Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It took a few weeks of this, a few days of that. Odds and ends in a city whose language she’s just learning to speak. Taking odd jobs before she can read the job description doesn’t matter so much when your “this and that” is the culling of monsters that feed upon the every ill emotion of man.

It’s what she’s always loved about Crescent Rose. Her baby always knows what to say, even if she doesn’t have the words.

Ruby wishes she had the words now, as she prepares herself to knock on a door that Crescent Rose can’t negotiate with the residence of. Well, she could, and not too long ago she had, she just doesn’t want it to come to that again.

It will be fine, she assures herself.  She paid good money to make sure it was the right door she was knocking on. Even if she had to put some of what her source was saying through an online translation app, and even if they for sure overcharged her for being so…. Well, doe-eyed junior cop- looking. She knows that anything she has to say won’t mean much to who she wants to say it to.

Thunk Thunk Thunk.

Old iron bangs on a wooden door, high up in the trees. She’s not used to being in a neighborhood this nice. Round townhouses on wooden balconies looking down into the depths of a city that spans the distance of a jungle canopy, down, down, down, into endless mines. The birds don’t care where you got your money from, and the neighbors care even less.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to greet our guests for once!” 

Ruby’s heart beats hot blood, A nervous pulse grips her throat, and she starts to hunch closer to the door, irrationally wanting to make herself smaller in a place where her only reprieve comes from what she isn’t prepared to face.

“I’m just saying, we bought the life, might as well enjoy the HOA bake sale— or whatever they’re at our door for now.”  Squeezed between a doorframe and open air that could be carrying unwanted gazes, Ruby finds herself squeezing her arms between the sparse space, and tugging at the loose nothing of her clothes. Adjusting a sweat-stuck t-shirt to be just as sweaty but a bit less stuck, smoothing out baggy cargo pants until they are baggy in a slightly defined way, fiddling with silver jewelry until her body remembers their metal is cool on her skin again. Important stuff.

“One day I’m going to get you out of this house. I don’t know what will do it, but something will. Maybe the neighborhood moms will set up a ping pong tournament for their daughters? No matter what I say, they aren’t buying the sibling story for us, and all the invites for their kids whose-ma-whats-its meant for you, are going through me.” For a moment, the voice stops coming closer. “Don’t give me that look, it seems like something they’d do, and you Neopolitan, seem like a girl that would love a Ping Pong tournament.”

The door swings open.

“Oh what the fuck.”

Every muscle in Roman’s body goes lax. He narrows his eyes, looking at her not with fear, suspicion, or surprise, but sheer disappointment.

“Heeey there Torchwhick.” Ruby clears her throat, a nervous laugh escaping with it. “Heh, It’s me.”

“You can not tell me you had nothing better to do than track me down. I mean, seriously, I’ve retired you know.”

“Yeah, Yeah I know. Can I come in?”

He squints at her, sharp eyes just screaming ‘I want to put a bullet through her head, and I have the means to do just that.’ But he is retired is the thing, he looks it too. His clothes fit loose on his body, and the smell of smoke she had learned to associate white fang hideaway smells rich in the present, as opposed to sharp and acrid in her memory. There is nothing threatening about him to her in this moment, even with the implicit danger looming in his words. Maybe she’s crazy, but she came to him for a reason, and the gaze that pierces her now feels nostalgic in the homely way that familiar strangers feel upon meet cute. So, with the performance of someone that doesn’t realize what he looks like through his audience's eyes, he steps out of the doorframe and gestures her in. What else do you do when the girl that ruined your life shows up on your doorstep from across a continent?

Ruby power walks in, trying to get to some sort of living room as quick as she can. Desperate to sit. Desperate to be certainly a guest, instead of an uncertain figure on the threshold, without a place inside . She walks past Roman’s henchwoman, the one with the glass breaky semblance, on her way in. The woman’s eyes turn to the door as she hears Ruby’s footsteps, and they bulge out of her head when they see who she is.

The woman looks like she hasn’t showered in days, and hasn’t changed her clothes or brushed her hair in more. Her body was lounging splayed out in every which way, and in a panic, she attempts to flip up into a standing ready possession, Though she succeeds in getting upright, the process is anything but graceful.

Despite her nerves, Ruby manages something of a smile, and something of a giggle, and as Roman walks in behind the girl looking so at peace with the situation it must be shell shock, Neo lets her shoulders lax and her hands reach for not Hush. Accepting that whatever this is, it’s apparently not a fight.

Ruby gives her a tight lil wave, “Neo, Right?”

Neo slowly nods her head, looks to Roman, looks to Ruby, then slumps back to the couch and unpauses her game. Keeping an ear open, but returning to mundanity as people in ungraspable situations tend to do.

Torchwick sighs wearily. “Sit down I suppose Red, dinner table’s over there. Neo won't like it if we have good and evil philosophical debates in front of her Mario. She’s a simple woman who craves simple times.”

“R- Right.”

Torchwick walks into the kitchen as she shuffles into a handmade wood chair with cushioned linen covers that scream everything but native Mistrali. “Don’t suppose whatever crisis of morality that has led to this unfortunate reunion has made it so you’d want a glass of wine?”

Ruby pauses, considering it for the first time. Yang always liked drinks that came with umbrellas, and uncle Qrow always liked drinks that burn. She tries to picture the kind of person that’d drink wine, indulgent and dark as it is— Like a distraught girl in a tower, or an evil queen with a cat in her lap. “Actually, that sounds nice, I’ve never had one before.”

“I was being politely rhetorical Red, there’s no universe in which I pour you a glass of my good stuff.”

The two of them have somewhat of a staring contest, as Roman waits for some sort of reaction, and Ruby just blankly looks at him. Frozen in the anxiety that flows from a consciously made social intrusion. Not sure if simply tilting her head, or even blinking an eye, might be taken the wrong way. 

After a few seconds of them both locked in their places, stiff as boards, Roman slumps out of the kitchen with an exhale. Sliding into his seat with a cup full of something that smells dry and sharp, even from across the table.

“Trust me Red, all of my stuff is ‘the good stuff.’”

The two stare at each other in silence. Torchwick in searching exasperation, and Ruby trying to hold eye contact just so that one day she can say that she did, and wanting to throw up her guts as a result. Torchwick takes a loud slow deliberate sip of his wine, as ambient carnival sounding music drifts in the bright air of a sunny Mistali winter from Neo’s game.

“Okay, Red, neither of us are gonna start talking anytime soon if we both wait for this to make sense, so why don’t you just tell me why you’re here.”

“Well, the note you left me.”

A deep sigh carries Roman into a deepend lean on the table. A faint click and subsequent ding indicates Neo pausing her game in the other room, and the near silent shuffle of her feet single to both of them that she’s beginning to walk over.

“Right, that, I was beginning to fear it was that. I didn’t expect you to, I dunno…” He waves his hands noncommittally, “Actually take my advice? It wasn’t really advice, it was more ‘one last taunt’ rather than an RSVP. And even if you have, that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

Ruby speaks with the reserved hopefulness of someone knowing they are asking for too much. “Well… because I have nowhere to go.”

Torchwick blinks at her. He straightens up, takes a breath, and blinks at her again. “No,” He looks at Neo, who is sighing a very confused “ what the fuck.”

“Absolutely not, no, what? Why? Why would you even want that? But critically, not on your fucking life. Wh- Gods, Red, what even is happening, walk me through this step by step, why are we even talking right now. If I wasn’t so god damned retired, I’d have killed ya the second I opened the door. Why even risk this, why are we talking so casually, help me out here.”

The more frazzled Torchwick seems by the impossible situation, the more at peace Ruby seems. Relaxing into her chair, into conversational reigns that are impossible to catch, and thus being incapable of holding them holds no stigma. She’s made these twos afternoons something of a disaster, and so she isn’t alone.

“Because… that note, it was the only time I ever really felt real.”

“Fucking— what does that even mean?”

There’s a beat of silence. Stagnant light shines through windows meant to maximize it. A quiet brightness that settles into one’s mind that they are currently in a room, not a place or a home, but an area which exists, beyond who lives within it. 

Neo cocks her head at Torchwick, and Torchwick blows a bit of hair out of his eye. Patience is the only real balm to absurdity.

“I… I got your note, and I thought nothing of it. I was relieved, I guess, I… shared a laugh with myself that you would think to do such a thing, but what was there to think upon? I’m a huntress. You didn’t expect me to care about what you had to say, and I didn’t.”

“… And then something happened?”

“No, and then nothing happened. And then, I went on this excursion that every huntress goes on, and every one of my teammates was asked why they wanted to be a huntress. I heard every question they asked themselves, as they really thought about it for the first time.”

“And Lil’ Red didn’t have an answer, huh?”

“No, and ‘Lil Red’ wasn’t asked. The professor that took us, he just… Knew, somehow that, that was never something I questioned, never something I’d have grappled with. So instead he walked me to the edge of Mt.Glenn—“

“Mt. Glenn, huh?”

“Yes, your note was oh-so-timely.”

Neo signs something rude behind Ruby, directed at Torchwick, only seen by Torchwick.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry to interrupt.” He beckons at her with his free hand. “Continue the story.”

“And on the edge of the city, he showed me this Goliath. Oldest Grimm I had ever seen… So old, I didn’t know they could be that old, and I just realized… You know, that there’s no end to this fight, no end to struggle… no end . The forest never stills.”

“So the baby huntress got disillusioned with the work? Gave up when she realized that there’s no winning, and that she had signed up for something she couldn’t beat. That still doesn’t explain why you’re on my doorstep thinking I’m gonna care, Red.”

“No, not that either. I realized that… I realized I can be a huntress anywhere, in any way.” A small, but an earnest smile spreads across her face. “That all I’ve ever wanted to do was fight Grimm, until I was no more, in service of making things better . And if Grimm are as unremovable as the air we breathe, then I can fight Grimm wherever air is.”

“So what, you realize your work is multinational. You leave your sister and friends behind to… Hunt your archnemesis? Ask to bunk with him? Take low grade work in Mistral, hunting gnats?”

“Don’t flatter yourself too much, you aren’t my archnemesis.”

Torchwick’s face twists up, sucking his teeth for a moment before his voice bursts out. “Then why the fuck is it my door you’re at!?! Clearly, the door of your friends and family didn’t satisfy you!”

Ruby mimes pushing back at the sound with her hands, a languid gesture that puts a twitch in Torchwick’s eye, doubly so when he catches the puff of a smirk on Neo’s lips.

Ruby sags after a moment— While his tone doesn’t get to her, the thought of her old team and family pierces deeper. “They… I don’t like thinking about it like that.”

Torchwick leans back, and silence lingers. Inquisitive looks pin Ruby to the spot, and she doesn’t know if they hold judgement or are masking empathy, but there’s suddenly a feeling in the air that she won’t be interrupted again, and so she better make sure she really says what she needs to say. What she came her to express. What she hoped to feel.

“It’s not that I don’t love the people I left. It’s not that the life I had there didn’t ‘satisfy’ me. It’s that… Well, the person getting satisfied wasn’t me.   I know that doesn’t make any sense, but….”

A sigh escape her lips, realizing that only starting from the real beginning will make her choice seem remotely sensible, and history that old is better spoken as quiet as you can stomach it.

“I started training to be a huntress when I was six. Not just playing at it, but going out everyday and doing reps. Stretching as far as my lil limbs could go. Swinging a stance into shape with any weapon or good stick I could get my hands on. My father said he started training when he was twelve. My uncle said he started when he was eight. My sister? She started the same year I did, eight as well. All three of them saw me as a prodigy, and at the same time, all three of them saw me as student for them to guide.”

Ruby can feel Neo hovering closer behind her, but she presses on all the same.

“It was a weird feeling. Yang’s a great huntress, a fantastic one, even, but I could never wrap my head around who I was to her. I was someone she looked up to, not as an aspiration, but as an ideal, and I was a kid. In one sentence she would talk through me, like I was better than her, and in the next she would talk down to me even though we started at the same time. Even though, for all intents and purposes, I trained more than her, was better than her. Never once did she see me as an equal. You’d think we’d have some sort of grand synergy.” Ruby laughs humorlessly, playing up her next words. “Siblings that have trained together since birth! But there’s always been a disconnect. In how we fight, why we fight, and she just… she feels so far away”

“It doesn’t help that our relationship outside of our training had been… off, for a while. When we lost our mother, she took it upon herself to replace her. I appreciate her for that fact every single day, I'm not sure we would have survived if she didn’t… but, I just wanted a sister. Yang has never been that. For better and worse, we’ve never been peers.”

She can hear Neo sit down, but for whatever reason, it feels like she can’t see her, can’t see much of anything, even with her eyes as open as they’ve ever been.

“But I was happy. I didn’t have the synergy I admired in other familial huntress groups, even if I had had the family. I didn’t have a sister, but I had someone that loved me, someone that would take care of me, and I was happy with it, I was going to be a huntress after all. I was going to help people like my mother. The first thing I learned about this dream is that it will take from you until the only thing left you have to give is your life, and the first things it took just seemed so inconsequential. I still had Yang, even if it was different. I still had recognition, even if I didn’t have respect.

“But then I caught up. I got to Beacon early, and that distance between me and Yang became… I don’t know, I don’t think she’s ever even thought about it. But it came to a head. The tension I felt, I had been able to ignore it before when I had some distance from her. Only ever saw her at home, and even then we spent as much time apart as we did together. She was always supposed to go off ahead of me, show the world what our family could do, give me a name to live up to. I never really knew if that meant I was supposed to overshadow her, or always live in hers. As I said, I could never figure out what she expected of me.

“And than I was in beacon! And suddenly, she was on my team! And I always thought she’d have something to say about it, but she never did. She was just always happy I was there with her. And I was too! Of course I was, I love her! But even as I caught up, I never stopped being her little sister, a dynamic sibling duo where one of them is more or less her mother. A dynamic sibling duo except the siblings work better with the teammates they just met than each other in a fight.”

She can feel her tongue trip over the edge of her teeth, as if she was talking too fast. It’s a strange sensation, because she thinks she’s talking like normal, even as something in her lungs burns.

“And my teammates! I never thought I’d make friends with anyone other than my weapon. Always thought I’d be a lone wolf type. But I did and it was amazing, and it was fast, and it was magical, and I— I didn’t know you could learn to feel so safe around others, learn so much about each other and have the only feeling be love. Never thought I’d have pulled it off, any of it, but I did and it was wonderful and we worked really well together, honestly. Exceptionally well, even, top of our class. But I was made leader. The admiration Yang had for me as a prodigy mixed up with her expectations for me as a leader, even though her mothering never stopped. And despite everything that was so good, despite us all getting to know each other so well, despite Yang talking to Weiss and Blake about me like I was a child, despite them all seeing how inexperienced I was and how little social experience I had. They all saw what Yang saw in me, whatever it was. Something more, even. I’m not sure if I earned it, I’m not sure what it was, I just know I couldn’t let them down.”

“Everyday I tried with everything I had to be what they needed me to be, to be what they said I was. But I have no idea who that is! I have no idea what they could possibly have seen in me other than someone who had the social skills of a recluse and some potential, and I kept on trying and trying and trying, and the more they respected me without me actually knowing what it was I did to earn it, the more I had no clue what it was they were looking at, no clue what I was doing, who I was, but I was trying and I wanted that to be enough.

“Maybe if… I’m a child, oh my god I’m a child, I just realized what it was I was about to say! Maybe If someone saw the work I was putting in, I could have figured it out. But even to Weiss and Blake I was a prodigy. A prodigy that behind closed doors they had no respect for. Always too young, always a child, always just so DISTANT from anyone I got to know. The best fighter Beacon had to offer, but I can’t throw a punch. A leader they believe in, but too young and inexperienced to trust their problems with, a friend but a younger sibling, a partner, a leader. It was just so confusing! I tried to be what they wanted of me, but everything they said I was, was so circular, that trying was all I ever did!”

“I felt like a caricature— unrealistic archetypes of hope they needed to believe in, patched together into a nonsensical anomaly of a person, but I thought that was just who I was . Everything that defined my relationship with Yang, defined my relationship with two entirely different people. A sample size of one grew to three, so… I just embraced it. Let myself be what they wanted me to be, and figure out how to be happy after the fact. Agency didn’t feel like all too high of a cost for being a huntress, and with friends like them, how could I complain? I love them, I really really did.”

“But that’s when I got your note! You thought I had the potential to kill you! That I had the choice to drop everything in my life and run! It was insane, it was asinine! But you were still right! If someone else could see me differently than… Whatever it was that felt so wrong even amongst the people I was fulfilling my dreams with, then all of that isn’t an innate part of me. I can be… something else! I don’t know what, but I’m here!” Ruby takes a gulp of air, and it tingles as it clamours into her lungs, giddy and manic adrenaline. “I’m here and I’m not a leader! I’m not… I’m not whatever it was they thought I was. I have a scythe, I kill grimm, I want to be a huntress, and anything else can change, And! And…”

She trails off, finally focusing in on Torchwick once more. He’s staring at her gobsmacked, like she just committed every social faux pas and then some, like she’s out of her mind, and she suddenly feels foolish for thinking that he’d even pretend to care. He’s not like her team, not like Yang, beholden to her by luck of the draw or blood.

“I’m sorry, for coming. I knew it was stupid of me, but for some reason, all the way up until I started talking, I thought it being stupid wouldn’t matter. I’ll get out of your guy’s hair, you’ll never see me again I promise. But, still, thank you, I’m not sure if I’ve just ruined my life running away like I did. But, even if I gain nothing but this feeling of freedom I feel now, then it was worth it. So, thanks, for seeing something in me no one else has, even me.”

Without waiting for the ridicule to start, Ruby makes for the door as fast as she can. She doesn’t get far as Neo impacts into her. For a second, her mind thinks she’s being tackled to the ground, that she’s being attacked. But, with “hmppf” of air leaving her now compressed throat, she realizes she’s… being hugged.

Neo’s hair goes as far up as Ruby's chin, and it’s soft as the rest of her. Even in her somewhat disarrayed state, Ruby can smell that when this girl does shower, she uses products just as fine as Weiss’s. A flash of nostalgia for what was just a few weeks ago hits her. A bubbling of regret and satisfaction, at the reminder of the amazing life she gave up, and the complete ever encompassing freedom that brings. She could be anything, do anything, go anywhere. She could be homeless and starving within the week, she could be in Atlas or Vacuo in the month, she could change her name or her weapon or her purpose at the drop of a hat and there would be no one keeping her chained to any perception stating otherwise.

But right now, she’s being hugged by a retired crime lord’s personal assassin, and… friend? It’s nice, and also confusing, and she revels a bit in the absurdity of it all.

“Neo. Absolutely not.”

Ruby relaxes her rimrod posture a bit, but still doesn’t return the hug. Neo gets on her tip toes, and presses her cheek into Ruby's own. Grabbing the other side of her face with her hands, and turning their heads back towards Torchwick, who is looking at them with a cocktail of expressions Ruby couldn’t hope to decipher.

“Wha-what’s she doing?”

Ruby can see Neo’s eyes begin to well up, recognizes the pleading puppy dog face with ease, but she has no idea what Neo’s asking for.

“She fell for your sob story, is what she’s doing. Brilliant stuff by the way Red, if I didn’t know you any better I’d accuse you of tailoring it for your audience. But as it is, it simply warms my heart to know I have such a liberating effect on everyone I meet. But the point stands, that even if your lil soul journey had led you back to us for some reason, You’re still a huntress. We are trying to enjoy retirement, and you can only pursue being the law for so long, before it would be a problem for us. I’ve had enough experience with you, to know you have a certain appreciation for the long, long, iron arm.”

“I mean… Hunting down bounties is cool, I always thought I’d do it when I became a full fledged huntress. But I thought a lot of things that I’m trying to just… Not think about at all anymore? As long as I can hunt grimm… all the other moral stuff I can figure out as I go, I hope.”

Hearing that, Neo presses their faces together even closer. It’s a baffling experience for Ruby, but she can’t stop a giggle from escaping her throat. She can see the way it makes Neo smile and vibrate into the hug with girlish excitement. The entire display starts to light a manic sort of passion in Ruby. She’s been on autopilot ever since she snuck out of the dorms, forcing herself to find this address and figure the rest out later.

Knowing that she can have her presence be enjoyed by someone that’s not Yang or her team, that she can maybe make friends even after renouncing everything that everyone who has ever loved her, has admired within her. It’s a giddy type of hope that banishes the emotional nosedive she just experienced after rambling away her “please let me crash on your couch, you’re the only people I know in this new life I’m forcing myself into, spurred on off of vague feelings and hopes,” spiel.

“Right, yes, of course, the oh-so-alluring-to-associate-myself-with morally centrist Huntress. Be that as it may, we can’t exactly afford a third person to be living the same lavish life style as us. Sharing our home, our food, our household goods, unless you start taking some actually criminal jobs Red, the best you can get out of us is bi-monthly drinking buddies.”

At the reminder of what she figured might be the most Important thing in Torchwick’s eyes, Ruby shyly pulls an envelope out of her cloak, and mutters to Torchiwick, “I-uh, thought of that already, actually. I hope this covers… Whatever would be the burden I’d be placing on you two…?”

Neo releases Ruby from the hug, allowing her to hand Roman a thick envelope. Neo levels a meaningful gaze at Ruby, and it seems kind enough, so Ruby just gives her a lil wave back while Roman takes the envelope from her hands. Neo laughs at the best of her social graces, and that too, seems well meaning. It seems honest in her impression of her as well, which Ruby values more than anything right now.

“Red, any pocket change you’ve made on the road won’t come close to-“

The room goes silent as Torchwick chokes on his words, after tearing the envelope open. Neo peeks over his shoulders with a burning curiosity in her posture.

“Red, how the fuck did you make this much money.”

“Is it a lot? I don’t know how much is actually needed to live like, rich rich.”

“No seriously, what the fuck, did you take criminal jobs? Did you seek us out cause this is like, a teenage rebellion thing on the scale of political assassination instead of Hot Topic?”

“I just took whatever hunting jobs I could turn around quick as soon as I got into the city.”

“I thought you went off the rails so you wouldn’t have to be part of a team anymore. What personal soul-searching did you get just working with a new, less Atlas-money-filled hunting party?”

“I made that money on solo hunts, though…?”

“What the fuck did you solo hunt alone that resulted in this!?”

“Just a few Nevermore, an Ursai pack… A few young Goliaths?”

Neo’s eyes widen with some genuine shock for the first time since she walked in the door, and Ruby suddenly wonders if what she was hunting alone in Patch has skewed her perception on what ‘normal’ is for most huntresses on their own.

“I…I…I…” Torchwick pinches the bridge of his nose. “How much of this are you even offering us right now?”

“All of it, really. If I have a roof over my head and food, I… Don’t think I have much use for money at the moment? If I ever change my mind, I can just take on more work.”

“That’s fucking insane, Red. Absolutely not. You will find something to buy if I have to make you, I’m all for scamming suckers, but not caring for any sort of hedonism when you have the potential to live like this, is personally offensive to me.”

“Still, I know I’d be… I know this is an insane ask. I don’t mind helping you two out like this.”

Neo signs something at Torchwick.

“She isn’t ‘passive’ income! It’s a fucking roommate!”

Neo shoots her a thumbs up, and that swell of giddy hope has Ruby snickering all over again, even if she knows it’s not helping her case.

Before she can recompose herself, Torchwick grabs her by the shoulder. She almost flips him, but instead she meets his eyes. It’s the first time she’s seen the both of them, she realizes: His hair is tied back in a ponytail, exposing for the first time to her, both of his eyes, cut underneath by eyeliner in a rich shade. His eyes make him seen honest and caring even as they stare her down. He looks like a different person, even now after spending the past 20 minutes pouring her half-formed soul out to him, than he had in her memories. A stray tells her it’s no wonder he chose the life he did. It's not hard to imagine how someone might believe any word he says, when he can look at them like that.

“I get your spiel kid, really I do, Neo was in an awfully familiar spot when she was just a bit younger. The heart of Vale has a lot of people looking for talented girls to fight for them for whatever reason. But I know what you’re asking for, and the issue is I don’t think you do. This has been a nice reunion and all, and I’m happy you got out of Vale, really I am. It’s gonna get bad there real soon. But you don’t know what you’re asking for hanging around with us. Even if you have some personal shit to work out, you’re someone that wants to leave the world a better place. You’re someone that wants to get herself killed doing it. It’s just not how me and Neo roll. The danger you just left your friends on their own for, it might come knocking in this city next, and when it does, I don’t want you playing morally grey hero and dragging it towards us. If you stay with us, you take jobs we would, or jobs burning bullets and time on Grimm. No helping lil old ladies cross the street, no running back to Blondie when you realize your self-preservation came at the cost of hers. Unless you can give me a real reason you think you want that, then scram, and don’t make me have to make me remember you exist again.”

She doesn’t know if Torchwick was being literal, when he was giving her one more chance. But Neo looks at his back with a broken sort of face that Ruby already wants to reassure, and, what’s the worst that can happen if she makes her desires a lil more clear.

“Torchwick… I don’t know what I want. The two of you… it’s all you’ve ever known. I… I guess I admire that. I’ve never wanted anything for myself, not really, but, if you could teach me… I don’t know what I’m asking for either, but I think I’d be happier if I could live like you two. Looking back, it’s the only thing that’s made sense to me the past few years.”

Neo signs a series of words to Torchwick, for a solid twenty seconds, and mentally notes to herself that right after her next hunt, she should buy a language book herself. She’s not wasting away in a subpar math clas anymore anyways. She could probably pick up Mistrali, too.

“Fucking… She wants me to translate this for you.”

Ruby looks at Torchwick in anticipation.

“Lie, cheat, steal, survive, Take from the world what you want, and give it what it deserves. It’s the only way to live.”

“Ooooooookay? Whaaaat does that mean??”

“It means… I guess you have your way.”

It’s not real enough to her ears, for her heart to process it. An overwhelming prospect that she had wanted more than anything, so sweet it dissolves before she can swallow it all.

“R-really!?”

Instead of answering, he starts walking towards the back of the house, gesturing her to follow along. Neo claps her hands in delight, and pushes her forward in case of arant lingering. She gets brought to a door tucked away, by a large circular window looking out at a small garden, that itself is looking down towards the entirety of the city. The garden is bare, and when Torchwick opens the far door, the room too is bare of everything but a bed that looks straight out a catalogue, never slept in. And a simple wooden dresser. They seem out of place, in the sea of a room floored with mahogany, and bright eggshell walls that seem to light the room more than the lights themselves do. The size of the room has her marveling, and though she can’t see all of it, the bathroom attached to it is as big as any bedroom she’s ever slept in.

“I’ve been meaning to get this room decorated, but we never had any use for it, so it was low on my priority list. Not my problem anymore now I suppose.“

Ruby sniffles. “You mean…?”

“Don’t make a deal of this Red, as you said, we aren’t your team. No creepy old man forcing us to spend our time together. But, I suppose congratulations are in order. Your life is your own now, that’s something to celebrate, as soon as you figure out how.”

“Y-yeah. You’re right. Torchwick, I-“

“Please Gods, call me Roman if I’m going to have to hear you talk everyday.”

“Will you call me Ruby?”

“Nope!” He even pops the P, familiar even as she sees a new side to him. People aren’t all that different, no matter who she throws her lot in with she guesses.

“I’ll be seeing you when I see you then?”

“Yeah, I suppose you will Red. Get settled, explore some on your own. I’ll show you the city with Neo one day maybe.”

“Right. Yeah, tha-“

“Gods, Red, I’m leaving now, be normal when I get back if you can.” He shoots her a smile, that like his eyes, is unlike anything she could have imagined fitting on his face before now. Kind, freeing, inspiring. “After all Red, having the guts to flee a huntress school? Me and you are pretty alike,I wasn’t quite sure until tonight, but now there’s no question. Everyone here Red, we’re equals.”

Chapter Text

28 DAYS AND SIX HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON. 

~~~

Change is inevitable— Fighting it is like wrestling with a riptide. But while most succumb to its waters, there are a few stubborn things that snapback to who or what they were, with a force so determined, even change is caught unaware. It's hard to record such happenings however, for to do so you must see, and to see you must live, and the wonderful things that are capable of standing their ground within the current shall remain steadfast for much much longer than life does. The idea of time as we, and only we, know it, shall pitter out before any of these things change their minds about what they are.

The tips of Atlas’s mountains will be covered with ice, and the liquid just beneath will run with a torrent of Grimm so concentrated, so raging, that they will form no animal or idea other than hate, for much much longer than the clocks of the kingdom will count.

The plains of Vale will run with a million legs, and a million blades of grass, drowning those in its way in a cacophony of a horrid stampede, for much longer than there will be the ears of man to hear its harshed noise.

The desserts of Vacuo will burn, and burn, and burn, providing for the hungry babes of torment that are the nevermore that circle it, swooping for charred flesh and sinew, for long after there are living things to provide the flesh.

And the canopies of Mistral, will shake and rumble with life for longer than there are languages to name the utterance ‘death’ to describe what the million crawling, dancing, jumping things bring upon the travelers that move between its trees.

The forest of life, of animals, of Grimm, of all things that move. This, is something that for all meaningful accounts will never change.

But for now, until time passes the moment over, it has.

All around the walls, and a slight few miles out of the city, no further, for the first time in the memory of the Mistrali military, the living forest is silent.

The trees do not rustle, or shudder under the weight of things that climb. The crackling imitation of chirping sounds off no more. It is peaceful.

But then, a stubborn noise. Something shakes for the first time in hours, digging claws in and reclaiming the shadows. A movement the guards on duty can’t identify, for all their experience. A Grimm that could wear a hundred bony faces, a hundred shapes and mockeries, makes the forest imposing once more.

Then there is a click, a tick, an unfolding, a girl, and a bang with a bellowing of air that smells like a flower that does not grow near their lands.

Than once more,

stillness.

~~~

31 DAYS AND 12 HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON.

It’s a lot harder to navigate a city when she’s not laser-focused on a single address. Tram and cable-car lines turn into an endless web of possibilities, instead of a game of patience waiting for the one number she memorized to pop up. 

The variety of buildings and people turn from a consistent backdrop, into a prodding mess of clashing ideas and appearances.

It’s overwhelming. She’s bumping into commuters like a pinball, and there’s more landmarks on each block, than in the entire town of Patch.  A part of her wants to throw up, cry, and jump into the helpful abyss the middle of the city provides. Yet ever more, all of her loves it.

Food, water, work, she reminds herself. An order of operations. She reassures herself that she can do this, and then trips on a random commuter she didn’t get out of the way for. Never in her life has she not gotten out of the way ‘in time,’ it is always the case that she ‘never notices.’ By the time the stranger gets up, ready to presumably dress her down, perhaps even curse her out in a foreign tongue, she’s gone. 

She may be something of an immovable object in a sea of people who don’t have the muscle mass she does, but anyone can yell at her. Though, only if she doesn’t run fast enough.

She’s never not fast enough. 

~~~

31 DAYS AND 10 HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

She managed to re-find the old hunters’ lodge, and acquire food. Currently, and specifically for her, there really is just a single option to choose from for the former, and an abundance for the later. A stifling amount for the later. After a lot of uncertainty on which random shop to go into, she settled on one which seemed oddly organized compared to the rest of the city. It seemed to her eyes a place Blake might like. 

The people working there were incredibly nice, but their kind smiles became unsettling after Ruby mumbled her order in Valean, idle feet lingering in the restaurant’s central walkway. She’d probably feel better if they got annoyed with her.

The food was so mediocre it slid right off her mind, not memorable in either direction of quality, The price was well above anything she ever paid for anything on Patch. Though, last night proved to her that she has no idea how quantities of money actually work. Roman gave her a card to use after she handed everything in her envelope over to him, and in response he told her that as long as she keeps bringing in a similar amount of money on a regular basis, she doesn’t have to worry about it, so she won’t!

She can’t distract herself forever, and without anything to pointlessly worry over. She’s left with once again working up the courage to enter the one place in the whole foreign city, that has the potential to feel familiar. She thinks that prospect scares her. 

There’s only one place in the city she can get work from. Nowadays, most Huntress teams get their work from an online bulletin board. Still, all of the four main cities still have their old lodge buildings standing, despite the flow of time. Unwilling to tear down the historic marvels, unwilling to remove the vital pieces of infrastructure. Maybe they’d be justified if the worst comes and the cities need to organize their Huntsmen the old fashioned way. Until then, they see little use except as a gathering space.

The benefit of these old buildings, Ruby finds, is that unlike a computer, if you carry a big enough weapon, you might be able to persuade the front desk clerk to give you a job without a license.

She pauses before the doors for a second, hyping herself up, allowing the trimmed wood surrounding these halls that could fit giants impose on her an importance that is not real, but fills her heart with something all the same. She knows that the ego and grandeur of a Hunter’s job is a lie, half for the public, and half for the deluded, but she’s always loved fairytales. 

Her shoulders scrunch up toward her ears thinking about the type of people that must be behind these doors. Three generations, or even just one, before her. What would they think of her now? She’s still unsure if what she’s doing is cowardice, a mockery, or staying true to her heart. She sighs into the comfort of her hood. It was a lot easier to do this in the smaller towns, but she has this! What would Roman and Neo think of her being turned away not by the heroes she forsook, but by a particularly meaningful door? She flips up her hood and keeps her head down, lest her babyface ruin any chance she has, and walks in.

The lodge is sparsely populated— no surprise there, but noise washes over her as the great doors swing open. Filled with old-timers without their hearing reminiscing on what used to be, and a few younger Huntsmen who insist upon the community that something vital will be lost if these sort of communal spaces go unused. She can imagine the rooms silent, as easy as the loud truth that now fills her ears.

The main hall is grand, but it keeps itself simple in ambition. The money spent imbues a sense of comfort, even if the construction cost visibly rivals gold in its rich woods and intricate trimwork. The true center of the building is towards the ceiling, crested upon the high walls, are wooden sheets with stenciled paintings. Telling tales of surely dead Huntsmen, accomplishing deeds she has never heard of, can’t place, but now feels as if she knows.

It’s a building that does not recognize her.

She doesn’t feel out of place, but she’s aware she is something just shy of another face in the crowd. She marches towards the front desk, and she fails to decide if she likes it like that, or if this is awful.

She hasn’t made up her mind by the time she reaches it.

The clerk scans her with flinty eyes. “You’re a new face. What are you here for, stranger?” He asks her not unkindly. Old and brawny, with knuckles that have bled. 

He seems a part of the building as much as the walls. And although he gives the impression of knowing the inner workings of the lodge, she can also tell he is an old and experienced huntsman. He’s a lot like Ooblek in that regard; not enough years to have mastered everything he has, yet here all the same.

“Just looking for work, I’ll take what it is you most need done. I’m here to help.” She cocks her hips to the side, trying her best to show off Crescent Rose in its sheathed form as much as she can, without revealing too much of her face.

The clerk hums skeptically. “I don’t suppose I can see a License.”

Don’t play it nervous. Better yet, don’t be nervous. But don’t be cocky either, just… Be? That can’t be right , she thinks, but it’s the best she has.

“No, I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

He looks her over once, then twice, and takes a second to consider the sound of her voice, before his eyes settle onto Crescent Rose.

“You’re a bit young for this, aren’t you?”

There’s no reason to lie , she thinks. Obviously lying might make him trust her less, and her age isn’t something she knows how to hide anyhow. At the same time, in the back of her mind she imagines Roman and Neo, both looking down at her and shaking their heads. She really doesn’t have a full grasp on what it is she signed up for with them, but she figures she should act on the side of caution when it comes to things that could lead people back to their home. So, she settles for the best lievasion she has. 

She never thought of herself as such, but recent life developments have made her realize she might actually be the type of person that is naturally talented at such things. It’s difficult to rationalize the realization away, after the detail in which she just contemplated the various merits of a lie. 

“I’ve gone on plenty of hunts before. I have experience, I won’t be a liability.”

“I’m sure you won't lass, but the Jungle is no place to hunt on your own. Even our best need help to traverse it. Just like Atlas and their snow, just like Vacuo and their dessert, we have certain policies and standards that must be abided by. The academy is open to anyone that can make the cut, if you do have experience, then that’s where you should head. They’ll give you lodging as well.” He adds that last part on kindly, looking down at her like she imagines he has done at so many country kids that pass through these walls and one day become trusted allies. Finding him again later in life and thanking him for saving them, for pulling them out of the hole they made for themselves by leaving their town without a plan.

She wonders how many of them have died before him.

She scoffs under her hood, quietly but without pity. They knew what they were getting into, and so did she, but she made her choice. Her life might be a doomed one, but she won't die in vain. 

She doesn’t need a home that takes even that from her.  

She probably should’ve expected this. The city can afford to be picky in its Huntsmen selection, compared to the towns she stopped at along the way, who were happy to entrust themselves to anyone with a weapon. 

She doesn’t have a clue what she will do if she can’t hunt here. She’s not even sure if she can do something else, Hunting is her life . She was born for this. But leaving the city doesn’t feel like an option either. Not when Roman and Neo feel so… promising.

Honesty it is then, for one last plea.

“Please. I’ve been to an academy before, just for a little while. Me and my team… It didn’t work out. I can’t go through that sort of process again, I don’t think I’m built for it. I can work alone. I work better alone. I just need some work to pan out, and to be able to help where I can. Please .”

He tries to look at her intently enough to be able to see under her hood, and when he realizes that it’s a futile effort, continues to stare on. There’s a silence not in the lodge, but between the two of them. It holds something heavy Ruby can’t quite place, yet has her heart beating. Has her shaking in her bones. It’s not fear, and it’s not excitement, but it’s a feeling she wants out of her. Even still, that unbearable itch, the scrutiny of a stranger and a veteran, is weighed and found wanting. Want , is something that is flowing through her chest, and pulling her in two directions like the rapids of a split river.

The first current reminds her of her need to Hunt. Whoever she is going to be, that must be true. The second, carves out its place in Mistral. She wants to stay here.  She’s not sure if she can do this, if she has to live alone. Be alone. 

If the choice were to leave Mistral or hang up Crescent Rose, Ruby knows she would leave. If the choice were to be alone or crawl shamefully back to Vale, she’s not sure what she would do. She needs this, then, yearns greedily for both worlds. Mistral means Roman and Neo, and Roman and Neo mean Mistral.

If it becomes a choice between leaving Mistral, and not being able to hunt, she knows she would leave.

But she just doesn’t want to. Her throat dries at the thought, even if her desperation feels childish to her. To want so blatantly is wrong. Not who she is, or who she must be.  

It’s only been recently, that she’s had trouble forcing herself to not feel this yearning that can’t be hers. She’s always known, not being vigilant would ruin her. 

It already has, her presence here confirms it.

And yet she still can’t stop herself. Selfish, selfish, selfish, everything a huntress shouldn’t be.

But maybe, it can be good for something. She hopes her desperation makes it through to the clerk. She’d do anything, to have her way just this once.

She can tell what his choice is before he creaks out his first word, and she can feel all the tension in her body leave her in a single sigh of relief. 

“Alright lass, That’s not something I can deny. No one here can, we’ve all seen what it’s like. Take a job, but take something you know you can handle . I won’t be responsible for an entire wipe out.”

He flips his screen around, lets her scroll through a city's worth of problems.

On the road here, she would just tell the local officials she would clear the local grounds of Grimm, return with the bones that proved it, and move on.

Here, Hunting is documented beyond reason or protection. You’re not supposed to kill something you didn’t tell the council you were Hunting to kill first. First you must document what it is you intend to remove, then you must document where exactly you will be hunting it, and then and only then, can you move to dispose of the creatures that assuredly kill and destroy what the very same council has built here, every day they are left unattended. If you see a Grimm you haven’t documented an intent to hunt, even if you have a clear line on it, you are supposed to leave it be. It’s the only way the city can keep track of exactly how many Grimm are in their forests, so they say. There is a logic to it, an illusion of safety.

But it leaves such a terrible taste in her mouth.

What was it that Neo had said? Lie, cheat, steal. Take what you want?

Well, she hasn’t really lied yet. But the idea floating through her mind is certainly close to duplicity. She isn’t cheating, unless you count ignoring the rules entirely as cheating. This is the exact opposite of stealing as well, unless you count taking jobs out of the maws of other huntsman. But from how old some of these missions are, it’s hard to describe it as stealing when you are robbing from abundance.

What she wants to do is Hunt Grimm. Play her part in the natural order of humanity. It just seems fair, really. Obvious. Regulating her out of this would be like regulating air from entering the city on a breeze.

She finds the largest designated area of land the city defines in its outskirts. She finds the posting with the most zeroes at the end, something a nascent part of her sings at. She’d never thought about Lien before, but she can only imagine how Roman eyes would sparkle, and the way his mouth would drool once more at Mistral’s big-city cash, and she hums to herself at the imagined praise. Then, she presses the “accept quest” button, and prepares to not face the consequences.

The mans eyes widen. “Hold on there. I can’t let you take this on your own. There are easier ways to kill yourself that don’t involve implicating me. Letting a solo huntress take on an King Taijitu? Even if you were licensed they’d have my head, get ba-“

He looks back up from the screen, and sees not but a single petal, drifting down towards this way and that, until it touches the ground.

~~~

31 DAYS AND EIGHT HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON. 

Take, that’s what Ruby’s new hosts want of her. To know what she wants and to seize it. For them, it’s so often money and leisure, which Ruby has never learned to cared all that much for. It’s easy, then, for Ruby to forget how natural it is for her. To take.

Her heart pounds in her ears. She feels it in her fingertips where they wrap around Crescent Rose. Space is something that belongs to her. The shadows and branches, claws and hooves and roots, each take desperately from a scarce pool in the dense wood. Compared to them, Ruby is a fragile thing. Still, she carries behind her what is death. A cut so clean, so heavy, you don’t even feel it as it takes movement and hate from the Life and Grimm caught beneath it.

Their space is simple to steal. No, it’s hardly stealing, just taking back what’s already hers. What had she told herself earlier? That voice in her ear that had sounded like Roman? It’s not stealing, if it’s robbing from abundance.

Some of these things had been alive for so long. 

She Run right to where their mouths will clamp, jumps high where their tails may whip, free falls into the demise of their grasp, and faces all of them with certainty, as Crescent Rose hunts, rips, and kills all that threatens the people she has devoted everything to protect.

Three people in the past have seen her fight like this. Qrow, Yang, and Weiss. They had all seen mistakes. Saw a death she just barely avoided, a risk too bold, and told her that she had overextended into space her opponent controlled. But that had never been the case. When taking is so easy as to be predetermined, it’s only logical to act as though that space doesn't belong to her opponents at all. Even as her throat speeds past the jaws of a Taijutu with not even an inch separating her from her demise. She does not fear, she does not question, she feels nothing but joy as she takes what is hers.

She had dulled this part of herself. Held Crescent Rose like it was a defense. As if it could conduct its purpose from afar. As if there is a way to fight with it that could ever be ‘safe’. From what other position could she lead, from what other position could she inspire hope through the complete erasure of worry.

She flies through positions on the battlefield any other huntsman would perish in, if they were to attempt to take as she does. They’d be punished for overextension, punished for lack. Killed for failure. She flies through the trees, across the ground, and up into the sky, with a speed and a loose commitment to human form that overwhelms her senses with exhilarating joy .

This is fun. She had forgotten. It had been so long since hunting felt like this, before she had committed herself to her duty, to her purpose, to a summer everyone would live long enough to experience, but fighting like this is fun. It would be dull if her family had been right. If this was just luck, if she was uncertain. But this… this is fucking difficult. Seeing the singular path she can take to move like this and survive. Seeing every choice she must process, make, and execute perfectly, all within half a second, and actually fucking doing it.

It’s a melding between instinct and thought. All the life she’s poured into the Hunt, returned in soaring adrenaline and endorphins and pure joy . And even as she feels it like the undiluted truth it is, there is a hint of hate in it. An anger that she just realizes has been there all along, but she never let herself feel. The bitter taste of artificial sweetener you’d only recognize after tasting fresher food. She will never let anyone dull her down again.

She has a job to do, a role to play. A few scraps of an outline she will keep while throwing the whole story out and starting again. Crescent Rose falls upon Grimm as sure as sunrise. She sucks in a breath that tastes like Grimm-ash and lets out a laugh. Ruby Rose will never not fight like this again.

~~~

31 DAYS AND FIVE HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON.

Ruby returns to the high walls, parapets, and falls of Mistral, with everything she needs to prove her job is complete. Bones, pictures, and a grimm satisfaction radiating like a stench stuck to her cloak.

She could sing as she skips through the streets with a giddy ferocity. She can feel everything stuck to her like a content weight in her heart. Photos of decaying Grimm than just an Elder Taijiti, a heat that’s cooled only by measured breaths and the natural cooling breeze a battle skirt provides, a stick of sweat and a sore looseness of muscles, as well as a few pocketfuls of whatever stray bones she can carry. Just in case they don’t believe the pictures.

They do. There’s a moment’s heavy silence, and the grizzled Hunters of the lodge huddle on the other side of her scroll screen.

And even with her hood down, there are eyes on her, and an air of jubilation like she never felt before. Fear, and recognition, and acknowledgement, all in one giant swirl. She doesn’t know these people, but she lets herself enjoy this. She lets herself have pride.

She’s not sure if she wants this, but, it will be good practice to try.

~~~

31 DAYS AND 2 HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON

She sees neither Roman nor Neo on her way through the house, and though she would like to talk to them more, there is a certain blistering swell in her heart both at being trusted, and at having done it. Lived her life in such a way, to become trusted by people like the two of them. 

She doesn’t know how to talk to them beyond that. Or if she wants to. 

She’s on her own and fine, great, good even.

She makes her way to her room, runs through some cooldown stretches and a shower with a decadent (if confusing) array of nozzles that she fidgets with until all the nozzles spray hot as can be. Then she scrubs herself down with whatever soaps Roman had tossed in the guest bathroom as an afterthought, or maybe they came with the house? Either way, she washes until not just the work of the day, but her top most layer of dead skin and a little extra comes off.

When she hits the bed, she’s sore and free and burned and soft, and the mattress is firm and the blankets are made stiff. Meant to be pretty more than cozy, but it’s the happiest she’s ever felt to memory. It’s joy, that all of this is hers.

~~~

28 DAYS AND TWELVE HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON

Ruby awakes and packs in the same breath. Crescent Rose strapped to her hip, her body fully dressed, and a pouch full of essentials all present and making their way out the door before she even has time to wake up. While she’s padding through the living room, chatter and a heavy, savory smell drift in from the kitchen. For the first time since she got here, it seems that Roman and Neo are awake at the same time she’s leaving.

She tries to dampen her footsteps, not wanting to bother them. They said they would reach out to her if they wanted to talk or do something or… Well, whatever it is they’d do together. Ruby’s not really sure how relationships work when she isn’t scheduling and forcing them onto others for the sake of team morale optimization. Either way, she doesn’t want to burden them. It’s a steady thought in her mind as the door creaks open just enough for her to slip out.

She’s not fast enough, to get out before someone (Roman) starts yelling.

“Hup-up-up, now where do you think you’re going, Red!?”

A very perturbed Roman stomps out of the kitchen after her, an overdramatic scowl scrunching up his face, with just a hint of actual annoyance.

“Oh, uh, hi. Sorry for sneaking out, I ju-“

He loops his arm around her shoulder, and starts directing her back into the shared kitchen, light of the morning illuminating central parts of the house that still feel new to her.

“Yes, yes, slinking away in the middle of the… Ugh. Eight am. I know all about you not wanting to bother us or whatever, and frankly I was okay with that, even if I think Neo was starting to scheme some sort of kidnapping excursion for you.”

She sounds a bit like Weiss, when she asks, “What does that mean?” and the thought discombobulates her with enough guilt and mysterious nausea that she doesn't resist Romans puppetering at all.

As the two of them make it into the kitchen, Ruby is greeted a feast. Cured meats and breads that crackle when you break them in two. Eggs and jams and creams that fill her nose with rich, savory sweetness, all wrapped into the smokey bitterness of coffee and tobacco. Both of which ruin the mood, but Ruby already knows what Roman and every other coffee-fan says: It’s an acquired taste. For the first time, she thinks she might actually acquire it, and one day that smell would be just as fine.

Neo pops up from the table, where she was slowly sliding a soft pastry covered in cream and berries into her mouth, and gives Ruby a wide smile and short, rapid wave to match.

“It means she’s bad at making friends. Look, Red, that’s not what I stopped you at the door for, I stopped you at the door because we have a problem. Two problems actually.”

Cold fear melts down her spine, but she’s almost certain she hasn’t fucked anything up yet, and panicking before he’s done with his spiel won’t do any good. Besides, she’s starting to get the sense that this is just how he talks, and it’s better to sit back and enjoy him monologuing. She’ll figure out what he really meant at the end of it all, rather than hanging onto the tension of every word.

So, she leans back into her chair a little, across from Neo who is preparing a plate stacked with every decadence on the table. The plate gets pushed towards her, and Ruby gives Neo the most thankful nod she can, before returning her attention to Roman.

“We do?”

“Yeah, yeah we fucking do. Problem one, eat.”

“Huh?”

“The food, in front of you, I’m too rich to cook every morning, or any morning at all really, and I did it for a reason. Eat.”

She thinks for a second that, this is it, this is where she gets poisoned for the many many failures in personal choices she made, that led her here.

She quashes the thought down. If those very choices are what is going to kill her, it’s not going to be because she refused to commit, or because she was scared. She trusts Roman and Neo with her entire heart, that’s final. The trust being sensible, or earned, can come later.

With a serious expression, she slowly slides a pastry into her mouth. Her teeth don’t get the chance to cut through it, as butter and fruit-flavored cream melts on her tongue. It’s unlike anything she’s ever eaten before, unfurled from plastic wrappers or the memories of her mothers cooking that never tasted as sweet as they once did after she forgot the details of their moments. The type of baked goods that have a chew and a singular flavor to enjoy. She can divide every single ingredient in this while it’s still in her mouth, appreciate them all as they are, and then let them sing as she swallows. She’s not ashamed to admit she moans as a little as it goes down, and settles gently in her stomach.

The level of quality in food you can only appreciate when you’re older, and suddenly childhood memories don’t seem half as important.

As her eyes flutter back open, she sees Roman looking at her with a raised eyebrow, and Neo from across the table nodding sagely.

“Right, okay, that is exactly why we need to have this talk.”

“Your serious talk is about pastries?”

“My serious talk is that I can see what you have been, or more aptly, not been, eating.”

There’s a brief silence in the room, and Neo snickers like a whistling sound through her teeth.

“… Have you been stalking me?”

Neo smugly signs something at Roman.

“No, I’m not ‘stalking’ you Red, I just have eyes, do the grocery shopping, and just in case you somehow forgot, you’re using my card. I know that despite presumably being out Hunting for hours I think are frankly overkill even for fully trained professionals, which you aren’t, you’re not only not taking anything from our cupboard, but you are at maximum taking eating out twice a day.”

Neo levels a very serious look at Ruby, and a sudden spike of guilt at not having purchased any sign language books, pours into the tension of being lectured like this.

She hasn’t been lectured like this… No, she realizes, she can’t remember the last time she’s been lectured like this. It’s not the way worry has manifested from the people in her life before. She’s always been seen as capable, just too young, not ready. Being told that what she’s doing is impressive, but she should take better care of herself while doing it, resonates in a way that makes her feel well and truly chastened.

“… I didn’t know if it was okay for me to grab food from here.”

“Brothers, Red, I told you,” Roman leans down so they’re face to face, hands on his hip and eyes locked. “We’re equals here Red. I don’t take charity cases. I wouldn’t have let you stay here if Neo didn’t find you interesting, and if you’re going to stay here, we are going to get to know each other now and then. I refuse to retire just to have a stranger walking in and out of my house, so you are going to be a part of this household, young lady.”

Ruby blinks. Neo is back to nodding sagely in her direction.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t—“

“Which brings me to my second point!” !”

Neo pops up behind Roman, the version of her that was just at her seat shattering, and gives an exaggerated thump of “two!” with her hands. A sort of dramatic bunny ears to accent Roman’s… presentation? Intervention? Eviction? Talking with her new roommates still feels a bit like ice skating above a dark and deep lake. She doesn’t have a clue where she stands or how sturdy her standing even is.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean t-“

“Oh, blah-blah-blah. Stop that. No apologizing for the problems you’ve made. Have a look at this!”

Roman slams a paper document in front of her. No indents, no spaces, ten point text, just complete nonsense.

“Roman, what is this?”

“It’s a pain in the ass, Red, is what it is, and a broken promise from you oh-so soon.”

“I-“

“Go on, drink your coffee, have some protein, get a taste for some actual food.”

Ruby has no idea where he is going with this, but pulls the mug of coffee close to her. She’s never really had the stuff before. Well, she had it a few times with Weiss? But that mostly involved a lot of swallowing with her tongue pressed down, and some suppressed gagging. She didn’t want to offend her, when she was trying so hard to be nice. She takes a sniff and scrunches her nose. No amount of openness to new experiences has given her more affinity for such strong bitterness.

“Oh my god, have you not had coffee before? Okay, don’t drink that, give it here, this won’t be your first cup.” He playful slaps at her hands, keeping her away from the cup of coffee, and then levels her with a serious look and a dire tone, as if his trivial concern was a grave threat. “But put that on the docket.”

“Why do you care if I like coffee or not?”

Roman looks at her like she’s as gross and bitter as his coffee. “Have you not been listening to a thing I said?”

“I… what does me not eating have to do with me not liking coffee?”

Neo goes back to her seat, and places a hand on Ruby's shoulder from across the table. Making a conflicted expression with her face as if to say, ‘I understand where you’re coming from, but you shouldn’t have said that.’

“What? No, that was not at all the point I was trying to make, I mean you will be eating three meals a day at minimum from now on, but that’s not what I took issue with. I’m objecting to the fact that your entire… perspective, is personally offensive to me.”

“I’m… sorry?”

“You should be! You really should, I mean it’s pathetic Red. It boggles the mind how some people can exist like you.”

Neo nods her head along as Roman preaches, and when Ruby looks towards her for answers, confusion plain on her face, she is given a quick apologetic look hidden from Roman. That little jerk is playing both sides. 

“I mean seriously, you work your ass off. Do the work of an entire team of Huntsmen on your own. Convince people like me and Neo that you’re worth having around, and boom, all the wealth of the world is at your fingertips. Anything you want is at your beck and call, and you couldn’t care less. Not a single luxury enjoyed. As if you don’t want for anything. And I’ll tell you, everyone out there wants something, Red.”

It’s… it’s an interesting point, not one she fully considered before. It feels embarrassing, to know herself so little. “I… I don’t think that’s the case, I just… don’t know what to want.”

Roman throws his hands in the air, as if she’s pointing out the obvious. “I know! You basically said as much the night you came here! I should have realized it and done something about it instantly! I just thought you might have come to us first, I was counting on you to be a base level of annoying, that you apparently just aren’t, and somehow that ended up being worse! ” She lets out an ‘eep’ as his hands slam back down on the table, after he delivered his monologue through a distant pacing, “Well, no more! We are doing something about it, me and Neo will not let you squander life so fantastically.”

“You won’t?”

Neo shatters once again, and appears in the seat next to Ruby’s, taking the forsaken cup of coffee Roman had made for her and sipping from it, while putting a comforting hand on her thigh. Roman casually slides into Neo's old seat, giving her a serious look from across the table.

“No, we won’t. The three of us are going out today. Like I told you we would. We are going to find out what you want, and you are going to learn to love it. You did a brave thing jumping ship, a smart thing, it physically pains me for such a thing to go unrewarded.”

Something chokes at her throat, something confusing twists her heart, and for a brief moment it feels as if her body isn’t her own. The nonsense of her recent choices catching up to her, and throwing everything she could possibly be thinking about into question as she’s sitting at a strangers table in a far off land, but her self and surroundings snap back into place just as quickly as she had lost them. Roman is illuminated through linen curtains afront of her, and Neo, a woman she knows so little about at her side. It's the clarity of change.

“Y-you two don’t have to do this.”

“Nope, we don’t, Red. But Neo wants to, and I hate to admit it, but you’re interesting. Besides, I’ve always had a knack for corrupting the youth it seems, and I don’t do anything half-assed. Is it really so hard for you to understand that whatever it is that you’re doing here, is as interesting to me as it is for you? All the pleasure of showing someone how to do what they want, without all the work of finding the money for it first. Let’s figure this shit out together, huh?”

“Roman, I-“

Neo puts a finger to Ruby's lips silencing her, and Roman speaks as if one with his partner in crime, “hush hush now Little Red, no need for complicating the matters. Now, eat your sandwich.”

With misty eyes, she takes a bite of a sandwich Neo had plated for her while she wasn’t looking. A croissant with cured meat, cheese, and some sort of sauce. A flakey crunch, and another melting of just a few simply yet distinct flavors, and she’s back in heaven.

“I-it’s really good.”

“I know it’s good, I made it.”

“You did?”

“What? A guy can’t have hobbies? When you put your neck on the line to make as much money as I have, it would be stupid to not take part of every pleas—, you know what Red, I feel like I’ve been repeating myself. We eat good food here, what’s not to get?”

“No, no, I get that, it’s just—“

“Another criminal stereotyped by the law once more.” He sighs, shaking his head. “She thinks people like us can only be interested in drugs and violence, isn’t that right Neo.”

Neo shakes her head while clicking her tongue, shrugging her shoulders as if to say ‘what can you do.”

“What can you do indeed.”

“Sorry, I’ll uh, I’ll finish eating now.”

“You do that, and while you do, I can finally get to my second point.”

Roman reaches over the table, and slaps Ruby upside the head, light enough to remind herself not to spiral, but hard enough to actually hurt a bit.

“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Red?! I know you’re not being malicious, but that just makes this worse! I mean, shit, do we have to babysit your every move!?” !”

“Aaah! What’d I do?!” 

“I mean, we’re gonna have to anyways, but I’ll get to that, and fuck me, Red! I figured you’d have some thoughts in your brain about— I don’t know, optics? Blatantly standing out?! You managed it with your pals at Beacon just fine, so what’s got your brain misfiring now?!”

“Aaah! Why are we yelling! What’s wrong?!”

“Read, Red, read!” Roman slaps the paper in front of her a few times for emphasis. It is just as un-parseable as it was before. Neo all the while is rocking back and forth with a pleasant smile, enjoying her morning.

“I can’t!” Ruby snaps, slapping it right back. “This is— This is just garbled twelve point Lucida Sans! Your weird document sucks!”

“You see Red, as I believe I mentioned. Me and Neo live in a house, where bad things would happen if attention from the authorities was placed on it. We survive by being aggressively mundane. Which means, no huntress friends, no police, no academies, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“And I told you not to bring attention to yourself through them on the very first day. I told her that, didn’t I Neo?”

Neo nods firmly.

“Red, what this is, is a report I pay for, that summarizes any and all information that might be relevant to me throughout the city. Now, do you think that perhaps the Academy, and the Hunters guild, might just start paying close attention to a Huntress, if they start not only completing missions designed for one or more huntress teams single-handedly. But the areas in which these missions take place, are also completely absent of all Grimm afterwards.”

Neo’s rocking slows to a stop, as she processes the information she just heard, apparently not having received all of it beforehand.

“Oh… oops?”

“Yeah Red, fucking oops.”

Ruby's breath starts coming a little faster, “I’m so sorry, I, I-“

“Hup-up-up, nipping that in the bud right there. An unfortunate mistake, but an easily mended one. I plan on making you into a functional young person, with a real-ass life not controlled by the whims of ‘Headmasters’ or ‘The Law.’ I know hunting is something you enjoy, and while I’ve never gotten the taste for it, I’ve certainly met enough people in my life that love the thrill of a fight enough to respect it. Under no circumstances, will I ask you to stop hunting.”

“That’s very nice and all Roman, but that’s not wh-“

Roman shoots up from his chair, finger pointed towards the sky, “Which is why we are killing a few birds with one fine day. You wanna know how me and Neo got so close Red?”

She takes the time to think about how she’s done so with her one loved ones in the past, but to the outside world of Roman and Neo, it seems as if her “How?” came instantaneously. Excitedly letting her first thought let slip from her mind. In the brief quiet hesitance between question and answer, silent just for her, remembrance of training with Uncle Qrow, training with Yang, training with Blake, and training with Weiss, had suddenly become a depressing thought to sort through. As depressing as it was quick to be thrown out.

Roman saves her from slipping into the mundane trappings of her life historical, “By spending a lot of fucking time together, that’s how! Days upon days. So! On this day, the two of us are gonna be your shadows, just... go about what you’ve been doing normally, and we’ll be there to keep you company, and point you in a new direction now and then.”

“That… that actually sounds really fun.”

“Damn right it does Red, now let’s get this show started. You’re a busy lady, and I’d hate to sit here burning daylight after I got up so early.”

Neo ushers Ruby up and out of her chair, quick to throw her arm around Ruby’s shoulder and guide the two of them out the door with a smile, Roman right on their heels.

~~~

28 DAYS AND ELEVEN HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON.

The Mistrali morning was humid yet cool, and the streets sang with the brightness of the sun. Light wood and cobbled grey feeling vibrant, as pleasant weather and clear sky mingled with the world at hand, and the life within it. The hidden pleasures of a perfect morning, for those that go into the world to meet them. 

Ruby walked down the street with tight hunched steps, hood covering her face, enjoying how the incognition made her feel. She was leading the pack of the merry three she had weasled her way into, a sense of separation and improbable rebellion in her soul. Roman walked close behind her with a strut in his step, and Neo with a pep that bordered being a skip.  

“So Red, where ya taking us? Always was curious how a girl like you managed to find off the books work.” 

“Oh, uh, just the lodge, really. Why?”

Both Roman and Neo halt their walking immediately. 

Neo stares, shock-still and bug-eyed, and Roman’s mouth is pursed in a tight O. She immediately hears how stupid what she just said must sound, but all she can do is nervously laugh.

“Is… was there someplace else I was supposed to go…?”

“ Somewhere else she says,” Roman says in a whisper, “Red! Literally anywhere else.”

“I didn’t know other places offered hunting jobs!”

“Didn’t you say you bought our address somewhere, you’re telling me a legal hunting lodge sold you that tidbit of information with the pig seal of approval?”

“Well, yeah , I, uh, I bought that from this like… Themed bar? The leader of a foresty town told me about it on my way to the city. It was like, spider themed or something? Kinda tacky honestly, fake webs all about, but how was I supposed to know what to ask! Other than ‘Please give me this address, no I would not like drugs please and thank you, no crime for me!’”

Neo nods along to this wisely, as if it makes a great amount of sense to her. 

“Okay, I’m gonna have to go and have a talk with Little Miss about how cheap she sells me out for.” And you’re not going back to that bar under any circumstances. That being said, you are going to do a little crime for yourself, if only so you hunt without ratting us all out I feel like I’ve adopted a poodle that will doom us all.” 

“Why are bad guys willing to commission hunts! How does that make any sense! Why was I expected to know that!”

“Red, you’re a bad guy now.”

“No! I’m a retired bad guy now. If being your two’s hanger on makes me inherit all the no gooding you’ve done in the past, then the only thing I’ve inherited is an HOA membership and a funny backstory.”

Neo makes a gentle swing with her fingers, as if to imply ‘Not a bad guy yet. ’ 

Ruby and Roman both chuckle at the display, though Roman takes the moment to light a cigar and drag it to his mouth, shaking his head in a stressed mirth. “That’s about to change soon Red, if this is going to work, I’m gonna introduce you to some people that would get arrested just for showing their faces in public.” He makes a gesture towards her hood, “good practice on that front by the way, very intimidating, it’s good to build a brand in our world.”

‘Our’ flutters and weighs down upon Ruby's heart. “Right.”

“And to answer your question, It’s like you said Red. The killing of Grimm is a service required anywhere, by everyone, at any time, in near endless quantities. A lot of what the organizations I’m about to introduce you to, well, organize, are jobs that would attract an awful lot of ‘em. And believe it or not, the average junkie selling a neighborhood their next hit of whatever feels good but makes ya miserable, can’t actually fight off a Nevermore, and Nevermore swooping down upon the gutter trash for snacks isn’t great for the bottom line.”

“That… makes sense.” 

He continues on, rushing past her contemplative mood, even while Neo looks at her with concern in her eyes. She was right to think that once he starts talking, he won’t stop until he’s done. “Also, Red. These people are going to have an abundance of Jobs for you, not many people come to them capable of culling Grimm. Some advice, kid? Every now and then, take some other jobs from ‘em. Protection and the like, nothing serious, but your weapon-”

“Crescent Rose.”

“Alone is enough for people to pay you to stand behind them menacingly. Muscle not meant to punch. We now know how many Grimm you can cull in a weekend, and they won’t take kindly to you bringing the city’s attention on why their estimates are suddenly so out of wack. So if you wanna go out and fight every day-”

“I… I don’t think fighting is why this is something I want.”

Neo signs something elaborate at her, and Ruby doesn’t have a clue what she’s saying. She really has wasted her freedom, and her time, in this city. She really needs those sign books. 

Roman looks at her gently. “Don’t worry Red, I can translate for you, for now. She said that, even if that’s true, enjoying it is something you should learn how to do, because you might have to, so you might as well.”

“Crescent Rose is… I designed it with the idea that it would never be used on an actual person in mind. I wouldn’t last against someone who’s experienced fighting other experienced Huntsman, not unless I…”

Neo signs more at her, this time clearly slowing down for her. Romans face turns gloomy, and he doesn’t translate at first. He might not need to, some of the imagery she uses is evocative, in a way that settles an assumption of understanding in her heart, and she mutters out what is only a guess. 

“You… you think that I could learn to enjoy it, using Crescent Rose how it’s supposed to… on people? That I… You really think I could be okay with something like that… because, you were in the same situation as me once?”

“Wow, I’m surprised you got all that, basically right on the money.” 

Ruby looks towards Roman desperately while Neo observers her unflinching, smiling, enthused just to watch how she reacts. 

“I-I don’t want to be that sort of person! I just want to be a Huntress. I’ll look past— accept certain things! It’s not the same as-”

Roman puts a gentle hand on her shoulder, but it pulls them together until his piercing eyes are entrenched in her personal space. Silver seems like such a dull color in the face of true vibrancy. “Woah! Hey, calm down there Red. You will never have to do something you don’t want to. You proved by coming here, that that’s a truth you understand well. And me and Neo, we will never force you into anything, we will never judge you for acting on nothing but your will. It’s kinda our whole thing. But just… we’re just saying, you won’t be able to hunt everyday and stay out of the Hunter systems. Which means that you’ll have to figure out other things to do with your life. You yourself said that’s something you felt like you needed to do anyhow… and you also said you were open to trying anything to figure it out. So, just, do what you want, but also don’t let the past color your understanding of yourself, your wants, your ability, or have any influence on you now.” 

Neo nods along to this, her smile frozen on her face, an eerie approval of what is being said, and that Ruby is choosing to listen.

“R-right.”

Roman leans back from Ruby's personal space, and takes the moment to take lead of the walking as Ruby shuffles along, barely moving. After a few steps he sighs upwards, and says with only minor exasperation, “Of course, the other way to learn, is to have a better understanding of your surroundings. And I did promise this is supposed to be a tour. We’ll stop by a place I know along the way, get you some food to go for your outing. Nothing spectacular, I wanna be there when you have good food for the first time, but no more slop on my dime ya hear?”

He takes her silence as affirmation, gently guiding her deeper into the city. A city so plentiful, that she realizes as she stumbles through streets and neighborhoods unlike any way she thought one could live, that she never really knew what a city was. Only the country, and only the skin. Worlds and worlds contained in every stone, down every path, which she could get lost in endlessly. She doesn’t have the sense of home that lets the locals find their way easily. 

The rest of the walk is quiet as can be. 

~~~

28 DAYS AND TEN HOURS BEFORE THE FALL OF BEACON. 

It’s on accident then, that she garners a reputation. One she’ll reflect on, awake in bed tonight, and revel in. One that fills Roman and Neo’s faces with such enrapturement, that it kindles the beginning of home. 

Two criminals of great renown walk into a bar. They are inspirations, proof that all the street rats around them can turn a new leaf, and yet here they are. Coming in with packaged sandwiches from a local place even the slime that frequents here love to indulge in when they can. They lead in behind them, a cold, as if they had left the door open for a draft. Quite rude, except of course— the door is closed, and the cold is a figure.

A figure shrouded in a red cloak, dim in the dive’s lights, who carries on her back a Scythe of such mastery and excess, that none there could imagine even the richest of mortals crafting it. A woman who carries with her, utter silence, and the inevitable. One-by-one the fall of wilting petals from a rose. She says no word, and shows no face, if she even has such a thing. 

Perhaps it was taken from her, they whisper. Perhaps it is scared. Perhaps it is old. Perhaps it is known and what she has done is so awful, that this is all she can do. Perhaps her calloused hands have broken the necks of those that have tried to see under it. Perhaps she has never had one at all, perhaps this is a monster, a machine, a force. What thing could loom so large, as to turn the duo that is Torchwick and Neopolitan into a trio. 

Roman approaches the bar, and says with that charismatic dripping oil is he known for. “Eeeeeeeey Ronnie, do I have something great for you today.”

“What do you want, Torchwick.” 

Neo slides onto the bar, her legs crossed and her umbrella twirling.

The figure looms.

“Now is that any way to speak to a friend? I’m here on charity, if you’d believe it. The only thing I want is to solve your problems.”

“Never once in the history of Remnant, have you solved someone's problems.”

“I sure have been in a lot of them though, haven’t I?”

Neo mimes a laughing audience, but not a sound is made.

“Listen Ronnie, let’s keep it simple, see this woman here.” He steps aside, gesturing to Ruby. “Trust her with any job you have. Whatever she wants to do, you let her. And please, make sure to give her options.” Roman makes a show of gesturing to Crescent Rose, as if even he is unsettled by her, “Take it from me boss man, she can get… single-minded sometimes. Best to give her options.”

The man looks at the three of them, an uncertain fear creaking through his voice, “...We don’t trust people on the honest word of Roman Torchwick.”

“Not for the important stuff, sure sure I get that. I am me after all.” He fixes the man with a winning smile, “but Red here’s not all that interested in that at the moment, and you’ll trust anyone who’s willing with the Grimm, won’t ya?”

“Not my business who wants to kill themselves.”

“Right, so hand ‘em over.”

“Hand… what over.”

“I feel like he hasn’t listened to a word I said, Neo. Has he listened to a word I said?”

Neo shrugs and shakes her head, saying for everyone to see ‘what can ya do about idiots.’

“Your hunting jobs Ronnie, hand ‘em over.”

“Which ones, Roman.”

“ All of them.”

The entire bar had stopped to observe this conversation, but Roman and his influence can carry the energy of a building, so when he pauses for effect, it is pure silence. 

Ronnie, who has the job of being unphased and unamused by anyone who walks into his bar, responds with the hint of a confused tremble in his voice.  “Wh-when can I expect these to be done?”

He puts a collection of paper on the desk, details on what to hunt, what proof you need for payment, and what the lofty payments actually are.

The Figure makes her first move since walking in, gently reaching her hand out, and sliding the papers into her pocket. Not saying a word, not betraying a thought, letting Roman speak for her as if her voice wasn’t worth their ears.

“Eh, end of the day probably? If I were you, I’d just consider them done.”

Neo kicks off the counter, and with a trail of petals, the trio walks out of the bar. The sound of conversation doesn’t start back up for a record-breaking thirty seconds.

~~~

28 DAYS AND NINE HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

About thirty feet down the road and around the corner from the Poison Lounge, a petal flutters to rest on the cobbles.

“Red, that was brilliant— No, that was fucking amazing. I don’t think you even know what you did, but it was spectacular.” 

His exuberance sweeps up her nerves into overflowing excitement. She tries to get a hold on her emotions, but it’s as easy as holding a river in her hands.

She still has jitters! She was shaking so hard in there, she had to leak some of her semblance to hide it. If she’s going to have to go there multiple times a week… she’s going to need to get a lot braver, or change some things about how she views the world. 

She feels like she could throw up, but she can’t stop smiling. How easy it might be to change those things, she heard it herself, after today the option to be paid to take jobs where she might have to kill will be available to her, where she would be praised like this for it, maybe? She’s still not sure what’s expected of her. But it’s new! And they’re both smiling at her! Gesturing at her like the three of them have just gotten something away with— Well, more than murder, given their rap sheet. She doesn’t think she wants everything she’s been offered, but she can’t deny the accomplishment she feels. 

~~~

28 DAYS AND SEVEN HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

She asked uncle Qrow once, what it was like to kill someone. Ruby is still pretty sure he would’ve kept his lips sealed if he was sober— But instead, he grimaced. He told her it cut away a part of who he was everytime. Little pieces of himself he’ll never get back. As she cuts, and cuts, and cuts, until she’s choking on Grimm ashes, each slice tears away one little fear, one little anxiety, one free running thought, until at least she has peace.

Peace, defined by a nothing. Of a mind free from thought, and self. Empty and so alterable. Absent, and so stagnant. 

A cutting, and cutting, and cutting, until all that is left is wind. The only thing capable of pushing against her speed. And her blade, the only part of herself that must be real to fight, the rest can be burst away. 

It’s hardly even her that does the killing. It’s gravity. A cleaver meets a board, a guillotine meets a neck. If meat is in the way of their falling, it is not of concern or notice. 

She thinks of Qrow, and she thinks of her new ‘friends.’ They are not her teachers as Qrow was, but they are still providing her guidance. The difference is that where he ran off for drink, they are providing her with companionship. Where his instructions ended at how to be a better Huntress. Theirs continues in how to live her life. 

She realizes not for the first time, that it would be easy to take a life. That she already looses herself in the action, so perhaps the pain of the aftermath would be dulled. 

For the first time though, the people around her wouldn’t be disgusted if she let herself slip into what was easy. They would celebrate. They would encourage her. Neo had said it blatantly, they would teach her to enjoy it. She knows it would be easy for them. She knows that if she ever did such a thing, she would have lost so much of herself, that it would be easy for them to pick up what little was left of her and make something new. Make something more like them.

That’s what she had asked for though. That’s what she told them she wanted. She hadn’t meant it like that… but do they know the difference? She knows who she has aligned herself with, and while she welcomes them in showing her how to want, do they know how it differentiates from cruelty? Does she have the bravery, to not let them. Does she have the strength, to hold this part of herself to her heart even as everything else about her changes? 

She hates herself. She doesn’t like to think it so blatantly, but she wouldn’t have ran if it wasn’t true.

She doesn’t want to be Ruby Rose. She’s admitted as much. The loss of the cut, of the harvesting scythe, is seductive . She wants to lose herself, but to what?

She’s so tired. Tired of having to make these sorts of choices. Tired of having to direct the path people take, even her own. All she ever wanted to do was fight until the world was through with her. As her mother had. As a hero should. 

When Qrow had told her killing took away parts of him every time. She had been jealous of everything he lost. She hated herself for the jealousy, and she still does. How dare he make such a terrible thing sound so appealing. Had the thought of hurting anyone not repulsed him, like it does her? She wanted him to tell her of fear, of disgust, of pity, of retribution, of punishment. Anything that would have allowed for her to not trust him to guide her morals. But it was left to her, as it always was.

Just as the cleaver wants the purpose of a butcher, a provider. Just as the guillotine wants the purpose of revolution, a hope. She, is so tired of having to find want within herself. She doesn’t want to have to want to be herself, a huntress, just for the sake of it on its own anymore. She wants a chance to be more.

She gave up the right to everyone she has ever loved for the chance.

The thought makes her sick, with fear and disgust. She wants to throw up, but right now she can’t. A claw ghosts her stomach, a tooth almost finds perch in her neck. She is in the process of the cull, in the space of the enemy. If she stops herself now, when the world bounces back, she won’t be in it. Before she has time to think about this, she must finish her purpose. It is easy to do so.

So easy. 

She wishes it wasn’t.

She hopes it isn’t. 

She doesn’t want to be Ruby Rose anymore. But there are parts of herself, she hopes to keep.

What will be harder, she wonders? The loss, or the holding?

A scythe passes through the neck of a wolf, and her job is done.

Chapter Text

28 DAYS AND FIVE HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

When trains pull to a stop, they come to a slow, and then simply halt upon their magnetic tracks. When aircrafts land, they align themselves above the ground, and then slowly whirl their propellers until touchdown. When Ruby reappears outside the gates of the city, she stumbles, trips, rebalances herself, twists, then finally arrives with the speed to punch a crater into the cobbles. In the disturbed soil, the presence and power of a force of nature draws itself back into the biology and physics of a small but sturdy young woman. 

Roman and Neo are there to greet her, having followed her through the decrepit and abandoned city outpost they had shown her how to sneak out of, but gone no further. Sticking to the relative safety of the walls, instead of even attempting to keep up with the pace of her hunt. Politely watching her with all the understanding of people watching sportsball games hundreds of feet above the field, behind rows and rows of heads, in the nosebleeds. Neo brought binoculars! Or, illusioned up fake binoculars for a joke? Ruby isn’t quite sure. 

As her thoughts catch up with her, just a few seconds after her body, she takes in the way they’re looking at her. Neo’s eyes gleam with manic delight, an excitement she is having trouble containing in her small body. But Roman, the way he’s looking at her sends her reeling back to her old self, a recent self, made old by distance rather than time. 

Every selfish little thought she’s had to tell herself to make Mistrial make sense suddenly feel childish, rather than freeing, as he sees behind his eyes the depth of an endless potential. She can tell, she’s seen it before, but she doesn’t know how it will manifest now, with them. Is she an investment? Will he want her to spearhead his own ambitions? Plan them for him? Inspire Neo and whatever other connections he has into believing the impossible? 

Having to look like this, act like that, but for new people she’s latched onto, is bile in her throat. A sacrifice for nothing greater, a sacrifice for a path she wasn’t born for. Even so, there is a momentum to how he looks at her, just as there has been for others before. There is already panic shooting through her body, every memory of what the two of them witnessed, every close call that wasn’t actually close, but must have looked that way to an outside eye. The claws that just missed gliding through her throat by a minor twist of her body, every mouth that could have engulfed her if she was just a second slower. 

She can’t believe she let herself be so foolish, to let them see her brashness. He said it himself, they need to be able to trust her. How can they trust a display of skill that should be impossible for someone like her. How can they feel confident in a leader that’s always running ahead. 

Ruby shrinks into her cloak, looking at her mud-stained boots. “W-wow, that was a lo-”

“Holy shit Red, that was fucking something.” Roman’s hands are on her shoulders, and she sees a childlike joy in his eyes. It’s odd, seeing such an open, expressive look on his face. He’s a bit more like Neo in that moment, and far less smug than usual. She finds herself memorizing the shape of his sincere smile. Wanting to drink in the moment, for much longer than it will last. 

“Wait, what?”

Neo nods along behind him in endless affirmation. 

“I’m not going to pretend I know exactly what the fuck was going on, but you didn’t even struggle with any of that!”

“W-well I mean—”

“‘Well I mean’ she says. Neo, can you believe this girl? ‘Well I mean.’ I’ve heard of full fledged huntsmen strangling themselves on loose vines trying to navigate this horrid place, and you were bouncing off its trees like you were born for it! Like she was some sort of… Fuck! What are those big jungle cats Neo?” Still in the motions of his babbling, he turns his head to Neo, more excited than questioning. Neo helpfully signs something at him, and like a pendulum the enthusiastic force of Roman Torwhick is back upon her, and she can’t help the expression on her face from being caught up in the embarrassment and the enthusiasm. Not that it slows Roman down in the slightest, not like she can get her bearings when Neo is looking at her like that. “Right! A puma, you were like a fucking puma out there! I mean, the confidence of ya kid, it’s really something to see when I’m not on the other side of it.”

 He gets behind her, lighting a new cigar as his arms drape across her shoulders, taking a single drag before she’s settled beneath him. It’s comforting, although Ruby still jolts at his touch. She wouldn’t expect such casual touch from someone she hardly knows— But, then again, Roman is someone she is terribly familiar with, even if that hasn’t crept towards fondness yet. Not that one is required for the other, all that matters is she does feel as if he belongs in her life, despite the short time they’ve actually shared. 

Either way, it's a display of affection from someone she isn’t accustomed to. Possessing a heavy smell, that once meant “You’re close, You’re in danger.” A smell that isn’t quite like home yet, but has been the one constant familiarity during this whirlwind of change. She doesn’t cough at the secondhand smoke anymore.

“Now Red, I believe it’s time for the main show. This was a nice display and all, but now that I’ve seen it, I’m content to leave you to it. All three of us need an outlet just for us and all that, that’s ‘boundaries of decadence’ 101 really.” 

She has no clue what he’s rambling about, and it does nothing to un-frazzle her from what she’s just done. A month ago, it’d be a massive fuck-up that’d change the dynamics of her team forever. A Yang too debilitated by worry to act in congruency, A Blake who sees a leader too sure of themselves to not act alone, A Weiss who would begin to see her purpose as but delegation for the sidelines. It hadn’t been holding back, or, if it was, she had been doing it for a reason. 

Ruby scrunches up her face. “What do you mean?” Roman looks at her like she’s asked what color grass is, which is still better than the smug look Neo is giving her, keen to let her know she heard the hidden ‘what do you want’ in her words. Maybe this is another part of whatever it is her and Neo have in common. She certainly looks like she’s eager to let Ruby in on a secret..

“Red, I’m starting to think that you don’t think my hedonism is as base as it is, and frankly, I find that insulting. I told you, I’m here to teach you to do something with the absolute crates of lien you're raking in.”

“Oh,” Ruby breathes. They’re two-faced criminals and cheats, but it really is that simple with them. Neo grabs her by the hand and starts to pull at the strings of her unmoving state. And though she can’t see her face anymore, Ruby is beginning to believe that the girl is beyond practiced in getting meaning across just by being herself. Ruby is still stupified, but Neo drags her along like a kid with a little red wagon. Each lightfooted step has enthusiasm that punctuates her smugness with either an “I told you so,” or perhaps, “Isn’t this better?” Ruby can’t tell which. Or whether it’s both.

She thinks she might agree though. Blake had slaved over a corkboard, dragging team RWBY into philosophizing over what it was that had motivated Torchwick in Vale. She followed him all the way to Mistral, and even as everything else has changed, and even without Blake, the question has stayed silent but present in the back of her head. She has her answer now, and no one to tell it to but herself.

Everything it is that Roman and Neo have done. Everything and nothing they might be okay with her doing, as long as she discovers a genuine joy for it. It has all only ever been, the price anyone pays for a simple life. One where even in the face of fate and purpose, you are capable of learning whatever it is you want, and pursuing it at any cost. No cost is too high, if you know yourself true. If your want is genuine, it’s not even a cost at all.

She doesn’t remember hating the small things she had to give up at Beacon. The price of a life not defined mostly by isolation in the woods. But clearly she had, for she ran. 

She doesn’t remember wanting much for herself in life. She had a woman to become, and that was it. She knows Roman and Neo expect a lot from her, one day, but for now it maybe it is okay to just allow herself the small things she had denied. Now that she’s here, with people who expect nothing of her but her self, she wouldn’t have to hold herself back like she had.

And if that is a want, she will maintain her promise to pursue it. She will never,  not fight like that again.

For someone like her, is that not freedom? Is that not the bare and simple courtesy?

Neo squeezes her hand. And when Ruby looks up, a fog in her eyes dissipating as she struggles her way through her thoughts, Neo just seems… so happy to be here with her. Certainly smug, but also… proud? She feels like the girl is holding back a laugh at her expense, but a kind one, one that says ‘I was right, to think you belong here with us, thanks for showing up at our doorstep and showing us you.’

Or maybe she’s just reading too far into it. Wait, isn’t that just projection? She really hopes she’s not projecting anything onto Neo. Ruby has made her own life confusing enough as is.

She really needs those sign books. 

~~~

At some point while strolling the streets of Mistral, Roman begins to lead. At some point while strolling the streets, Neo lets go of her hand. Ruby’s steps start to linger at points, her gaze wandering along the buildings, unguided and unprompted. The feeling of the city is electric. Busy, and humid, and real. Every alley has a canopy of greenery, every house its own twisting of wood, and every person around them moves with purpose, like a bustling ant colony.

It’s not like Ruby had never been to cities before. She snuck out plenty of times, like the night she had first met Roman. Back then, Vale had been a dark and quiet place. Possessing an exciting sense of illicitness that drove her forward, and kept her feeling trapped all the same. 

She had been to the downtown with her… with WBY before, but she had always hung back. She let Weiss’s determination or Yang’s confidence lead the way. It always felt less like an exploration of her own, and more an observation of how her team could merge together, into their own unit in times of peace, if only Ruby could orchestrate them a little bit better.

The first experience was never more than an extension of her life in Patch. Her second? No more than another task for her position at Beacon. Now… there is nothing. Nothing here but herself and her life. It’s daunting, and confusing, and she really really loves it she thinks.

At some point walking these streets, she realizes Neo isn’t with them anymore. Roman is still walking ahead of her, swinging his cane with a hum like he owns the place. Despite how much more room on the sidewalk he’s taking, he seems to flow amongst the crowd easier than she does. The thought is liquid potential within her, proof that something in her will take solid shape from what she’s learning to love. Something she’ll come to understand in him, and feel in herself.

She thinks about asking him where Neo went… but, she has a feeling. A feeling she had practiced in the woods with Qrow so many years ago, and she had refined at Beacon to aid in tempering Blake’s paranoia. One of being watched. It doesn’t set her off though, not like she had trained it to do. Instead, it fills her with a sense of safety, like she could throw herself at anything, and there would be someone there to back her up.

She giggles to herself as she realizes what Neo is doing, understanding all at once that as long as she lives here, with the two of them, she might just never be alone, and for once that’s more than okay. 

Roman hears her joy flittering like a breeze, obvious to notice what feels like fresh air within the oppressive humidity of the tropics, and looks behind him with a gleam in his eye. 

A part of her wants to read into it, figure out what it means to be looked at by him. She has lived her life through the eyes of others. Always on edge of what a glance could mean. A grieving familiarity from her father. A young pitiful thing from her sister. Someone gone from Qrow. A danger, or a dream, undecided from Blake. Weiss… 

Gah, thoughts. She was always at risk of… disappointing someone in an irreparable way, if she couldn’t read into those little glances. But Roman had told her to trust his base simplicity, so maybe it’s better not to overthink it. If she’s forced to draw a line between them, there’s not much dividing her from this night, and who she used to be— So instead, she remembers that age old passage. Something about a tree only being a tree? A Razor? A duck quacking? That a gleam is just a gleam, a smile just a smile, and pleasure is only something someone feels. 

Roman doesn’t stop looking at her from the corner of his eye, and she laughs again, a tad rowdier this time. She ran away from it all for things to be… simpler for her, and maybe now they really are. He ruefully shakes his head at her display, seemingly perplexed but enjoying whatever it was he saw.

She jogs a few steps to walk beside him. “What?”

“Nothing Red, you just look like you're pondering all the questions of the world in that head of yours. I must say, thinking like that doesn’t suit you.” 

She laughs again. He thinks he’s being rough with her? Prodding her more and more into his way of thinking with but a few well placed barbs? Not that she’d mind, she’s willing to take all the help she can get accepting her place in this. Or maybe he doesn’t think anything at all. Maybe she really is just overthinking things. She’s supposed to be happier here, right? She left so much for that chance, didn’t she? So why is she still thinking like this, what is she so scared of, so unsure…

Even though she’s nowhere in sight, that lingering presence answers the question, “Take from the world what you want, and give it what it deserves.” Yeah, she’s been overthinking, why the fuck did she commit to everything, except actually being here. Only wanted to run, but not the destination? That all changes now. 

She laughs at Romans ‘joke,’ skipping up to him in a near perfect imitation of Neo’s gait. Moving through the crowd is suddenly much easier. “Wow, Roman, way to make a girl feel good.”

He smiles like a shark. Now that she’s close to him, the smell of his cigars and a complimentary woody cologne is obvious. How hadn’t she noticed it before? She isn’t quite sure, it’s the type of smell that sticks to everything, guest rooms and cloaks. It’s what her new home smells like after all. 

“Now now Red, that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah? Would you like to elaborate, then?”

“Just that confidence is a much better look on you is all. The presence you had in the bar was pure coincidence I know, but seeing you fight like that in the woods… It was something else. You were going easy on us at the docks, which is an embarrassing pill to swallow. A worthwhile one though, because seeing you like that, certain in every move you made, made me certain, that taking you in was the right call after all. You’re gonna love it here.” 

She takes the compliment, she takes the pride, she takes the joy from the memory, and uses it all to smile at him wide and toothy. “Yeah. And thanks. Getting to fight like that, hunt so freely… it made me realize coming here was worth it too.”

He doesn’t stop walking, but he takes the time to look at her. Really look at her, in a way that makes her preen. It’s not hard to be confident, right now.

Roman’s eyes narrow, glancing down at her footing before snapping back up to her face. He looks a bit amused. “Are… are you doing that on purpose?” 

Huh? She takes stock of everything she is doing, only to catch herself tilting her head curiously. She blinks, face a bit pink realizing that… The skip, the smile… She’s perhaps imitating Neo a little more than she had been realizing. It was a little too easy to flip a switch and let it into every part of her, as soon as she made a choice. She has no reason to hide her puzzlement though, not anymore, no reason to hide anything. 

“No, not really. I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out just now.” She shrugs her shoulders, and thinks about the girl that has apparently weasled into her mannerisms. She’s always been something of a copycat, but in the past it was always deliberate, to fit in with her peers or feel at home on the field. She’s not quite sure why Neo resonated with her in the moment, it certainly feels too quick to admire her in such a manner, but then again, Roman had started this morning by saying Neo had wanted to ‘kidnap her.’ Moving quick probably isn’t an issue for either of them.

“Does it bother you?” The more she thinks about it, the more a warmth settles in her heart at being… not like, but similar to Neo? No, not that, she… she wants to be seen in the same vein as her. For people to look at her and Roman, and see two people with the same level of familiarity as Roman and Neo share. She wants people to look at her and Neo, and see two people who have been together for so long, that in some ways they are one and the same… Damn, she’s lonely, isn’t she. Maybe she should ask Roman if that platonic kidnapping is still on the table, it sounds like a fun day out.

Roman scoffs. “Gods no, Red, you could learn a lot from her about not being so…” He wiggles his hand, as if afraid his phrasing might set her off. She just grins at the idea that he’s concerned about that at all. “Eager to scatter? You’re like one of those dandelion puffs, kid. Just don’t go too far down that rabbit hole. Two Neos, of equal skill and equal unpredictability would be a disaster for my life. And the livelihoods of many, I imagine. At that point it would be her world, and we’d just be living in it.” 

They laugh in the warmth of a shared joke, and Ruby bounds a bit closer to him in a way she has seen Neo do. Not quite throwing herself at him like Neo has done, some boundaries still being kept by the large wall known as “This is a criminal whose house I have been living in for less than a week.” But they’re being pushed as she falls more and more in love with the idea of taking a few cues from Neo. She still wants to figure out who she is on her own… But independent doesn’t mean friendless, clearly she hates the idea of that, and so far, Neo’s only given her good advice and a kind of scary amount of affection, when compared to how long they’ve actually known each other. Besides, there had been a time imitating Qrow had brought her joy. If there’s nothing wrong with change, there’s nothing wrong with repetition, as long as she makes sure it adapts for what she actually wants. If she’s keeping an outline of who she is, than keeping one or two frameworks for how to be proud of who she is might be worth keeping.

“Careful, Red. This is the sort of adoration I’d expect from a Huntress out for my cash.”

Ruby raises an eyebrow playfully. “What, so you only took me in at first because I was suitably pathetic?”

“Nah, I always knew you had this in you. Neo took you in because you were suitably pathetic. Like a wet stray cat…”” He takes a puff of his cigar, ruminating in some memory of Neo she’s not privy too. “But It’s not my first time in Mistral, and if  I wanted suitably pathetic, I could find it on every corner. She’s always been one to care more about the potential of corruption, more so than the potential of a new ally.” Roman gets a bit wistful as they continue their walk, as his tone darkens, Ruby takes care to drink in every word he says, and the way he says them. She’s been gifted a new side of her new comrade, and the nostalgia in his voice is one she wants to learn to treasure. Something she would have never seen if didn’t walk down this path. A gift only for her and Neo.

“I don’t think she’d trust someone saying they want to live with us, if they didn’t give up everything to do it. People that change their outlooks on things, switch sides, they have a way of bouncing back to who they were to begin with if they were driven by impersonal motivators like half measures and the desperation of loss. People that give up everything they have though, not for want, not with determination, but because they don’t know who they are… That’s how real change happens.”

Ruby walks even closer to him, practically shoulder to shoulder, and with an faux exasperation, he juts his elbow out, letting her take it like Neo’s done before. “You’re not all that great a philosopher, Roman.”

He sighs, all overplayed faux-pity. “Maybe I’m just not explaining it right.”

“Nope! You’re much too charismatic for that.”

“Ah, a compliment on the quality of my character from a Huntress, now that's worth its weight in gold. Listen, All I was trying to say Red, is that there’s a reason she thinks you two are alike. If you had come up to our door knowing who you were, what you wanted, and needing a place to stay, she’d have wanted you gone before you finished explaining yourself. But everything you’ve done for I think a month straight, has been stupid, contradicting, uncertain, wishy-washy and, I’m sure, stuffed to the seams with all sorts of angst. She trusts that, no matter who you end up becoming. No matter if you run out on us, become a cop, no matter what.” Roman leans in a little bit, just enough to give a grounding squeeze on their hooked arms, and make her really hear his next words. “Not many people are willing to give up everything that’s safe, that’s familiar, who they are supposed to love, just for the vague notion of ‘perhaps I’m not who I’m supposed to be,’ ‘perhaps my good life could be better.’ I may be in it for the money, but she’s in it for the freedom. She wants everything and nothing from you, all at once.”

She doesn’t detach from Roman, but she slows their pace, turning over what he’s said word by word. It’s… it’s just what she was thinking, but to hear him say it changes things. Committing to them isn’t a leap of faith or an act of bravery, it’s knowing. It’s  seeing someone just like you further down the path you’re struggling with, and knowing that one day it will be okay, if you just stick to it. 

She hears an intake of breath, and an exhale. The cover of smoke dims her senses to only what’s around her. Moving as slow as she is, he leans into her ear for a whisper. Trusting her with something private.

“Speaking of, you know where she went?”

His question isn’t inquisitive, it’s a test. He wants to know if she can sense Neo’s presence. If she knows what she would do not just for him, but for her. If she understands not the trust, but the companionship, the affection, she has been offered so gently by the two of them, as a prize for making poor choices, poor choices for nothing but want.

“I don’t usually like crowds anyway. I probably couldn’t pick her out. B-but I’ve felt her. Like being watched, but…” 

“It feels good, doesn't it.”

A warmth flows up her body, tinting her cheeks. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it does.” 

“Get familiar with it Red, for as long as you want it, it’s yours.”

He starts to cajole her a bit, pulling her along with their interlocked arms, forcing the pace of the walk to regain some of its speed. But she doesn’t plan on being a guest in his city, it will be hers one day too. The confidence she has in that won’t be blind, and it won’t be forced. More than a hope, and more than a decision. She knows what she wants now, it finally having settled soft and certain in her soul. The form she had always hoped for it to take. 

“So then, Roman, where are you taking me?”

“Oh, what’s the matter Red, didn’t figure out the questions of the universe on a single walk with yours truly?”

She grins, despite the teasing. “Oh, only a little bit. And that’s old news, anyway! You’re dodging the question.”

Roman nods. “So you know what you want then.”

“Yep!” She pops the P, and laughs at him. He looks at her a tad confused, but clearly enjoying the moment. She’s rubbing off on him as well, he doesn’t even realize he took this habit from her, but she recalls him popping his P at breakfast today, she recalls him making a feast for her, when he barely knows her, just to shake her out a funk he’s apparently familiar with. With the benefit of hindsight, she savors the memory without the nerves she had in the moment.

“Ya don’t need a guy like me then, huh? Should I just go out back, forsaken? I took time out of my busy schedule for you, y’know. The HOA isn’t going to manipulate the property values of the neighborhood by itself.”

Ruby pouts, making full use of puppy eyes. “Please don’t corrupt my inherited HOA membership. It’s the only thing left I have on the side of good.” She snickers at herself, then inclines her head. “I thought you retired from crime, anyways?”

“I have. Theft and market manipulation committed with the affluent isn’t crime Red, it’s entrepreneurship.”

“So, what’s the verdict, then? Have I fallen to the dark side? Am I a bad guy now or not?”

“You, the freelancing teenager with Mistrali features, with no legal property besides your weapon?  Gosh, you’re as corrupt as they come. Might as well start accepting those assassination jobs now.”

She hums in consideration. “I mean… it’s been hard not to think about it, after you and Neo put the idea in my head.“

Roman balks, tripping up a bit. Ruby keeps the same pace, and he scurries to match, mouth opening and closing a few times. “Wait, are you actually thinking about it?”

“I’m very susceptible to peer pressure, Roman. Peer pressure and bad influences.” 

“Oh, Gods, I’m the good influence again aren’t I? I’ve already lost you to Neo. Welp, it’s settled, this city’s doomed. Pack it in folks, Little Red is taking the express ride to corruption. That’s right my adoring public, it seems I’ve got some horrid curse that turns raised-right Vale girls into murderers and NEETs.” 

“What’s a NEET?”

“It’s what Neo will turn you into if you don’t get out of the house enough.”

Ruby rolls her eyes, gaze sliding along the manicured streets “…Are you going to tell me where we’re going or not?”

“Right, right. Well Red, lesson one of having desires, blowing hard earned money on extravagance, and living a lavish life of decadence, is to live in a room that doesn't look like a hotel.”

Ruby scrunches her brow. “That seems… oddly mundane?”

“You commit violent crime for the thrill, Red, but you commit white-collar crime to make your mundane just the bit more pleasurable. Besides, you’re in with us for the long haul, right? No reason not to have a room that’s actually your own.”

She might have taken her cues from Neo, but she doesn’t think she’ll be quite as graceful the hanger on she is. Even so, the moment for something she’s never done before seems right, and the movement feels natural. She has nothing else to say, but when he smiles at her like that, she doesn’t want to stop even though she knows she can’t keep up with his endless prattle. So instead she presses into him with a playful shove from her side of the sidewalk. And as he bounds back like a punching bag, she presses into him further, forcing one of his arms to lay around her. A friendly maneuver she learned from watching Yang, Weiss, and Blake from the outside-in. Letting him know that just as Neo is always near him out of sight, she’ll stay near the two of them always within arms reach.

A single beat of her heart is filled with an anxiety, as she fears she overstepped her place. But he takes it in stride, looking away from her with a quiet sound  in his chest that comes out of his throat with a puff of smoke. But he lets her stay where she is, not moving away, not pushing away, seemingly content with her presence as someone at his side in a way that’s still so novel to her. Not leading ahead, not protected behind, just her whatever that may mean. 

She’s not sure if he can hear her, a habit of mumbling into her cloak that she worked to break at Beacon, suddenly coming back. But she says it for herself as much for her new friends,  “Mhm. Not that there’s much of one, but I’ve got no plans to leave soon.” 

~~~

28 DAYS AND FOUR HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

As they rise further and further up the jungle of Mistral, rising up the city's various waterfalls diverted and adorned by cobblestone of increasing cleanliness, returning further and further towards what will one day be just home to her, (or so she daydreams,) they stop at a store to take the next step of making that dream a reality. 

The store is stuffy in the way only stores utilizing every inch of their limited space can be, with the smell of dust and oil, wood and linens. A smell so strong, she can barely smell Roman’s smoke anymore. Roman seemingly has a sort of reverence for the place, putting out his cigar before entering. She laughs at him for it, and gestures at removing his hat as well. He plays along, does a little bow, a twirl, and then smoothly plucks it from his head. Revealing to both her and the world, that he avoids the pony tail hat look, not by clipping his hair high when he wears the bowler, but by tying his hair up into a bun hidden under the hat. A mystery solved, but a somewhat unsettling one. Maybe she really is living with a psycho.

No, no, she definitely is. She knew that getting into this mess. All she can do is own it. Nonsense isn’t nonsensical, if you’re just acting out what it is you really want, and who it is you really are. She reminds herself of this as she mourns keeping such nice hair hidden… Is that how others feel about her, when she keeps hers trimmed with a knife and a dream? She’ll think about it when it starts getting long again. Both Roman and Neo look like they use the kind of fancy products Ruby never cared to borrow from Yang.

She spends a bit too long at the front door, staring like an idiot at Roman’s head, and moves her along by once more gesturing her in, following behind with his hat to his chest like a church goer. 

As she takes in the shop, she doesn't quite understand what Roman sees in the place, but she supposes that’s what she’s there to learn. A frazzled looking old man seemingly pops out from a pile of… something, from somewhere, covered in dust and stains, and with a wheeze he approaches Roman, walking right by her. The two start speaking in Vacuan, and as she watches the exchange without understanding a word, Roman gestures her towards the depths of the store. Implying that this will probably be a while, and to figure out what the hell she should be doing in the meantime.

Well, she’s here to make a room her own, and though there are no price tags or organization to be seen, this is apparently a furniture store of some manner. Don’t overthink it, she’s rich now apparently, just figure out what it is you want, then point. 

She begins to walk through not the aisles, but the tight pathways that allow movement within the store at all. She lets her hand drag on the pieces as she moves, and though she expected dust, there is not a speck of it to be found. Just sheen, and oily smooth ridges. A feeling of detail upon every cut. There is something real about the feeling of it all, grounding in the tactile feeling of something made not produced, that’s… comforting. Alluring. Desirable. 

There is rigid support where there needs to be, and an endless dreamy softness where there must be. As she wanders, taking in the expanse of the store without really beginning to examine the pieces, her mind finds patterns for her, understanding in the nonsense. Soon, as she drifts from piece to piece, she starts drifting towards what appeals to her subconsciously. 

The wood becomes darker, blacks and reds. The ornate becomes artistic, imagery of flowers and snow, of bones and wheat. She stops in front of a bed frame unlike anything she’s seen before. Rounded and large, dark with the etchings of Petals coming and going through the seasons. Full bloom and withering stims on the front, falling petals and budding flowers on the back. 

The old man startles her with a shout, a word she doesn’t comprehend, and when she turns to look at him, she sees Roman still next to him. He doesn’t say anything, but gives her a questioning tilt of the head, and shows to her his thumb up, than his thumb down. She thinks for a second, thinks on what she wants. And when she finds nothing within herself, she looks again at the bed frame. Sees in it the cutting, and whittling, that is so familiar but so different than what she knows as a weaponsmith. She imagines herself sleeping in a room with this as its center. She imagines a room at all, that is not in a house that was left empty, or a dorm that was always meant to be left one day. 

There is no pull, there is no pull, and then she reminds herself to actually ask the doe legged person she’s been looking for inside of her. And then in the daydream, there is pleasure, there is a whimsical enjoyment of something that is just nice. And there is a her, that is not on a hunt, and is not training, and is not leading, that thinks that what’s in front of her is pretty. It is nice. It, is.

She gives Roman a thumbs up, and he smiles at her with a sharp pride that has her seeing this store, and her life with another new layer of brimming excitement. 

From there, her wandering begins anew. With a bouncing enamourment replacing the curious exploration. She feels like a cat that had been poking at a toy with feigned disinterest, before suddenly shifting towards a heated curiosity, as she accepted something that allowed her eyes to see what was before them in a safer light. 

She moves through the store at a different stalking pace, giving each piece the consideration and respect they deserve, before either passing to a new one, or waving Romans attention to her, and giving him a thumbs up. Everytime she does, the old man scribbles something in a notebook.

She whistles off her approval on black wooden shelves and redwood trimmings, on a warm blood paint for the walls, and knick knacks that look like they could have been adornments for the more ornate furniture she selects. 

The real fun though, begins with a Rug. Unfurling from an enclosement in a wall, is a hanging selection of what feels like over a hundred rugs, all with carefully stitched patterns, and a texture of a gentle scritichness that just feels good against her skin. At first her eyes move over a darker make. With small corvids flying over bone and night kept gardens, with things like cats and rats and other goth staples down the sides. 

But then the corner of her eyes lay on something just a tad brighter. A blood orange rug that soaks the crimson and the orange into one color, and arranges itself into an easy to become lost in cascade of intertwining shapes. She understands what she’s doing, when she whistles Roman over to give it her approval. He gives her a look at the sudden break in her mono-aesthetic choosings, but doesn’t say anything.

Neo, on the other hand, suddenly refracts into existence next to her, and says as much as she’s capable of. Pointing and Ooing and Awwing at her choice, running her hands down the rug, and turning to her with a smile that’s so…Neo. She loves it, she wants more of it, she wants to share in it. It feels like everything she left home for, and by giving such an unknown desire but another face, Neo feels like much needed clarity. 

Such wonder is nothing like what she associated with Neo before, but fits so naturally on her face. Like it should always be there. The reality of her situation, her new life, thrums hot and unignorable in her ears, as she swells with an affection for not just the girl in front of her, but being let in on a secret shared within just… her household. No one else has seen Neo like with, except her and Roman. No one else can. 

She would have never of seen what Joy looked like on the woman, if she hadn’t come here. If she wasn’t becoming whoever it was who she would be. 

After that it becomes a game. Seeing what she can approve of that will manifest Neo next to her, giving her looks of mischief and enthusiasm, little snickers here, a knowing grin there. The speed and energy of the shop changes again, as Neo starts appearing back into existence with little touches against Ruby's arm, hands on her shoulder, hips connected to hips. 

As pinks and brighter oranges get added to her room, Ruby starts becoming capable of just knowing when Neo would appear by her, and meeting her physical affection with matching gestures of her own.

She knows her time here is coming to a close, as she starts running out of ideas of what furniture or decorations could conceivably exist. And even more damning, after Neo stops popping in to see what it is she’s getting. It’s a weird and sudden absence, as one second Neo is a whirlwind of energy and mimed jokes, enthusiasm for furniture endeavors, and physical affection seemingly just for the sake of showing she’s there. 

Ruby sighs into nothing, content with a days work, and multiple personal discoveries manifesting seemingly in allowing herself to buy throw cushions. As she finds the actual back wall of the store, instead of a fake bake wall that in  actuality leads to another path to walk down, she gestures to turn around back towards the front of the store.

Before she can, a hand juts out from non existence, and begins dragging her to someplace new. She doesn’t panic at all as it comes for her, just laughing along as she lets Neo lead her by the hand. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see what must be a Neo figment keeping Roman distracted at the front of the store, and the old Man scurrying through the lanes to meet them. 

As the three of them converge at one of the side walls of the store, Neo proudly gestures at some sort of mantle made from a black wood. It’s the first thing Neo had shown her in Ruby's own colors, and not her own or Romans. It’s another layer of being welcomed to add atop the feelings she’s been piling up today. 

Who knew Roman was right, spending time with people really DID make you feel comfortable around them. Avoiding them for so long had been foolish, though she can’t blame herself for it. Or at least, she no longer wants to. Just par for the course, of everything that leads to moments like these, and the joy of knowing there will be more. 

All that being said, “I don’t know what I’m-” Neo smiles through her uncertainty, takes her hand, and moves it to the mantle. Running it over the cushioned holsters, in shapes that seem capable of holding nothing. Familiar shapes though, shapes that… oh!

She gives Neo a quick side hug, a gesture that has the girl brimming with joy, before giving the old man a thumbs up. Romans ‘learning to want’ lesson officially coming to the close. She gives the man full credit, though, she laughs at herself for the notion that it might have been difficult.

~~~

When they checked out of the store, Ruby finally realized how much money she had been making from her overhunting habit. Fine furniture plentiful enough to fill a large room and then some, and it was still a few zeros short of what she gave Roman, when she had given him what she made in just a week. Though, another zero was added to the receipt when Roman told the man that he wanted the furniture delivered and set up before the days end.

The three of them walk up and back to their fancy Neighborhood as the night truly begins to settle in. A bad sign, considering how long the days are here.

As the buildings get fancier and fancier, the sidewalks get brickier and less cementy, and the humidity gets diluted by the height. Ruby's mental map of home, begins to truly form. 

The silence is comfortable, which only means it’s more surprising that Roman and Neo's mood remains so… high around her, as she spots a bookstore that's still open a few blocks away from home, and turns without hesitation towards it.

Neo simply skips towards her new destination, her head held high, while Roman begins nodding to himself in some sort of self obsessed approval. 

“That’s the thing about money Red, once I teach you how to spend it, you find there really is no such thing as too much of the stuff. A full bank account is wasted potential is what I say, especially when there’s such exciting ways to fill it back up. And ya know? I’ve always wanted to own a Library. bought a house with a room for it and everything. It just seems classy, buy some fancy wooden shelves, smoke an old pipe in there. Just seems right. Never been a big reader myself, but changing that just screams ‘you’ve made it’ ya know. Good eye Red, good eye.”

As they all reach the front of the shop, she petals burst in, and petal bursts out, bag in hand. The two of them stand comically frozen at the door, shock on their faces, not realizing until now perhaps, that her speed was something she could utilize against them outside of a fight until now. 

Neo just shrugs, and turns her sights back homewards. Roman, to the best of his abilities, swerves on his foot and continues his monologue like nothing happened. 

“And that's the other thing about learning the joys of life Red. Sometimes, you just have something you want to keep to yourself ya know. The showmanship of a surprise, the pleasure of a delicacy that's all your own. I’ll tell you what, it’s not something I ever get in my household, and unless you really start schmoozing, you should get used to it. I’m frankly not convinced Neo doesn’t have an entire wing of the house hidden away from us in a mirror dimension, meanwhile I can’t remember the last cup of coffee I had that she didn’t know about. But really-” 

She lets the prattle wash over, with a growingly familiar swing in her gait. 

~~~

28 DAYS AND TWO HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

Her room is officially made, though she feels like she’s on one of those home building reality shows her dad used to watch. When the furniture store's people had arrived at the house not long after they got back, she moved to start helping them unload everything, before Roman held her back with his cane, looking at her like she was crazy.

“If you pay someone to do manual work” he said, “then you should kill them, before forcing yourself to do it for them. Or if you’re you, just fire them I guess? Point is, don’t hire incompetent people, don’t do work you don’t want to do. This household is too talented for that.”

Frankly, none of that sounded right, and all of it sounded annoying, but he hadn’t led her astray so far today, so with a shrug, she went out to the patio overlooking the central depths of Mistral, and just… existed for a bit? It felt weird. Sometimes she had gone up to the roofs of Beacon, or took a few minutes for herself in the trees of Patch at night. But there was always a feeling then that she should have, or could have, been doing more. 

Not here though, she genuinely tries to think of… well anything. But her mind was coming up delightfully blank. Roman had… they had these lounge chairs set up on the patio, that put you in a cushioned and deep recline, while still keeping views of the city in eye sight, and all she could muster herself to think about was how nice it felt to lay on them.

The distant buzz of a city from the suburbs. The feeling behind her eyes of shining stars brighter than day when contrasted within the oppressive night. Fresh crisp air, not quite as good as what she had in patch, or in the in between towns of her initial runaway days, but cleaner than anything Vale or the inner city of Mistral provided, settled in her lungs. Carrying the smokey scent of Roman with it. Overwhelming at times, but home. 

Roman came out with her, bringing with him a leftover frittata he was now insisting they eat with their hands, “The only food anyone should be eating past eight is dessert, or finger foods. I will bend what a finger food is, before I bend this firmly held belief.” And a glass of some juice she had seen him pour from a glass jar. Did rich people buy a new Jar every time? Or was there some sort of… fancy juice store? Where they refilled your jars for you. Utilizing Romans own rules of manual Labor, and a deep disinterest in joining him grocery shopping, she resolved then and there to never learn. 

There is still a buzz in the corners of her mind, of voices and faces she loved, and a guilt that eats at the core of who she is, or maybe was, she knows not enough. Not enough to kill herself for them, to feel the slow loss of personhood corrode all for a fight she didn’t understand the players and pieces of. 

There is still a yearning for what could have been. 

There is still a fear, an uneasiness around these new people who have accepted her into their lives… so easily, so easy as to be off putting, for they had done so before she had earned it. 

But there is too, a still and soft comfort. Silence, luxury, and people who… Don’t understand her yet, but want to, want to in ways so dominated by philosophies of individuality, that she knows she doesn't have to fear losing herself within them, whoever she might be. 

There is a city, and a world, beyond what she would have ever known in Vale, or in Patch. There are foods and drinks and comforts, she now gets to taste. There is Roman, someone who apparently can not stop talking even outside of a fight, allowing her this moment of peace. There is Neo just behind her flickering about the house, carrying in the knicknacks she helped her pick out, one tiny piece at a time, next to the workers struggling to bring the larger pieces in. 

There is a life she would have never imagined for herself. 

Was it worth it? Is she happy? 

She settles deeper into her seat. She takes a breath, and doesn’t ignore how Roman looks at her with a raised brow, seemingly having noticed the hitch in it. 

She also doesn’t miss, how there is concern, gentle, genuine, lost and a bit desperate. 

Maybe they had been lonely too. Another thing, to accept, and not overthink. 

She’s still one foot in the door, one foot out. Beliefs still formed in Beacon, sights and possibility caught up in runaway crooks. A peaceful night as soft as linen, experienced in clothing still ragged from the hunt. 

She doesn’t know if she regrets it. She doesn’t know. She-

“You okay there, Red?” His voice is smooth and low, and when she looks at him he’s almost out of his chair. Emerald eyes, bright and upon her. For her. Crumbs around his lip, and a cigarette hanging in his mouth. 

She takes another breath.

Smoke overwhelms her. So strong, compressing, encompassing her and placing her in a world that is just theirs. 

She laughs into her chair. 

“What are we doing here Roman.”

He hums, understanding the question she can tell, but contemplating the night in a way she already knows will annoy her. Though, a small smile encroaches her face. She wouldn’t have known him well enough to be certain of that, just this morning.

“Well, Red, we’re enjoying the night air, and my amazing cooking.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

So it really is just one day at a time for him, she almost says. But, that’s what she wanted to have, wasn’t it. To be a huntress, without the scheming and ever moving demands of connection. Just her holding back Grimm, and then life.

Yeah, it was. 

“Thank you Roman, for today.”

“Why Red, I’ve been waiting for some appreciation all this time, but I can earnestly say." He tips his hat towards her, movement as gentle as his voice. "my pleasure.” 

He sounds so please that there is no room to doubt him, outside of the room her own mind makes for her. Doubt she can not cull as easily as Grimm and Ichor. “Was it really?”

“Yep.” He pops the P, and when she smirks at him, she can tell he still doesn’t know why.

“Roman.”

“Yes?”

“Why-”

“I’ma stop you there Red.”

“Huh?”

“Just let me tell you a story, it will make this entire thing so much easier, all right?”

“Sure.”

“I met Neo when I was in my late 20s, only about four years ago now.”

“Are you thirty?”

“Please don’t interrupt the story for terrible questions.”

“You’ve only known Neo for four years?”

“Maybe less. And when I met her, she was this posh little rich girl going to a private huntsman school. Or well, fighting school. Point is she was rich, posh, and learning to swing a weapon real good. It wasn’t instant, like it was with you. I met her in small little instances. At a coffee shop once, then in an alley we both happened to be being chased through, real sitcom style stuff. The entire time, she was living this life miles and miles apart from, well, this.” He gestures at not just himself, but the patio, the drinks, the view. “ Selfish decadence and the scraping of underbellies. And then one day, it all just came apart for her. But it didn’t break, she broke it. She hated who she was, even if her life was just as much of a mix of good and terrible as it is for many people, but instead of fighting through it to make it something she could tolerate. She just said, ‘No, this isn’t who I am’ and threw it all away. Tossed it so she could chase… whatever it is she wanted.”

“And you?”

“And I helped her, I’m not important right now, I’m getting to that. My point is, she had all these people counting on her, wanting things from her, demanding, punishing, rewarding. And she tossed it all aside, without a clue who it was she wanted to be, or what it was she wanted. Sure, she came to me for ideas on that front, but in that crucial moment… It wasn’t a choice, it was a blind hope. She knew that whatever came after wouldn’t be easier than what she had then, perhaps even more complex in its own ways. But, it would be simple where it mattered, in that all she ever had to be was herself, and that’s all I’d ever ask of her. So my question for you Red, is do you think she regretted it?”

“I… I don’t know?”

“Neither did she. Sometimes she had days where she was overcompensating for her choices. Throwing herself into things she would have before never dreamed of being able to stomach doing. Some days she just… existed, normal as any day can be. And some days she was paralyzed, uncertain, spending every second regretting everything she tossed aside, just sort of lost.”

Ruby thinks of the Neo she now knows, and Ruby thinks of what she must look in the eyes of Roman and Neo, frail and trying and… just a little pathetic. It’s impossible to think of seeing her own failures in the Neo she now knows. “I never would have imagined… she’s just so…”

“Great?’

“Yeah…”

“I’m glad you think so. Really glad, honest. I had no clue what it would be like with you today. But the reason you can’t imagine, is because she’s not like that anymore. Hasn’t regretted anything for a second in years.”

“Oh… what, what did she do?”

“Nothing. Not really anyways. When babies are born they don’t start out with strong opinions about frittatas and wine pairings.”

“Okay, you have completely lost me.”

“And, lost little huntresses aren’t born into a tomorrow willing to eat the fruit of labors that have been bought partly with dead Grimm, and partly with violence inflicted upon others. The point I’m making is that the two of you took the ultimate risk, to have a chance at reinventing yourself, but it takes time. Time to figure out what parts of yourself you want to keep, what parts of yourself you want to toss out, and for new parts to grow in. Either way, you’re welcome to stay here and figure that out for as long as you need.”

“Excellent speech, but why.” It’s an odd feeling, the shift from complete calm to borderline hysteria. When a foul mood just sneaks up on you, and you’re on the edge before you realize you even approached. 

Roman gets up from his chair, walks over to her, and places his hat on her head on his way down to his knees, meeting her at eye level. She can feel the heat of his cigar on her cheek, and there are parts of her that had still been seeing Roman partly as an idea, an advisory and a goofy rival, more so than a person, until he was so close to her as to take up her entire vision. So close as to let her see every detail of his face. His freckles, the part of his lip, the crease in his eyes, his worry for her so obvious behind her mask. He might be a liar, but he isn't great at hiding himself. He doesn’t need to like she did. 

“Take your pick Red. You reminded us of ourselves, and we wanted to take a risk. Because when you’re so close to someone as to become one more than two, it can get lonely without anyone else around. Because we just really like corrupting the youth, and we thought it would be funny to introduce a ‘promising young huntress’ to this life of debauchery.” And then, with a gravel in his voice just a smidge deeper, that it felt more like choked emotions, more so than inflection. So that Ruby knew it was the truth, more so than everything he named before, “Because, you kicked our ass a few too many times, and we grew to hate you more than we found you annoying. Hated you enough to think about you when we skipped town, enough to leave a letter. A letter we didn’t think would matter. And when someone we had enough feelings about to hate, showed up at our door, and proved to us that they hated us enough to put weight upon our word. That they valued us enough, to follow us out when the going got tough. Then… how could we have denied that? How could we have turned you away? You were the only person it even occurred to us to say goodbye to, and now you’re here. Most people would see that as a miracle. Kinda scrambled our minds a bit, but we just saw it as a new day. Little tip from people that have been running for longer than you’ve been around. Life's no fun if it doesn’t actually change when you start a new chapter.”

She’s not crying. Crying implies a choking breath, a hitch, a sob. Here, it’s just blurry vision and a swimming head. 

“I-”

“Hey Red, really, it’s no big deal. We like change, and so far your presence feels like meeting each other again for the first time. Maybe not the best thing to hear, but…

“No, No, I- Thank you.” 

“Yeah, that's just like meeting Neo for the first time too. Though, it was easier for her to talk while crying, using her hands and all that.”

When he heads for the door, she sees Neo there through blurred vision, excitedly ushering the two of them in. She doesn’t know how much of that she saw, or heard, but considering she’s treating the whole tear covered face thing like no big deal, she imagines at least the back end of it.  

Roman lets her keep the hat, though, she imagines he’ll want it back one day.

~~~

28 DAYS AND ONE HOUR UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

So, does she regret it? The fight, and the people she left. For something so trivial. 

Maybe right now she does, but, it won’t last. Too many feelings left unresolved, too many possibilities that can grow into something… Amazing. If she regrets it now, she’ll grow into someone who won't. Just like Neo did.  Just like Roman helped her through. 

When she looks at how… happy Neo is to be here, herself, and with the two of them. Two of them, not just him. She knows it will be worth it, she knows anything would be better, than always having to be her. Where she was was. The leader, The pure huntress, Summer Rose and her shadow. 

It’s always worth fighting for change, for possibility. So, it goes to reason it would be worth giving up for it as well. 

She will be a huntress. She will be someone she can be proud of. Just in a new place, with people that don’t make her feel awful, even if she loved them with everything she had. She won’t die for the privilege, of winning a  fight she doesn’t understand.

She will not waste her life in vain.

The room’s nice! Perfect even. Roman and Neo are behind her, smiling as she explores it for the first time. Running her hands along something that isn’t lived in, but now has the potential to be. It’s a room that looks like her, no one could mistake it for anyone else's. It’s a room that has them in it, no one could mistake the people and things, she’s now prioritizing. It’s a world of difference from this morning, the dreadful sneaking past a new beginning she had earned. In a room, that reinforced the idea she had become no one of consequence. 

Just being her now filled with hope, and other squiggly emotions as she rolled around a bed that made her understand why Weiss had been complaining about sheet quality all the time.

“I must say Red, I’m flattered at all the orange. And I’m flattered for Neo at all the pink” Neo does a little bow, “Doesn’t even clash like I thought it might. A bit pastel goth, a bit more flowery than I was expecting… But, I can see what might be now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. I do gotta ask though, what’s up with that. Planning on getting something extravagant? A real centerpiece? I understand the lack of chandelier, the candles are much more ‘you,’ truly, but it’s lacking a certain something without it ya know.”

“Roman, I’m so glad you asked.”

Neo started laughing the second Roman began asking the question, and hasn’t stopped. Clutching her stomach while hitched whining sounds jump out of her mouth in glee, as she dips further and further into the floor. More amused with herself than even Ruby thinks she has the right to be, but she’ll play into the bit for her. And for the sake of a good bit.

She unfurls Crescent Rose to her full form from out of her belt, and hefts it up over her bed, right where the mantle is. Whereupon, the scythe rests perfectly. 

She turns around to a blank faced Roman, and  A Neo who at this point is surely just playing up her laughter for the bit.

“Doesn’t that thing weigh like two tons?”

“Three, actually.”

“And… you’re just going to sleep with it above your bed. Unfolded. Right above you. Where you sleep.”

“Oh Roman,” Ruby begins wiggling her eyebrows, in a move Yang likes to say she invented herself, but really they just both learned from Qrow. “I’m going to sleep in much more interesting positions with it than that.”

Neo twists in a way that makes Ruby think she had been playing it up, but is no longer doing so.

“Oh. So you make those now. You decided to waste babies first sex joke on this? You blew your shock factor load Red, everyone only gets one first fuck, one first sex joke, and one first time.”

“I promise you, there is nothing new about this situation.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Didn’t you wonder, how I was affording weapon oil when saving up all my cash to give to you.”

“What does that even fucking mean.”

“My Secret is out. I am free. This is what I gave up everything for, to no longer hide.”

He plucks his hat off her head, and it doesn’t make her falter one bit, “Goodnight Red.”

“You run to sleep for you fear my truth.” 

Roman is out the door, before she can really get into the pseudo religious route she was willing to take this, but he wasn’t able to hide his fond smile from her. Oh yeah, she’s going to run this joke into the ground. 

Before Neo leaves, she walks up to Ruby, slow and familiar, still a bit shaky, and gives her a hug. For a second, Ruby doesn’t know what’s happening. Not having expected anything like it, but, well it’s hard for her to understand where she stands in Roman and Neos eyes. Or where they stand in heres. But the contact is nice, and she can feel Neo’s fluttery content as she returns it. 

“Good night, I suppose?”

Neo gives her a jaunty wave, before exploding into a million pieces, making Ruby (presumably) alone in her room. Excited for tomorrow, for the first time in… a long while.

It takes her time to get to bed, she gives the room a once over. Running her hand along every surface. In disbelief that this is hers, that she is here, that her hand is her hand and that tomorrow is nothing but another day. It used to be so much more, it used to never end. 

When she showers that night, in a bathroom garnished now with a much more elaborate mirror, with golden gothic decal trimming, and a reflection that now takes up the entire wall, she lets the exfoliation of her skin take the back burner. Instead taking time to luxuriate in the soaps Roman had left out for a guest, she had before been content to just throw at herself and ignore.

They’re nice, It’s nice. 

She slides into bed without her hunter garb, the rough loose fabric that can take a hit, not wanting to taint the new sheets with the clashing ideology of what cloth can even be. Wanting to feel how it feels against her skin, smooth and enrapturing, gentle.

She forces herself to begin reading the books she bought to teach her sign. But the smells, the sights, the feelings, so foreign but so inviting lull her to the heaviness of one's eyes right before sleep. 

She’s had such a long day. 

But the world makes a little bit more sense, in that she has taken the time to accept a lot more nonsense. 

She can’t wait, to figure out how much she is willing to change.

~~~

28 DAYS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON. 

Chapter Text

Candlelight is new. New to her at least, in comparison to the old ways of LED and fairylights. Candles provide an aesthetic she had wanted, but never bothered setting up, if only because there was no point. 

It was a common sentiment she had felt as a child, as long ago as two months ago. It had left her with a fairly barren room, and a lot of thoughts about what it one day might look like. She hadn’t realized how bizarre it was, to live with empty walls, and unchanged lights, and just the furniture you need, until she had came to Beacon and realized she was the only person that had nothing to put up on her side of the room. (She hated the way Yang looked at her, when her sister had realized this as well.)

But there had been no point to then! Like there is now! Afterall, it wasn’t the candles that she had wanted, it was the dream they sold. Of independence, and a  flickering love for studying she only sometimes felt. The dream of Beacon. 

They were gentle though. Gentler than her sister's fairylights, and much gentler than her than the LED of her own room all the way back in Patch. Perfect for staying up late alone, in a cramped room of four. Illumination just for herself, the need for it only hers. 

The studying was gentler too. When she was younger she did it for the hunger, for necessity. To become better. On her own extracurricular time it was interest and duty. It’s all she ever was, and it had felt slow and pointless. Every challenge she set for herself, she accomplished with ease. 

But she never loved it, she never loved being in that house longer than she had to. In that barren bright room longer than she must. Surrounded by the sound of her sister. Cooking downstairs, or sweeping the hall right outside her room. 

Ruby only ever felt satisfied in the woods, where practice was something physical and solitary. No one to burden, no walls that were empty. Snow and sky and an ever expansive forest.

She only ever felt loved, by the weapon in her hands, even as she had been surrounded by so much of it. 

She had enough interest in her studies, that she knows she could have lit it into a flame if she needed to, but she didn’t, so why take time away from her love. Why spend more time at home. 

Hindsight is twenty twenty, because now she’s two years ahead. Further than that when it comes to her practical classes, but just behind when it comes to everything else, so it’s night like these she has taken for reaching towards that fire. 

Alone and as solitary as she can be in the cramped dorms, warm by gentle candlelight, and interest just on the edge of passion, but never quite tipping over. As hours and hours of pouring herself into books on group tactics she never thought she’d need to know more than in passing, and history that always seemed to distract from her now, and grimm studies with details irrelevant to the weight behind her love, pushed back against her sleepy march forward. 

A march forward, into the book resting upon her bed. Eyes drifting and breath slowing. Her ill fitting school clothes feel loose, as she feels heavy and heavier. A wetness on her lips, then something cold. Then something warm.

Silver eyes open, and:

Weiss is standing there, her slender fingers over Ruby's lips. She feels embarrassed, out of place, as her breath moves between them. Terrified to let her shock show, lest she moves against them. 

Why is she up this late? Guilt pounds in her heart. Barely a week in and already her teammates are having to ruin their sleep schedules because of her incompetencies. She knows Weiss will stubbornly refuse to stop working until whatever project she is on is perfect. She’s been watching the other leaders, and she knows they help their teams with academics. But Ruby can’t because she’s too far behind, because she hasn’t been working hard enough, because her eyes drooped, because she’s already so tired, because Weiss and Blake could be working together but they hate each other and she doesn't know why and she can’t fix it and-

Weiss removes her hands from her lips, and Ruby blearily misses the feeling the second they’re gone.  

“How do you take your coffee?”

Oh gods, her partner is from Atlas. Just smelling the stuff makes her nauseous, but she’s read the vampire stories, she knows what they’re like up there. Weiss’s skin looks so pale at night, and this is just another thing she’s expected to know but doesn’t, and- 

“I…. I don’t?”

And why is she offering her coffee in the first place? Doesn’t she hate her, and-

“Just answer the question!”

Oh jeez please don’t wake Blake up please don’t wake Blake up she’s such a light sleeper and-

“Uuuuuum!”

Weiss is looking at her like that, and Ruby wants to be agreeable for her. Always, for her partner, who wears her anger so openly, like it’s care. 

“One cream and five sugars!”

She hopes that’s a normal amount. Or at least an amount that will make it bearable. 

Weiss sighs at her, disappointed, but there is less hate than usual behind her eyes as she says “One second” and disappears into the darkness of the bottom bunk. Ruby guesses that was not an acceptable amount of sugar to ask for.

It doesn’t even work. She can smell the beginning of that terrible acrid smell she’s familiar with begin to drift into the room like a low smoke from underneath Weiss’s bed almost instantly. A lid being lifted, and when sugar is added it’s like a rotted pastry. A smoke that smells sticky, like acid, like a turning in her stomach and saliva in the back of her throat dripping down. 

Weiss pops up into her vision again, offering her the uncapped cup. Ruby schools her face, careful not to react, and as she ponders with a smile if she can get away with not drinking this, Weiss smiles at her for the very first time. Ruby is nothing like Weiss, Ruby knows Weiss is being honest. That that is how she looks, when she is well and truly content with something.

Ruby commits the sight to memory, commits the feeling to her heart, of seeing Weiss radiant in candle light. Even as her stomach churns, Weiss makes her feel accomplished, in a way she thought she had lost. 

She is certain in this moment, that she loves her partner. But the change was sudden, and like always, she doesn’t know what to say.

“Um, Thanks Weiss?” 

It’s not fair, why does Weiss get to look sorry, when she’s done nothing wrong. Not truly. Not in a way Ruby hasn’t deserved. She wants to reach out, hold her face in her hands, keep her radiant and proud like she had just been, delighted with herself for something as simple as making her a cup of coffee. 

But she knows she can’t, not without looking just as sorry, not without telling her everything she would want a true partner to know. The two of them aren’t like Blake and Yang, there will always be something between them. Ruby will always be her leader first. She hopes, that Weiss will understand what she must leave unsaid. Will understand that whatever face she wears is acrid and false sugar. She hopes Weiss might choose to love her anyways. 

“Ruby, I think you have what it takes to be a good leader. “ Okay so maybe Weis doesn’t understand, but she smiles anyway. Anything to make Weiss believe the lie. Anything to make herself believe it might be true one day. “Just know that I am going to be the best teammate you'll ever have!”

A thump and a beat in her heart. Is this what Weiss will be like, if Ruby chips away at her hate and her walls? She really might be amazing. Being her leader really might be worth it.

But she doesn’t know what to say, she doesn’t know what she can. She just wants this moment to last, for it to be real, for it to stick until tomorrow. 

“Good luck studying!“ Weiss ducks back out of sight, and in the span of a night, Ruby's entire perspective has changed. It’s never felt so doable, as long as she keeps on turning into who they want her to be, then even someone like Weiss will follow her.

She swirls the coffee in her cup, presses her tongue down, and with a scalding swig, fast enough to not taste anything, she-

~~~

27 DAYS AND 16 HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON.

Ruby Rose awakes wrapped in linen. She feels drool sticking her cheek to her pillow, as well as a brief feeling of vertigo. Her body confused as to how she was able to turn so far in her sleep without falling off her bunk, as well as a cautious curiosity as to what that smell is, and why it’s so different from the shampoo and steam of Blake's morning showers. 

Her mind remembers where she is, before her body has a chance too. There is a brief feeling of loss, and a twang of homesickness, but she is here now. No where else to go, nowhere else she’d rather be.

It feels weird to slide out of bed in the morning in a new place. Getting in had been so comfortable the night before. In Patch and at Beacon, she had been used to sheets clawing and clinging at rough skin on her way out of bed. In contrast, the ever present now she has made for herself is just a tad overly-decadent. Her new and improved getting out of bed is a gentle disentanglement from a soft pressure against her bare skin. No sweat left stuck, no heavy following of blankets, just a smooth drifting away from a soft dream. No yearning to stay in bed for longer than she needs to, as the leaving feels just as sweet. 

Sheets drape off her shoulders, and hug the muscles beneath the flesh of her hips for a lingering second,  before all falling  away as she gets out of bed. As she rises, she lets her toes curl into the soft rug purchased the night before. 

Hair tickles the nape of her neck. Soft, conditioned, and choppy. She laughs to herself in a sleepy melodic way that sounds nothing like her, but she can’t argue with the sound of, as it rumbles in her throat, cementing that whoever she is becoming, is still her. 

Her hair is longer than she’d have ever dared to keep, under the roof of her father, and the eyes of her sister. Always careful to lob a kitchen knife through it at regular intervals, for as long as the dead woman in the picture frames continued to look so much like her. 

She had never hated how she looked. She had even liked it, she had thought. Nothing to obstruct the rush of wind, and Weiss drawing her manicured nails through her messy ends with a curious hum.  

But, the feeling of being able to wear a style she couldn’t have before is novel. 

She puts a hand in the back of her hair and grips. Enjoying the feeling of any touch for the sake of touch, after her nights sleep left her entire body feeling sensitive. She examines how the bend of her shoulder and the crook of her underarm looks in a room lit by only the bright morning sun, before giving a once over to the rest of her new living space. The first morning of what might be home for years to come. Her eyes are called to her dresser, and she lets them run up and down her mirror, as she sees her naked body in it, and how a week of hot exfoliating showers with soaps that didn’t put three of themselves into one, have made her scars look softer. Have made her look softer.

 Her other hand presses its fingertips into the skin of her ribs, then drifts down to her naval. Ghosting the complex texture of her abdominal muscles, before exploring even further down, resting right above where a tuft of hair brushes against her fingernails with the promise of static.

It’s been a month, too short of a time to change. But she looks at herself curiously, not completely recognizing the girl in the mirror. Every scar the same, every detail of her body. Yet it’s framed all different.  

Her muscles used to be lean and tense, and though her body looks the same, there is now a soft giving bend to her skin that reminds her of Blake. Her face, which had looked young and sharp under her homemade pixy cut, looks longer and shrouded, framed by what had grown on her journey. 

She had never put much thought to what she looked like beneath her hunter garb before. Quick utilitarian showers were she rushed past mirrors, and never letting herself wear anything too loose or casual in shared spaces. But she’s bare now, only her own self reflected in the mirror, a distinct body in a distinct place with her new room behind her. Oranges and pinks accenting a sea of dark colors. 

She laughs again, and the sound clicks into place so much easier for this woman in the mirror, than for her memory of who Ruby Rose is, was, should be. Even as she experimented with skirts and corsets, she had never let herself take too many pastels or florals. Keeping to consistent dark colors and traditional metal imagery. Like her mother, like the simple illustrations from her books. 

Even in the early morning, Mistrali’s sun heated her room, and looking around, she had never seen herself covered in colors so bright. 

She gives her hair a final squeeze, and lets her soft gasp echo in her mind to examine later, before restricting her inquisitive hands back to her sides.

Maybe she will keep this, maybe she will go through the process of emptying zeros out of her bank account once more on a whim, (or a word from Roman). There is nothing she is required to keep, and everything she has the chance to enjoy. She had chosen the aesthetics of this room on purpose. She had. That’s what matters.

As she glides through the room, her hands run over the ridges of miniature glass figurines scattered across her dresser. Pink and in the shape of rabbits and cats, all as her feet digs into the texture of a deep orange carpet. 

She made a few other choices on purpose as well. Her heart beats, reflecting on the scope of how her life has changed so quickly, and the absolute nature of how she can never go back.

She doesn’t regret a thing. 

Throughout it all, the strangest thing about her morning is putting her clothes back on. Leather and reinforced fabric, a corset that can take a punch, a rip, a bullet. It all feels rough in her new private world that she has made so soft. 

She doesn’t even know why she puts it on, it’s not like she can go hunting today. After yesterday, she’ll need to give Mistral some time to refresh, less she draws attention to Romans contacts. But, it’s not like she has anything else to wear. For her entire life she has been dressed in the expensive armory of a huntress, without need of anything else, and not being able to afford anything else anyhow if she wants the actual quality make.

At least her huntress clothes are real leather, she can’t imagine how Roman would react to her walking into their living room with supermarket clothing. The thought makes her laugh. He would think nothing could be worse.

An intrusive thought pops into her head, that maybe she should just not wear anything. “No, this is normal, you see it's more comfortable, so I wanted to” seems like an excuse they’d accept. 

She laughs at herself again ruefully, strapping the last piece of leather to her hip, digging into her reassuringly, if tight. Yeah, she wasn’t the first person to accidentally have a stray tit hanging out in the RWBY dorms, and she won’t be the first to break the inevitably broken new roommate modesty clause here either.

Time to…figure out what to do with her days some more. The one benefit of being at a huntress school, was never having to learn to be anything else.

~~~

27 DAYS AND FIFTEEN HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON

“Roman… You’re up?”

Roman is sitting at the table without anything in front of him, without a care in the world, and greets her with a stifled yawn. 

“Yeeeeeeep~” 

Surely, an exaggerated stifled yawn.

“It’s the only thing me and Neo have always been opposites on, as long as I have a reason to be up early, I’m a fan of going about my day. I’m a certified doer Red.”

She tells herself to shove the thought down her throat, but she’s already flagellating herself before she can really flagellate herself for her vocal self flagellation.  “I’m a reason to be up before noon?”

He smiles at her, and not unkindly, “Well, at the least you’re interesting enough. Besides, I promised to take you under my wing, didn’t I?”

He gets up and bounds towards her, slinging an arm over her shoulder and leading them towards the door. She doesn’t push him away, choosing to join him in his merry mood.

“No, you said you were going to ‘teach me’ how to want, whatever that means.”

He seems a bit shocked that she’s letting him control her like this, that her body stays close, even as his arms lays limp. Hanging on to wherever it is he’s taking her.

His surprise is a small little expression that’s hardly different than a smile, but she can tell. She can also tell from the way his eyes relax when they meet hers, that he’s onto her. That she enjoys being him around already. He will probably be insufferable about it, but there’s a little throw behind knowing that someone who used to want to kill you, is now happy to be your friend.

“Now Red, when you repeat my words back to me, they’re just creepy, so lets just both pretend I said the thing about taking you under my wing instead. Point is, I have things to show you, and one particularly corruptible mind to blow.”

“And the clothing?” She gestures up and down to what he’s wearing with her eyes. A loose tropical-floral print shirt, and khakis that… she doesn’t know how or why, but just look like they might have been a few thousand lien, instead of fifteen at a supermarket like khakis should be.

He smirks at her, bending into her, to whisper into her ear with a cupped hand, as the other cracks open the door for the two of them. “I hope you’re not implying anything untowards by that Red.”

“No, no,” She soothes out with a casual blush,  “just thought I’d see you die of a heatstroke before I saw you out of a suit.”

His voice drops into something low and vicious, scheming with her, as he conspiratorily drops his face deeper into her personal space, and she can’t help but excitedly lean up into him.. “Don’t get used to it, the neighborhood watch moms love it, and I need every advantage with them I can get. Those bastards are vicious, and I’m trying to get them to drop their rules on lawn maintenance.”

She draws attention to them on the empty sidewalk, by turning to look at him mid whisper. Confusion overwriting her complete lack of thieving instinct. “...Why?” 

“Because Red, if It’s not required to keep the grass so trimmed it’s all just a pretty type of dead, and so watered it doesn’t matter anyways. It’s awful, a bore to maintain, might as well not even have paid for the lawn. But, if I can kill that ordinance, then I can actually grow a proper rich person garden. Like museums and what not to keep to show what used to be, back when nobles still had the blood of sewer trash like me to use as fertilizer.”

Ruby's so enraptured by the serious determination in his voice, at his nonsensical motives and scheming, that she hardly realized he’s walked them through the entire neighborhood and then some, all with her not distancing herself from his conspiratorial arms around her.

“Why do you want to start a garden?”

“Because Red. If i’m the only schmuck who puts in the effort to make a really nice fucking garden while the rest of the lazy sobs succumb to the siren call of unrequired lawn maintenance, than we’ll far and away have the nicest house on the street. And having the nicest house on the street means higher property values for me and me alone, and higher property values mean… Tax… Stuff?”

He seems incredibly uncertain at that last part, but he doesn’t stop talking, and Ruby realizes she’s leaning into him with genuine joy written all over her. She doesn’t try to mask it, this is the type of shenanigans that would have never occurred to her in a million years, if she didn’t take the time, and the colossal amount of burnt bridges, to listen. She’s glad that she doesn’t have to force herself to kinda love it.

“And tax stuff is good?”

“No tax stuff is a minor side bonus. The real boon is that when all the other moms,”

“Other moms?”

“Shut up, when all the other houses on the block realize what’s happening, they’ll all start paying for the finest garden work and upkeep money can buy.”

“And that’s good because???”

“Because I own the gardening company that will swoop in.”

“...”

“...”

She can’t help herself from falling into a genuine giggle fit at the absurdity of it all. Roman plays along with the scene she’s making, distancing himself from her instantly in a giant roll of his eyes. She chases her place at his hip, as she’s seen Neo do before. And with a huff, he lays his arm back on her shoulders. Any annoyance with her, somehow just a game. 

She’s finally starting to get that.

“This is striking me as the type of shenanigans awfully similar to the type of stuff you used to get up to in Vale. Now just barely not illegal, instead of borderline terrorism.”

“Hey I told you Red, all three of us need our personal hobbies. Leave me to it, and I’ll leave you to your own ‘shenanigans.’”

She can tell from the way he can’t quite bring himself to look at her, that he’s not used to the earnestness in her voice, when she tells him, “I didn’t mean it like that dummy. It sounds… well, fun! Keep me updated, and tell me if there’s anything I can do to help?”

He laughs, bright and small in a way she forces her brain to remember, because she just knows it’s different. Saved for her and Neo and no one else. He’s embarrassed and it's a thrill. He scratches at his cheek, and she takes pride in whatever reason he has for not being able to look at her. “Did… did Neo give you tips on how to do that, you’re getting pretty good?”

She straightens her back, but doesn’t quite get what he means, at least not fully. “Hmmm? I-... I’m not putting any effort into it really, just letting what comes naturally to me be natural for once.”

“Right… well, don’t worry about helping, you’ve already done most of the work.”

She gives him a questioning look.

“I have spent over a million lien on exotic flowers. I got a call from my bank. But when I spruce up this neighborhood into historically pristine condition, I still plan on our house being at the top. Just keep bringing the money in, and you’ll have done all the actual hard work.”

The nagging voice in her head to care about zeros that wasn’t there before puts equal amounts of genuine concern, along with the naturally occurring good humour, into her voice. “Will… will gardening services make more than a million lien?”

A rare moment of silence with Roman hangs for about an entire city’s block.

“Hey Red look, we’re here!”

She looks at the building in front of them, and the smell isn’t exactly promising.

~~~

27 DAYS AND 14 HOURS UNTIL THE FALL OF BEACON. 

The doorbell rings to introduce them into the shop, Ruby walking in with Roman behind her, the height difference causing him to have to bend over slightly in order to remain close enough to her to be a party of two in the eyes of the cafe. 

It’s a cramped place, a chunky wooden counter the only thing dividing the floor space from layers and layers of metal equipment she’s not used to seeing so exposed in a restaurant, leaving less walking space than table space, (despite only fitting three small tables), for the two of them to fit into.

They do fit though, even if it's shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. (Well, shoulder to torso, hip to upper thigh. Romans a lanky guy.) An older looking man is in the back fiddling with things, and waves to Roman in recognition when he notices them. Roman puts a hand on her shoulder, and leans into her ear. “Get us a table, I’ll order for the two of us.” She looks to him, then looks towards the exactly zero menus anywhere in the store, and shrugs, not caring too much either way about the process. 

All getting a table is, is her awkwardly shuffling past Roman, into a chair that they were already pressed up against. She looks up from two inches behind him, and watches him converse with the man in Mistrali, and though she has learned to pick out a few words, it’s mostly just the grammar she can follow, not any of the actual meaning. She feels a bit out of place, her only presence in the bar a slow drum of her fingers on the table. 

A drum and a drum, and still she looms behind as the two men talk for longer than it takes to just order food. It's not nerves, but slight annoyance that beats in her heart at that. Though, annoyed at herself, for not knowing how to be a part of this.

But he told her he was teaching her, and she knows learning takes time.

She takes a deep breath in. Romans cigar mixes with the bitter smell she had noticed outside, and though she knows both are nauseating in some objective since, as she’s gotten used to one, it makes the other more pleasant. She takes a deep breath out. 

She tries to examine anything to ease her boredom, but there’s not much to look at. Even if Romans presence wasn’t so demanding in rooms like these. It’s an oddity to her, why the old man hadn’t told him to put it out when they entered the restaurant, but she thinks she can understand why. I mean, just look at him. Roman seems to belong in places like this. Or at least he should, when he’s not wearing his stupid HoA get up. 

She wonders if she’s ever seemed to naturally exist in a place in the eyes of others? Maybe at Beacon, but that thought is quickly dismissed as she contemplates who it was that was allegedly natural. The memory nauseates her worse than the smoke and smells ever could. She wouldn’t have survived long like that she’s sure. That person wasn’t her, she’s certain. She is not her mother. She could never be. She. is not. her. She won’t die in vain, not when Roman and Neo provide such… alternatives. It’s better this way… She can help more people this way… Even if she can’t shake the suffocating feeling of selfishness. 

A breath out, a breath out, a breath out, and it's all such a wonderful smoke down her lungs. The smoke is familiar, even when it comes with something new.

New, and promising her that soon she will be learned of it. 

A breath in, a breath in, a breath in, how exciting. 

Did she seem natural to Roman and Neo? In the jungle? In the bar? Or did they not know her well enough for it to escape the realm of the novel? Even if the moment felt so freeing, did her hood not make it so that the version of her that was left in the memory of others, was one just as false as the failing leader that somehow inspired hope? No one had noticed, except maybe Neo, how scared she was. 

Not even him, not yet. 

It’s too early to be thinking about these things. So she does what she has been succeeding at for just over a month now, and doesn’t, even as the space around her feels cramped. Shared and shared, and this place should really invest in outside dining. 

Even out there, It’s just her and a language she doesn’t understand.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Boredom sets in. Better than the alternative, of allowing herself to spiral when she could have  instead caught herself on disinterest. As she is forced to sit with no thought other than how out of place she herself is, a new reason to think ‘what is it exactly im doing here’ drifts into her mind. Drifts, and taps, taps, away through her fingers.

The old man notices how far away she is. 

“Roman! You’ve brought such a fine young woman into my establishment, and you’re ignoring her. Catching up is fine and all, but I won’t accept such behaviour.”

He looks at her, surprised, than a tinge of what is certainly worry. She smiles at him, and she can tell instantly he doesn’t believe it. That after a few days, he can see through her better than her team could. Still, as she watches him turn back to say something to the old man, she can see humour in his lips.“Your eyes are failing you, your definition of fine is as far away from her as any sane person can get.”

The man laughs uncomfortably,tentatively asking, “But not your definition?”

Roman sputters at the implication, and though Ruby’s not a fan of it either, recoiling her body in her chair ever so slightly, she can’t help herself from being amused at the genuine scandalized objection Roman is suddenly trying to make clear in front of this stranger to her.

He points to her accusingly, grimaces, than turns back to the man. “No! No, it hasn’t quite reached the same crescendo yet, but her… herness throws wrenches into my life with as much tenacity as Neo does. My early retirement is in disarray, just because of the madness their two small small bodies posses.”

The old man laugh is performed, but comfortable this time. Whatever tension he had felt, melted away by Romans antics. Comfortable enough to put more implications in his voice Roman clearly isn’t a fan of. “Oh, so she’s like Neo is she?”

Huh, that’s a good point, this random guy knows Neo, does he?

“How many times have I had to tell ya man, you have the read on the two of us completely wro-”

A single petal is all it takes, and an exchange is shared faster than the man can notice. A silent giggle, and a look of genuine shock! Horror! Exasperation! Roman’s so fun when she remembers she’s allowed to be like this now.

Ruby bolts out of her chair and shoves herself under Romans arm, shooting her hand out towards the man in the same motion. Roman makes noises of protest, but doesn’t actually remove himself from the situation. Not that there are that many places here he could comfortably abscond to.

She tries to recall how Neo looks when her smile’s fake but playful. When she’s enjoying herself, but around more people than just Roman, and as of this week, Ruby as well.

 A smile she wears when she’s… in a sadistic mood, Ruby suddenly realizes is the trend there. How quickly she had forgotten what she knew, even as she watched it play out, when the memory of that first night with her replayed in her head and dominated her opinions of the woman…

A pang of guilt at caring more for the arms placed around her during her mot foolish hour,more than the people those same arms have so cruelly hurt. Even if it’s the point, want is the only thing that defines her relationship with these two. She doesn’t know them enough yet, to know which parts of themselves are things worth reflecting.

It doesn't stop her from putting her recollection into imitation.  

“Hi! My name's Ruby! You know Neo?” Romans face hangs in that beautiful moment where he realized what was about to happen, and it fuels something in Ruby.

The man doesn’t shake her hand, insomuch as he holds it. Holds it in the way she had seen in the illustrations of Blake's books, or the practiced dancing Weiss had forced on the three of them. Unlike Weiss, who ran her finger through her hands with a shocked reverence during the practice. Unlike Blake, who held them gently with sad and impressed pride, and a pitying look. The man holds her firmly, ignoring the rough calluses as if they weren’t there, and politely brings her ring finger to just before his lips. Not actually kissing her hand, but doing every gesture as if he had needed to in order to not insult.  

“I do.” He gives Roman a knowing look that Ruby loves. One day there might be something to know. “I take it then, that the three of you are all acquainted with one another?”

If the logistics of this shop implies a place only for regulars, then the air of it now implies she is being treated no differently than how he’d treat anyone that came attached to the hip of a trusted friend. But still, the scene is so comical, that she can’t keep face. She falls back into her chair with a stream of snorts and giggles, letting herself enjoy the embarrassment Roman has set up for himself by virtue of not only existing, not only letting her stay, but going out of his way to make her feel welcomed… He really was trying as hard as she was at this, but she still doesn’t entirely understand why.

“Yep, tragically she’s one of us now. Two has become three and all that.”

“Careful Roman, if they both didn’t have such clear senses of humour, people might think you have a thing for the height.”

A discomfort tints her cheeks red, but she can’t resist being part of the conversation. “Yeah Roman, wouldn’t that be unfortunate.”

Last night with the jokes about her love and creation had been good practice for today it seems.

“Yeah, this conversation is over now.”

His voice fails to command the room. If it’s because of his tropical shirt, or because it’s lacking the threatened intent that had her pale and shaking thinking about being accomplice to it at The Lounge, she doesn’t know, but the owner continues talking to her like Roman isn’t even there.

Though, first his eyes fall to her hip, where Crescent Rose lay.

“You a huntress then? Don’t normally see you guys so attached to us common folk.”

She laughs at the thought. Roman and Neo are so retired, they can afford to be this sloppy with their secrets, and still get away with normalcy. Driven by their wants, finally meaning a simple life. One day, that will be hers as well. If only getting there, involved less bouncing between emotional extremes. 

Seeing Roman seethe in the corner makes life easier to deal with for the time though.

“Yeah. We ran into each other one night when they still lived in Vale, just out shopping. After that, we just kept bumping into each other and… well, that turned into this?”

Lying was easy when she didn’t actually have to tell any mistruths. 

“Hah, I bet there’s more of a story behind it than that. Either way I thought Roman was exaggerating when he told me you’d never had any good food before,-”

She pouts, “I’ve had good food before.” Yang cooked…. Well she tried to cook when she was younger, but she loved the taste even if it was mostly done up canned doo-s and dad-s.

He chuckles her off, “But, now that I know you’re a huntress, well, I know the type. You two sit tight, I’ll have your order out in a bit.”

The man walks behind the counter and starts fiddling with his various cookware, leaving her and Roman to themselves.

With a huff, Roman breaks the distance his joke demanded, and slides into the table across from her, Laying his head against his arms in a match to her own outward display of Boredom, but he’s given away by the smirk on his lips, and the piercing nature of how he looks at her from underneath his limbs.

It’s just the two of them, and Ruby looks at him fondly. The day is young, and yet she’s oddly tired already from the production he’s turned mundanity into. Though, as she examines that thought, her muscles lax and her brain fails to examine much of anything. She upgrades the assessment of her own feelings to exhausted, and to that extent, she has no idea why,

“How ya holding up Red?”

“Looking after me’s so dire, you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel of small talk huh?”

“Shoot a guy for trying will ya” He leans back in his chair, his eyes suddenly pitying, though if she was…more charitable, she might say they looked a little hurt, “Is it really that hard to believe?”

She swallows down the, ‘No, just didn’t expect you to care so fast.’ Too blase, overcompensating. She swallows down the, ‘well in that case, don’t worry about me, just a long few weeks and an early start to today.’ she promised herself she wouldn’t be like that anymore. 

She doesn’t want to lie to him, not for his sake instead of her own. But she wishes she didn’t sound so weak when she says “Yes.” 

She wishes it didn’t taste like salt on her tongue, and sound like failure in her ears.

The man sets two cups in front of them, and scurries off, delicate to not interrupt them.

Roman takes a wooden stick, and starts stirring nothing into his drink, humming in consideration. He holds his eyes upon her, hung in silence, then gestures with them towards her own cup. Humming with the machinery whirring away in the kitchen. 

She looks down and sees a smooth rich light brown, and its smell breaks through what she expected. There is still a bitter, and there is still Romans smoke, but there is too the richness of a deep chocolate. 

She takes a moment to indulge in the smell. She remembers her time with the flavor before, tasting something repulsive, as it rushed down her throat, past her taste buds, fake sugar masking as much as it could, but making her nauseous all the same.

She’s hesitant to take a drink of what’s in front of her, but the hesitation is only memory. The reality is not enticing. Nor is it desirable. But she knows from how coffee affects the body, that if she takes the sip, she might just not be able to live without it. A very dangerous proposition for a huntress. Unless of course, the huntress is certain she will always have somewhere to come back to. Roots.

Hands wrap around the cup, and the warmth radiating through her fingers is grounding. Handmade, just for her, made by people who want her wants.

But she still hesitates.

Roman clears his throat from across the table, “I was asking Rose, cause I’m genuinely worried about ya. Worried, because I’ve been watching. I’ve done this whole song and dance before ya know, and you’re bouncing around who you are hour to hour. Sometimes you look like you’re about to freak the fuck out, others you’re emrbacing a life life so exhuberant, so familiar with me and Neo, it’s a tad uncomfortable to see.”

She… No one had been upset with her before, for building parts of what she should be from them. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Hey now, didn’t mean it like that. Neo loves it honestly, and so I do too. It’s just, hard to watch sometimes, I figure the dissonance can be tiring. I know it can be.”

A clink as he stops stirring his coffee, and a moment of silence as he looks to the side, away from her. His mouth hangs on an unspoken word through parted lips. He shakes his head, his hair ruffling out of place as strands cover his eyes without their usual intent, and though uncertain, he’s looking at her again.

Her heart remembers to beat, in the same moment it forgets it had stopped.

“But, that’s something you should ask Neo about. Her eyebags to tell you about, not mine.” He sighs, detenses, and gives her a once over. She expects him to say something, to be eager to see her reaction, but he’s seemingly content to give her all the time in the world. 

She picks up her cup, and brings it to her lip, but does not taste. Indulging instead in the aroma ever closer, singling it out for the first time since she noticed it first with the smell of cigar. “Is there any time I’m easy to watch?” she morsefully asks, and she wishes the humour in her voice wasn’t completely absent.

She glances up from behind her cup, and sees his eyes as honest as she imagine they can be. Shimmering in a keen interest. He didn’t take that as a joke.

“Plenty. So far the best part of our new life with you-” Her heart beats, and her glass shakes. She knows he notices, but he continues as if he didn’t. How deliberate is it of him, to press into her face how easy it was for them of all people to welcome her. It was never this easy before, it’s not supposed to be this easy.  “Has been just… watching you. Back in Vale, seeing you fight was intimidating. A beast that always gave off this sense of holding back something unstoppable. We always won, or got away, which is the same in our book. And we never knew for sure, but you were the only person that made us fear that it was possible to lose. Now I get to see you outside of a fight, just… existing-”

A hint of confusion enters his otherwise warm rambling, and it resonates within her the assured safety of normalcy. Not belong alone even among but three, “I… I didn’t know that was weird for you too.”

“Of course it is Red.”

“It’s just, I feel like there's a barrier between me and accepting all of this, and the strangeness of this all is the biggest thing holding me back.”

“I’m telling you Red, everything wrong with right now has nothing to do with you. I’ve seen how you’ve thrown yourself at this life, at me while we’re walking, at your work when you get it. You’re determined to not regret everything you’ve lost. But this sort of change in a life's direction, all it ever takes is a choice. The fact of the matter is, that right now you do regret it still. You know this is wrong, and you feel so deeply for the people you left behind, frankly, you probably always will. But, that ‘strangeness’ you’re feeling, it’s just unspent time. You need time to accept who you are now. All it takes Red. Wait shit, that wasn’t what I wanted to say to you.”

“I-” Tears form around her eyes, and Roman looks at her with an empathetic lack of care. Expected she supposes, he expected to see her breakdown like this. She’s been… all her life so stupid. She should never have been made leader, she should have never been on a team to begin with, she=

“Drink your coffee Red, tell me how it is.”

The simple demand cuts through her spiraling and has the cup against her lip before she processes what she’s done. Something rich and sweet fills her mouth, and though there is a light after taste of bitter nausea under it all, It’s paired so resolutely by the sweet, that it becomes an entirely new flavor. The nature of it unchanged, but now… it fills her with a sense of peace. A sigh of contentedness escapes her lips even as she knows she looks so frail. 

“Good, right? I always hated the flavor when I was younger too, but I had the first cup I liked when I was around…Same age as you I think? After that, they all start tasting different to you. That comfort you can taste? Once you can recognize it, it never goes away. Figure over the next few weeks, I’ll take you out every morning, and we’ll try every type there is. Make sure you know exactly what it is you want the most.”

There is a breakfast tart beneath her now, she never even noticed the shopkeep bringing it to her. 

“You… you want to eat out breakfast with me everyday.”

“God no red, we’re gonna be eating out together at least twice a day, until you start understanding what good food is, and why you should always want it. Why no matter what comes, it’s a comfort you more than most will always deserve.”

She takes a bite of the food beneath her, and just like Romans cooking. It’s layered in so many flavors and textures that comparing it to the food she tends to eat on a day to day is just… wrong. It’s not snobbery like she had accused Weiss of countless times, it’s just fact. And when her money is infinite, and spending it goes towards the people and places she protects, and it really is that much better than her rations and half cooked meals… why wouldn’t she indulge in what Romans suggested. It’s not even decadence, nor want, nor selfishness. It just makes sense. 

“Hah, knew you’d love this place. Gonna show you every good spot in the city, until you know the roads by the back of your hand, and they all lead to something that makes you feel like that.”

He reaches across the table to a crumb on her lip, and gently removes it from her face. She looks at him like he’s stupid, and he just smirks back in that infuriating way she knows now they both learned from Neo, and utilize half as well. 

“What, you were practically hanging off me this morning, figured you wanted in on the physical affection you’ve seen from the two of us. Gods I feel like a looser saying it like that. I just wanted to encourage you with a two way street is all, I’m serious about making sure you learn to take what you want, and only give back what is deserved. Getting there is a simple but multistep process.”

“But why.”

He levels his eyes to her own, and something within them shine with a childlike glint. Of a joy she now knows how to find on his face, not just Neos.

“Becuase Red, when I look at you. I see a girl stumbling half blind fully naive through life. You might let yourself die on the sidewalk if someone stopped you there. But you’re trying to be more. Not for some dumb cause that will get you killed for nothing, but for yourself. And every mistake you made is backed up by what I saw yesterday in the jungle, by something indomitable. Just knowing that’s what’s going to break out one day… Red, when you shine, I can’t look away. And I don’t care how many times I have to reassure you of this, but both of us will do anything, to help you become whatever it is you want to make of every terrifying, frustrating, amazing thing that is you.”

She feels from her cheek down to her neck a red hot feeling that is new and somewhat unnatural upon her. A burning desire for more words that sound like that, and more eyes that look at her like he’s looking at her now. Loving how she feels now, feels wrong in her stomach. But she knows now that hesitation of that ilk, is just the memory of feelings she doesn’t want to keep anymore. Of parts of herself she no longer needs. 

There is a butter in her voice, a teary eyed and desperately curious “but why now.”

“Because you asked.”

“But why me.”

“Because Neo got attached fast and hard. Because you two are similar as all get out, and I’d have risked so much for her even when we first met, and now I’d do anything. Now, just a few years and new beginnings that feel startlingly similar to the past, and the same applies to you.Because seeing you happy like this, as if the concept is new to you, even if people had always thought it was innate to you, is nostalgic for me in a way I can’t ignore. That makes it feel like I’d be doing what was before this weekend, the only person in the world I care about, a disservice if I pretended these feelings aren’t what they are. And yes Red, before you accuse this of being a rehash or a bore. No, it’s not. And I’ll say that as many times as you need to hear it.”

She… she needs more though, she needs this banging questioning regret, this choking uncertainty, this awful awful feeling of being out of place, ripped out of her. Her hunting garb is rough on her skin, a new smell she notices as her mocha and breakfast are fading fast, but at the edges of oil and grimm. It all surrounds her in a protective constraint. 

She’s been asking the wrong questions.

“Than…. Than why Neo.”

“How to put this in a way you understand.” He brings a finger up to his chin, seriously contemplating something he’s already resolved to tell her. “You know the fairytale, Lil Thumb Popper,”

A particularly ridiculous one, that her Mother had never read to her, and she had only read once, Skipping over it whenever she could.

“...Yes?”

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s not like I care for it or anything I just… I thought I was hot shit.”

“The past tense there shows a serious lack of self reflection.”

“Your past tense shows a serious lack of being quiet. Anyways, when I was but a boy, I was weak, I was poor, I was a skinny little thing, and I thought I could be a hunter. I wanted to be a hunter more than anything. Thought I was living out that plucky fairytale of the small orphan boy coming from scraps and turning his thimble and needle into a mighty sword.”

“You, wanted to be a huntsman?”

“Yep! Even was enrolled in Haven for a year.”

“What happened?”

“I realized my ambitions had more purposeful outlets. She made me realize, it was all just an ego game Red. I wanted to have respect, I wanted to make a show of my skill, rub it in the face of everyone that put me down. I wanted fame, and cunning, and money, and guile. When Haven inevitability kicked me out for, frankly just not being good enough back then, I thought I’d lost that dream.”

“And Neo gave you a new one?”

“No, she gave me a kick in the fucking ass. Put a fire back in my poor cold passion. Seeing her come into herself as she did, casting aside the simple life for the Neo one. It made me realize that who you are isn’t about your place in life, nor is it about your destiny. We praise huntsman for their combat skill, even as the master thieves handle them with ease. We praise huntsman for their intelligence, even as the dark always remains a step ahead of the light, waiting just around the corner. We shower riches upon huntsman who do their job well, and act as if wine doesn’t taste the same bought from the coffers of another.”

Roman leans back into his chair, dragging another cigar from his pocket, and setting it alight once more. He isn’t looking at her anymore, remembering something he maybe would have forgotten, if he didn’t have to explain it right now. 

“Me and Neo love a good saying Red. Punchy, able to be marterfied, potent even when Neo is just writing it on paper. I see you learning some sign by the way, good on you.”

Roman spells in letter, “A P P R E C I A T E D” 

Twirling his cup around in a small circle, he punctuates his idea with the swirl of his last sip. “But what we really mean with all our thieves talk. Our serious break of character to lament the merits of taking and giving, lying and surviving. It’s all just about understanding, that morals are defined by nothing but merit and desire. As long as you are clear on those two things, then the division between heroics and selfishness is all to do with what others are getting from you, and nothing to do with the actual content of your soul.”

He sees that he’s losing her a little, as she retreats back into the nonspace he’s learning to recognize behind her eyes, and leans in after her with an excited finality. Keeping her from going over the hedge by a grip around the collar of her minds eye.

“The logic follows Red, I promise it does. The hunter that chooses which town they save based on cash, is understandably guided by self-sustenance, while the thief that only targets the rich is self righteous. For a people that need a healthy soul to thrive, you sure do care about perceptions.”

 
She tilts her head at him in a manner Yang had called puppylike when the two of them had been younger. She kinda feels like a baby trying to understand his point, without a grasp of language, or perhaps just clutching onto the first person willing to take care of her even if they’re mad. Childlike no matter the reason. 

“Wh-what”

There’s a shimmer in Romans eyes, childlike as well. “Take your cup of coffee red. Actually pick it up.”

She does, the smell draws her in, now that a pleasant taste, and a pleasant memory, is associated with it. No recoiling, no swallowing without tasting. 

“Draw your fingers around it, really feel it. Look at that Coffee Art, basic and already half unmade from your little baby sips.”

Her fingers brush over the ceramic. Smooth and crisp, reflecting her own self back at her in a contorted if silly form. The coffee is a light brown, with foaming white melting into the distinct color. What was one separated, now one. She already knows he will want her to taste the difference between sips, and begins to work at the impossible task within her memory as he rambles on. 

“What you got there Red, is espresso, milk, and a wee bit of chocolate. Frankly, it is barely different than any other drink I could have ordered you. But this one is special, and it’s not because it’s your first. It’s because of how it was made, the aeration and the timing and the whipping and the swirl, it’s because of the ratio, it’s because of the cup feeling cool in your hands. Glass would be hot and see through, paper would be bitter and rough, it’s all the same drink but it tastes different when you feel different, and you feel different based on aesthetics, and time of day, and skill. End of the day though Red, every drink here is espresso, milk, and sometimes a lil something extra.” 

“I feel like you lost the plot there for a bit.”

He shrugs at her, “eh, I’d have really lost you if I started to actually talk about Coffee, we’re doing cafe philosophy instead, much more digestible.” 

“Nope, sorry, still lost me.”

He runs his fingers over the rim of his empty glass, before stretching out, one foot out of the chair as he observes her work slowly through the last of her first ‘good’ cup. “Sorry, but I don’t think I did. You’re a tad too keen for that I think Red, and I’ve recently learned you’re quite good at misdirecting people from whatever's going on up in your head.” He points to his head as if there’s anything going on up there. “ It takes a lot to fool a huntress team, but even more to fool me.”

She sinks into her seat, the warmth of her final sip warming her chest, but the weight of the day no lessened. Where he stretches, she splays, a break from her normal vigilance. It’s not even a display for the benefit of others this time, like it used to be. She’s just tired. 

Roman puts his hand over her own. He seems awkward about it, and she can’t help but laugh a little at his nerves. 

“Red,” he begins, “all I’m trying to say is, is that you were right.” and he says that like he’s proud of her, and despite their history, it’s not a pride she bristles at. “You’re here to throw the parts of you that can’t survive out, while keeping what’s core? That’s fine Red. No matter what you surround that soul of yours with, you will always be you. Nothing can change that. Everything else is just appearance and fashion. So have some fun with it will you. You want to be a Huntress? That’s fine and good, keep being one, and no matter what you do, the good you want to bring into the world will come out of it. Everything else can just be you.” He raises his empty cup to her zonked out body “No matter the cup.”

“Roman… are you just trying to tell me to stop trying so hard.”

“HAH, caught on at last. I had you going for a while there that I knew some astute wisdom though huh?”

He stands up, and offers his hand to her. She takes it, allowing herself to be pulled up, and letting her weight carry into him further into a playful shove. “Not for a second Torchwick. You talk too much to be smart.”

They stand there for a moment, together in the shop, still strangers despite it all, and not capable of ending a day out without some awkwardness. “Ouch, fair, but still hurtful.” 

“Well… what do we do now?” She offers.

“Now Red, what I do is go run an HOA. What you do, is have some fucking fun for once with your day. Go out and do something, I don’t know, decide for yourself what you want.”

Right. “Right.” She pushes her fingers together, suddenly unable to look at him, “and how would I… do that?”

“Oh christ, right, fuck listen if you really need help. Just go walk around the city? Maybe learn some more sign? Hang out with Neo if you really want to, Gods knows she’s curious about you. Heh, hey if none of that sounds appealing, go se what non hunting jobs the lounge has. Doing babies first crime within two days of knowing me would be fucking hilarious.  Just… try not to regret whatever it is you do, okay Red?”

She nods, and he thinks it’s towards him, but it’s not. “Right just… just do something.” Her hand reaches for the door of the store, and she turns the knob, pushing outwards.