gods, the thought of actually bringing revolution to Atlas is an attractive daydream, and one you can’t afford to soak in while Salem is speaking.

“I won’t let you down.”

“No, you will not.” Salem agrees, certainty propped up on your own fear of failure. “In the time that Ozma is off his throne, we will do what we can to destabilize his sprawling empire and secure Vale’s troublesome vault, before he can regain his seat in full. However, until that vault is ready to be opened, much of this is a task suited to lesser agents than the inner circle, far beneath my Maiden Vessel. You yourself must rest.”

When is the last time you truly rested? Probably not since you left Evernight, all the more reason you need out of this ruined school so you can set out for home, and speaking of heading back...

“What about the others?” you ask. “My team? One of them is staying put, but the other two don’t really have anywhere else to go. I’d take responsibility for them, if need be.”

“If you vouch for their tenacity, then gather them to the safehouse on the island to the west. They will be granted entry, but do not tarry long; Hazel will have the airship arriving by morning. And certainly my beloved would not deny me the pleasure of congratulating her for such a victory…?”

Already, some of the grief is lightening off your shoulders, even if you remain charred. It hurts to smile with these busted lips, and still you beam desperate adoration through the cracks. “She would not, Goddess.”

“Then fly back to me, little Bluebird. A warm nest is waiting.”

The mini-Seer bulb dims as Salem disconnects the link, and you allow it to crumble and melt off your burnt skin.

Were you in a healthier state, you’d already be up and out that blasted window. As it stands, even standing up is a slower, more tentative effort for you, ensuring the motion doesn’t ruin what emergency patch-job your Aura could do for you.

It’s with great relief that so long as you let the pillar behind you do the heavy lifting, you can tenuously get your legs underneath you again; the old man didn’t ruin your spine as badly as you’d feared.

Testing out your wobbly knees full of nails and copper-flavored gelatin, you teach yourself to walk again, hobbling over to the wall of lifeless clockwork and its sole occupant. Even moving such a short distance is a strain, when the world refuses you a proper recovery.

Forearm propped against one of the obnoxiously-sized bronze gears, you stare up at the hanging remains of your target, and two thoughts strike you. Firstly, the mournful curiosity just who he was, before the ancient soul doomed and consumed him. Secondly: you might’ve jammed him up there a bit too hard.

All told, there’s no way in hell you’ll have the natural grip you need for this next step. Casting down torrents of ice chunks and freezing both your feet to the floor, all the way up to your knees, you use the improvised solid footing to get two hands on your blade, and wrench Danse Macabre free.

Consequently, Ozpin’s body crumples into a faceplant on the rubble-strewn floor, trademark spectacles smashed. The Long Memory drops from a formerly-clenched hand, clacks off a fallen clockwork gear, and condenses to its shorter form.

You melt the ice around your feet and air-puff the shrunken cane grip upward, snatching it midflight. This stupid thing broke more of you than you’d care to tally up. You’re not certain if your Goddess might want it as a trophy, or if it’d only bring up bad memories…

But, what the hell, right? You’ve already made a habit of taking souvenirs for people tonight – Wilt & Blush still seated on the opposite hip from Danse. If James hadn’t merged them into that Maiden-killer gun, maybe you could’ve stolen Due Process, too; let the pistols join The Queen’s Servants in rusting away somewhere in the castle basement ‘til you need to scrap them for parts.

Fiddling with the catch, you uncover how to extend the cane, and – rather ironically – end up putting it to its mundane, intended use: aiding you in sluggishly limping a wavering line out of your blood puddle, across the ruin of the Headmaster’s office, and towards the gaping, open-air breach where his clockwork window was blown asunder.

Here you stand on the edge, an unseasonably muggy, smoky wind tousling your blood-matted hair. The Long Memory is condensed and clipped onto your belt, bouncing against your thigh while you swivel as best you can to look around.

Beacon beneath you is comparatively quiet, now that the vast majority of its inhabitants have either vacated the school, or to a lesser extent, vacated this mortal coil. You can still catch the piercing outcry of high-caliber hunter weaponry pushing back against the encroaching dead silence.

The same goes for the influx of Grimm, still rowdy and rancorous while they can smell intruders in their new nest. The lights on many of the buildings on campus have gone dark, others running down the Dust remaining in their emergency generators before they, too, surrender to the night.

You wonder how many Winter managed to evacuate. She had to’ve gotten her sister out, at least, ideally her friends, and with any hope, actually stayed somewhere safe instead of flying back into the fray. The battle may be near its end, but not the mortal danger.

Unfortunately, you then remember that you’re thinking about Winter. Which means thinking about where you and Winter left off.

(“I’ve been forced to carry that around for six years, and all the baggage attached...”)

It just… it makes no sense! You and her’ve had a nice, neatly-defined ‘rivals but besties by default’ thing going since you were both billionaires’ babies crawling around a mansion nursery in monogrammed velour diapers, or whatever!

The relationship you had with her was an ever-present fixture of your respective worlds, never waxing or waning, forever static. When your parents wanted you two on a path to courtship for social gain, you already knew it would amount to nothing; you’d both do the bare minimum for show, sharing a few dispassionate gala dances or formal dinners, and both go home, unfeeling and unchanged.

You both trained as huntresses, and grew stronger together. You fell alone, and grew apart. After all that time, you’d expected your bond to have been set aside and buried, a fond relic of an old life, and nothing more.

So, what in the literal hell does this mean!? Did Winter only let herself consider you romantically once you were dead, and she’d never need to worry about voicing those thoughts? Or did… She said six years; did she actually already have them? No, that’s– No. No. You would’ve noticed, you’d’ve had to. None of this adds up.

Nobody has ever had feelings for you. Nobody could, nobody but Salem, who– Shit.

At least Salem (probably) won’t be upset with you about the kiss; for one, you never asked for it, it was an ambush. For two, it would be pretty unfair to get mad at one’s consort for having messy, complicated mortal feelings and one ill-advised, unexpected kiss with an old friend, when said consort is only one of thousands claimed over the eons.

Or maybe you’re just scared and making excuses. Maybe you’re scared of upsetting your Goddess, of seeming unfaithful to the one living being who best understands the heart of one who was pushed to the ledge, and leapt, and was denied the escape they sought. Your own Goddess of Death.

Maybe you’re scared of the reason you didn’t push Winter away, a reason you refuse to look at, to name, knowing full well it will damn you if you think it in full. As with most threats, you sneak around it, skirt the edges, hide from the feeling of her lips and the sound of her sigh, and the warmth. Against all odds, the warmth of her.

And, ugh, what about Hill, Greenleaf and Thyme, for that matter? Would they consider Winter to’ve cheated on them, or did they somehow know ahead of time, regardless of your apparent death, that their girlfriend would jam her tongue in your mouth if she somehow ever saw you alive again?

They can’t possibly tolerate that, especially since they didn’t even like you! Did they? All that teasing and ribbing and casual touch… and the dress ordeal that final night– No. They wouldn’t’ve known. But then, why did Winter say she suspected, and how much did she tell them!?

Damn it. This’d be easier if you could blow it off as a cruel trick, could say Winter was only doing it to lower your guard, but you can’t – your parents’ publicity-baiting schemes mean the two of you have known exactly what it feels like to reluctantly kiss the other on ulterior motives since you were eight.

So, you know. You know it was horribly, painfully, mercilessly real, and you know Winter knows it, too. Damn it. You have absolutely no idea what to do with that, only an absolute certainty of what you can’t possibly do.

You can’t go and ask.

There’s only one way you’re returning to Atlas, and that’s as the sword of your Goddess, a Maiden come to render judgment and deliver liberation, both long overdue; all that crowd-pleaser material.

Winter, HGTS, the people who thought they knew you – they’ll understand, they’ll have to! When you put an end to the oligarchy, when the parasites have been burned out, mansion by mansion, and their corrupt military police taught the same dread and destitution they’ve inflicted on the disenfranchised for generations, they’ll get it!

(...You hope.)

Because the only way you can even think to consolidate both these mutually exclusive paths is to push down your current course all the harder; you could never abandon your duty to your Goddess, no, but… but you can fulfill it, can’t you?

Many an evening, you’ve lain awake thinking about how lonely you’ll be after-the-fact, even in the best case scenario – Win the war, strike the Gods from the sky, free your Queen from her eons-long torment, yadda, yadda – because when all’s said and done, even though you’ll’ve done for her what no other could, you know she’ll still be choosing her final rest.

You can’t begrudge your Goddess this, not if you love her, yet at the end of the day she’ll thank you, promptly die, and there you’ll stand in the aftermath: unbound by duty, and no big, bombastic ancient shadow war to give you purpose anymore.

Chances are you’d inherit Evernight, but in the absence of its proper owner, would you really want to remain there? Pace the halls, recline in the study, lie in that big, four-poster bed, knowing you’ll never hear her voice again?

Or would that be your chance, your excuse, to throw yourself back onto the dingy streets of Mantle, until someone new – someone familiar – drags you, cold and careworn, out of yet another slush-filled alley? Either way, you have reason to fight, and fight all the harder.

(Assuming you even survive to the end of this war, and don’t screw up too much.

Assuming HGTS even survive to the end of this war, and don’t hate you for what you’ve become.

Assuming the Gods’ divine hegemony can even be overthrown in this cycle, or ever at all.

Assuming those Gods don’t, in light of your failure and their infinite hate, purge the world yet again.

Assuming anyone could ever truly understand, accept, fix, and love you the way Salem can.)

Haha. Fuck. When did you start crying?

Clumsily, you smudge away some reddish-tinged snot, and set about pushing these noisome thoughts deep into the cluttered storage locker of your brain. You only need to delay them from attacking you again until tonight in a safehouse bed, when you’re inevitably failing to fall asleep from anxiety. Before then, you actually have to reach it.

Mobility’s the kicker. On these healing legs, there’s no way you’re walking out of Vale, that much is a given, and Hazel’s not going to go against orders and fly any closer to pick you up. You’ll need to rely on alternative solutions like your own capacity for flight, and even then, you’re backed into a corner.

Even if you weren’t typically floundering with your ability for long-distance, precision flight, a fat lot of good your legs’ll do you in their weakened state, acting as additional jets balancing out your thrust.

Maybe further along your Maidenhood you’ll learn to fly fully hands-free, but you’re still learning the ropes, and in as dire a situation as you’ve bungled into, it helps that you have a set of training wheels.

You just... hate how much of a pain it is to fit them on the proverbial bike.

It’s also why you put up with the regular inconveniences of a bodysuit that zips in back. You unfasten your tactical vest, or rather, the sorry scraps of kevlar that once composed said vest, and pitch it off the ledge. It’s doing you no good now, anyway. The other straps of your upper harness, you let hang loose around you, having already spent the contents of their pouches in battle.

Pulling your ponytail around, you reach – ow, crap, wrong arm – you reach the other way around to get at the zipper, dragging it halfway down your back. Now exposed to open air, the swath of skin above the rear band of your sweaty sports bra begins to pale, then darken and gnarl.

Pain. Sorrow. Righteous anger. Wistfulness. Disgust. Shame. Ennui. Tangled love. Loneliness. Regret.

From the polluted sea beneath your immaterial heart, the negative sentiments flow outward into your body, roil up your healing spine, branching into twin clusters, into narrow jointed bone spears – phalanges, carpometacarpus, radius – furiously stabbing outward from either end of your upper back.

(You don’t have to be embarrassed for screaming in pain; no one’s around to judge.)

Monstrous black feathers, whetstone-sharpened, cloak the wings that tear forth into the world from the canvas of your back, and flap outward. Broken glass, tiny clockwork gears, bits of melting ice and crushed stone from the battle – all scatter in the resultant gust as your char-black wings spread wide.

If you’d busted these out back before you liberated Amber of her Maidenly burden, they’d be functionally useless. Even in this proportion, at a twelve-foot wingspan, they simply couldn’t put out the kind of thrust required for human flight.

But for a Maiden, with magical command of fire and wind at her disposal, one might just be able to cobble something together. Assuming you don’t pass out from blood loss along the way or crash into a building, but hey, since when has life made anything too easy for you?

Once the Nevermore wings have solidified, lethal obsidian feathers layered over Grimm-flesh, you reacquaint yourself with their movement, giving either appendage a long, experimental stretch while you brood and watch the skyline.

Pushing back the dark navy canvas of night, a smoke-smudged yellow-orange haze haloes the city of Vale on the horizon ahead. Atlesian warships are pulling out, one by one, retreating over the bay. The remainder struggle in vain against the nimblest flying Grimm their top-of-the-line weaponry can’t hope to hit.

There’s a minuscule part of you – a deeply rooted seed – that feels comfort in the sight of such destruction, and the knowledge that you had a hand in it, that you were powerful enough to do so. It’s not a seed you want to nurture, don’t want to become the kind of person you’ve promised to destroy, but neither can you ignore the fact it’s there, and you have to live with it.

Pricked with an odd splinter of nostalgia, you find it makes you reminisce of that dream you once had – where one of your classic flashback nightmares led to seeing Grimm swarming the city of Atlas all around you. If what you’ve seen tonight is any indication, it might’ve been closer to a premonition.

You’ll just have to wait and see, whenever the campaign reaches your homeland. ‘Til then, you’ve only claimed your first foothold: One Maiden, one Academy down, three and three to go, not to mention gathering the relics. You’ve got your work cut out for you.

However, you’ve already accomplished so much for your resume: you've killed a Wizard, you're bound by blood and lopsided love to a Witch, you've become a Maiden, you can draw Grimm-flesh from inside yourself. You’re going to war with Gods.

Unbelievable feats, one and all. Un-fucking-believable.

An uncomfortably plausible thought strikes you unbidden – what if you're still, at this very moment, a wrong-angled heap of shattered limbs on a snowy Mantle rooftop six years ago, and this whole quest of yours has been the last delirious flickers of light leaving your neurons before you're taken by the dark and cold?

Pff, you doubt it, because a hallucination wouldn't hurt this viscerally.

From your vantage at the tower’s edge, you steal a look northward. To Atlas, your miserable birthplace, Mantle trapped beneath. To the humble home of HGTS, its doors allegedly open to you.

You turn a few degrees, and look westward. To the Land of Darkness, lifeless wasteland crowned by Castle Evernight. To your Goddess and all she represents, all she can do with you as her instrument.

Well. One thing is certain: the bluebird won’t be flying north for Winter, this year.

Leaning out over the magic-charred edge of Beacon Tower and its vertigo-inducing drop, you tip forward. It’s a process you’re far too familiar with. Tip, tip, tip… until, with a lurch in your stomach, gravity snatches up what you’re coyly offering.

Wind buffets your face as the courtyard hurtles towards you like it’s got a score to settle. Floor after floor of the tower zips under your field of vision, as you squint your eyes against the rushing air. A falling star, craving terminal velocity.

Twenty stories. Fifteen. Ten. The cracks between the tiles of the courtyard can be distinguished, now.

Even as a Maiden, with so little Aura as you have left, you wonder if you’d actually die this time around, if you did nothing; happily let the ground rush to meet you like the fist of a vengeful brother-god.

Your black wings are thrown wide, catch the wind, and level out your flight once violent jets of flame erupt from hands held wide behind you – tips of scorching plumes brushing over the courtyard surface, charred as you ascend and accelerate.

Buffets of your borrowed wings help carry you out of your precarious swoop. There’s some balance adjustment to be done, wounded legs dangling like ballast, before you hit your aerial stride. At that point, you can add wind manipulation into the mix, and fling your ruined body towards a cruising speed.

Lost height is rapidly regained, your amateur elemental control taxed to manage the heat and wind required. You climb over the abandoned school facilities, the amphitheater and its high colonnades, and out over the sheer cliffside for the final time tonight.

You could bank far to either side, curve around the city altogether, but every extra second spent getting to the rendezvous is time for your blood loss to come back to haunt you, among other injuries. Even then, you could cloak to avoid detection as you cut through Vale’s sky, but you’ve barely any Aura to begin with, and your desperate streaks of Maiden-fire trail far enough that trying to hide them is a waste you can’t afford.

There’s nothing for it. You’ll just have to push straight through. The stealth operative in you screams that she can’t believe your idiocy, and the remainder of you lets her go straight to voicemail.

Hours after the first sirens sounded, the skies still flicker and churn with the activity of battle. In the midst of the chaos, gunnery, the Grimm and smoke, will the sight of you make an impression? They’ll probably see you, but one would hope they have better things to worry about.

No need to notice, no need to think about you, weaving and twirling through the flocks of your extended family, the creatures from whence your wings were stolen.

All mixed up with the innumerable black shapes in the sky, the flashes and trails of violent light, the common observer won’t see a person they can identify, only another creature of darkness.

Just a Grimm, not a girl.

Just a monster, not a Maiden.

Just a bloodied, blackened bluebird, westbound for her nest.