Chapter Text
'ZzZZZzz,' Mydnight’s scroll vibrated in his pocket, snapping him out of his stupor. He reached down and grabbed the device, quickly opening the message.
You on the shuttle?
Yeah, waiting for everyone to finish getting on so we can leave, he sent back to his older counterpart. His golden eyes scanned the room again quickly, not looking too deeply at any of his new classmates. He found many of them staring at him, but he didn't expect any different from humans. Mydnight shoved his scroll back into the pocket of his long black coat and adjusted the tall collar to conceal himself more.
Every time he heard a new voice in the shuttle his ears twitched up, struggling to keep his curiosity under control as he always did. The fluffy ears served him well, but it had never been easy to curb his more animalistic tendencies. Not to mention all of the hate that being a Faunus in Vale had garnered him. His heavy black combat boots tapped up and down on the metal floor, his legs restless after waiting for this day for so long. He once again had grown ever so slightly, but just enough to need to buy new clothes. He hoped it would be the last time, as he had actually gone to the trouble of buying nice black band tees and black skinny jeans instead of his normal cheap clothing that he would outgrow six months.
He had considered cutting his hair but decided to see how things went at Beacon before doing so, still straight, shoulder-length and black, his tail and ears tipped with red. He had at the very least styled it out of his face, having spent four years in a school with other normal people had taught him to relax a little and at least try to be approachable in some capacity. Now, instead of his bright golden eyes shining through his black hair, they were on display, for better or worse. He could swear his hair was turning gray more and more every day, by the time he graduated he would probably have more grays than Qrow, but for now it didn't bother him.
As the shuttle filled up more and more however the humans were forced to spread out, some drawing the short straws as it were, and having to come over to his side of the shuttle. He looked out the window and began to tune the rest of the world out. “Even less Faunus here than at Signal,” he grumbled. As the students finally finished piling in and the shuttle began to take off he felt someone sit down on the bench beside him, taking him by surprise and once again snapping him away from his thoughts.
When he turned to see who it was, he found a girl looking at the floor with her hands between her knees. Her hair was skunked, mostly black with white streaks running through it and styled over most of her face, but he could tell that she had very vibrant red eyes. She wore a black sweatshirt with a band's name plastered on the front in white and a pair of black skinny jeans to match, ripped in several places.
The sweater was baggy, several sizes too big for her he guessed, but even then he found himself surprised by how developed she was for their age. The more he looked at her however the more he began to think he had seen her somewhere before, but also that the more he looked at her the more she seemed to shy away from him as if feeling his gaze lingering on her.
Before long she began to squirm in her seat before tilting her head toward him and looking at him shyly through her hair. “Uhm...” she began quietly. “I...can move if I'm..b-bothering you,” she stuttered.
"Oh no I...Sorry, I uh...didn't mean to stare," he began awkwardly. "I just...do I know you?"
Her cheeks flushed bright red as she looked back to the floor nervously, “No!” she blurted out. “I mean...puh-probly not.” He could tell she was nervous talking to him, most people were, but he could also tell that on the inside she was freaking out even more than her appearance suggested.
"Probably not? Well, are you from around here?" He pressed her, he swore he had seen her before somewhere. It felt like it was on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn't place the name.
"Wh-well we...did go to school together," she spoke softly as she moved some of her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear before turning to face him again, unable to look him right in the face.
“Did we really? Huh no wonder,” he felt relieved for a moment. “Must have seen you in the hallways from time to time.”
The girl then whispered under her breath, of course, not realizing that his heightened sense of hearing would pick up her words anyway, "I mean we had three classes together all four years but ya that too."
“Did we really?” He replied, taking her completely by surprise, her eyes finally meeting his.
“Oh gosh, I’m sorry I-I didn't...that was a rude thing to say-” She began to say before being cut off.
"Ohhhhhh," he said as he leaned forward toward her, remembering her name now that he could really see her face. "Ambur right?" Her face filled with light as he spoke.
“Ye-yeah,” she smiled softly as her vision returned to the ground in front of her, twiddling her thumbs between her thighs. “I can't believe you remember my name,” she blushed.
“No I'm sorry it took me so long I just,” he hesitated, “didn’t really pay much attention,” he began to say quickly but slowed down when he realized he was getting a little too personal with his confession.
“You did seem like you always had somewhere to be. So...what are you doing over here alone?”
He was a little stunned by her question, thinking the answer was obvious. “I mean...I'm the only Faunus on this shuttle...better question is why does that not seem to bother you?”
“Well...why would that bother me? It's not like you're an animal or something...you're still a person,” she gave him a nervous smile. His lips parted at her words before he couldn't help but return her smile.
He slowly reached out his hand to her, taking her by surprise yet again before she slowly met his hand with hers. "Nice to really meet you, Ambur."
Ambur’s cheeks flushed bright pink and shook his hand. “V-Very nice to meet you too Mydnight,” she spoke very quickly. As they let each other go she turned fully toward him on their bench and he did the same.
“So...” he began as he now got a good look at her sweater. “Casey Williams huh?” He smiled as he looked from the words on her sweater back up to her face.
"Ya," she breathed out quickly, "she's my favorite," she once again tucked more hair behind her ears, her smile now glued on. "What about you?"
“Well I think you have pretty great taste,” he laughed, “She's my favorite too.”
“Really?” Her voice was nearly a mouse’s squeak. “What song is your favorite?”
“Mmmmm,” he thought aloud as he lifted his hand to his chin and looked toward the ceiling. “Probably I May Fall,” he finally answered as he looked back at her, seeing her lips part as the blush returned to her cheeks.
“That's,” she began quietly in disbelief. “That's my favorite too...” She said before laughing at herself. “Sorry,” she sighed as she looked back to the bench and fidgeted with her fingers.
“For what?” He asked, tilting his head in confusion.
“Nothing, nothing I just...I don't really...talk to a lot of people...I always think I sound annoying.”
"Well you're not annoying me," he smiled, her own smile returning to her face. Mydnight thought she seemed primed to say something more, but a woman's voice over the ship's intercom interrupted.
“Hello, and welcome to Beacon,” the voice began, “my name is Glynda Goodwitch.”
“Oh man the recording is of her?” Mydnight rolled his eyes before looking out of the window.
“Do...you know who she is?”
"Ya, I uh..." he began before realizing that he was about to overshare again. "My uh…Uncle," he lied, "is friends with the headmaster here. I've met most of the teachers already."
“Oh,” Ambur seemed to remember quickly after he spoke, “You're related to professor Branwen aren’t you?”
“Ya,” he sighed, a little disgusted with himself.
“So wait do you like...already know where we are all going?”
"Yep, we are supposed to have a big introductory speech from the headmaster and then eat. After that everyone sets up to sleep in the grand hall before being tested and put on teams tomorrow."
“Oh, we all sleep in the same room the first night?”
"Ya, the paperwork doesn't really mention that part. Tomorrow night we will all be given actual dorm rooms with our three teammates though so after that it'll get more private."
“Oh...w-well,” she stuttered, “Would you...maybe like to be on a...team?”
He turned to her with a small smile spread across his lips, deeply impressed with how nice she was being, "I would but it doesn't work that way, unfortunately. The process is random so there's no way to guarantee that we will be on the same team."
“Oh,” Mydnight watched her sigh as if she were truly disappointed, but a small smile returned to her after a moment anyway.
The airship finally descended to the landing area and they all began to file out of the ship. Mydnight and Ambur were the last two on their transport to depart. They walked down the stone pathway, falling behind the crowd and Mydnight saw one student off to the side that began waving his way.
He was on the tall side, though about an inch shorter than Ambur and Mydnight, with very dull bronze-colored eyes and messy short cut brown hair. His clothes were far tamer than Mydnight's, much closer to Ambur's modest look, a black graphic t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. He fell in line, walking with them as he and Mydnight low fived each other. "Of course you're the last one off the boat," the kid laughed before looking over to Ambur and gave her a small wave. "Hey," he smiled with his eyes closed, "you're from our class too right?"
“Y-ya I graduated with you guys at Signal,” she smiled back shyly, “you’re Bronzine right?”
“Hah, ya I am...Magnolia right? Aaaambur?” he said, sounding unsure, but as she smiled and nodded her head he snapped his fingers and pointed to her with a cocky smile. “Knew it,” he chuckled as he raised his arms behind his head as they walked down the stone path and into the main hall, finding the rest of the students already gathered around the stage. “So aren't you meeting Qrow or something after this?”
"Ya he asked me to meet him in the headmaster's office after the ceremony," Mydnight sighed before reaching into his pocket and grabbing his scroll. "Speaking of which," he thought aloud as the two watched him shoot a text message to Qrow. Ceremony starts in a few minutes, I'll be right over afterward.
As the ceremony came and went the students would be treated to not just Ozpin's speech but indeed one from Glynda as well, before being funneled out of the auditorium and toward the dining hall. However, as they got halfway there, Bronzine and Ambur saw Mydnight shoot them a quick salute as he began to walk in a different direction. "I'll catch you guys later alright? This shouldn't take long so save me a seat huh?" He smirked as Bronzine gave him a thumbs up and Ambur felt her cheeks flush slightly before nodding her head.
Mydnight picked up the pace, walking quickly to the headmaster's office, heading into the building and straight back through the room to the elevator. However, as the doors began to close he heard the entrance door opening and held his hand out to stop the elevator from closing. He had wondered if he was going to beat the headmaster back to his office but it appeared he was not, as he saw Ozpin and Glynda walking toward him and into the elevator, both nodding to thank him for waiting. “Nice to see you made it, couldn't see you in the crowd,” The headmaster smiled as he pat the teen on the shoulder.
“Did you think I would miss it?”
“Well you've never been one for social gatherings now have you,” Oz answered with a small sigh.
“Ya I guess that's fair,” he chuckled as the elevator began to go up to Ozpin's office. As the door opened Mydnight found Qrow standing against a pillar, already waiting for them to arrive.
“Hey kid,” he smirked as the trio walked out of the elevator and Oz moved across the room and came to rest in his chair behind his desk. “How was the flight?”
“Not bad,” Mydnight answered, looking around the room, watching the gears in the floor and ceiling turning as they always had. “How do you concentrate in here?”
“It calms me,” Ozpin let said, his vision too scanned the room, “helps me think. Reminds me that time never stops ticking.”
“Hm,” Mydnight hummed as he shrugged his shoulders. “So what do you guys need?”
“Well,” Ozpin began as he looked over at Qrow, Mydnight's vision shifted to Qrow as well as he gave him a questioning look.
Qrow stood up straight, pushing off the column he was resting against and walked toward Mydnight. "He wants to make you like me, kid," he smirked.
“Like you?”
“Qrow,” Ozpin began, “is one of my most valued associates but you may not entirely realize why that is, Mydnight.”
"I mean, he's a really talented fighter and he's smart, what more do you need?" Mydnight joked before he felt a set of what felt like fingers take hold of his shoulder. His ears twitched in response to fluctuating wind near the left side of his head and he began to recoil slightly as his eyes darted over to see why Qrow had suddenly grabbed him. However, the fingers were sharp, digging into his coat and in turn into his shoulder, and there weren't enough of them to be a human hand either. His brain raced to figure out what Qrow had done, his mind working much faster than his body, recoiling more when his eyes finally met the piercing red eyes of a crow looking back at him, perched calmly on his shoulder, his older counterpart nowhere to be found.
“WHAT the hell,” he let out in surprise as he stumbled to the side, regaining his balance as he realized the bird meant him no harm, simply looking back and forth between him and Oz.
“Qrow is the best gatherer of intelligence we have. He was given the ability to see and hear much more than a normal person,” Ozpin said.
“Wha...what are you saying,” Mydnight gasped as he stood up straight, keeping his eyes fixated on the crow. “You're saying this,” he pointed to the bird and looked back at his headmaster, “is Qrow?”
"Look again," Oz pointed back to the bird. Mydnight looked back as the crow began to flap its wings, taking off from Mydnight's shoulder before flying behind the pillar Qrow had been leaning against before. Qrow appeared from behind the pillar in a matter of moments, back to his normal self as if the change had never happened.
"What the ffffffffffffu-" Mydnight gawked at Qrow, his mind unable to wrap around what he had just seen.
"Take it easy kid, we will explain," Qrow explained, resting his hand on Mydnight's shoulder.
“How did you do that?”
“Well as we have already explained to you in the past, magic is very real Mydnight. I spent an amount of it to give Qrow the ability to change into a bird at will,” Professor Ozpin began, “this allows Qrow to be my number one source of information about our end goals.”
“Well,” Mydnight sighed before he took a deep breath to try and calm himself. “That does explain a lot but, why tell me this? Why wait until now?”
The room went silent for several seconds as all of the older members of the conversation looked to each other individually and Mydnight watched as they all nodded to one another in agreement. “Because we have decided that gaining another scout of Qrow's quality would be best for our group. Especially considering how much information you have already been entrusted with over your past four years at Signal.”
“Wait are you,” He asked softly as his mind connected the dots. “You're saying you want me to be able to do that as well?”
"Naturally," Ozpin smiled comfortingly, "The choice is up to you, of course, I would not force you to do this, nor anyone else. Qrow was given a choice and so shall you be. You may wish to take a few days to consider the offer. No one is asking you to decide right here on the spot."
“Well,” Mydnight thought aloud, “I certainly wouldn't wanna be a bird.”
His headmaster laughed and spoke up again, "Oh no. No, my boy, I suppose I wasn't specific enough. Considering you are already part wolf I think it fitting to give you the ability to change into one, rather than a bird. This will limit your range of course, not being able to fly, however, it will still improve your speed and senses exponentially."
"Well that's good at least but...how would I be expected to keep a secret like that from my teammates?" He asked. "What if they found out by accident? Am I expected to run solo missions and leave my team here to wonder where I've gone off to?"
“We will cross that bridge when we get to it. It is entirely possible that whoever ends up on your team may eventually need to be given the information that you can change in addition to possibly being brought into the fold entirely if you end up on a team with trustworthy people,” Glynda answers him.
"Well if that's the case can't you just...I don't know, pick my teammates for me?"
"No, it shouldn't come to that. I'm sure whomever you end up with will be good for you, in all my years of assigning random teams I've not misjudged yet," Ozpin mused. "Now please, take your time to think about this. You may go back to the dining hall, the food should be coming out of the kitchen right about now."
“Alright,” he shrugged his shoulders before turning to Qrow and nodding a short goodbye. He headed back to the elevator and hit the call button. Once inside the elevator took him back down to the ground floor and he walked out into the cool air of the late afternoon. Mydnight fished his scroll out of his pocket and shot a text to Bronzine.
On my way back, it said and he received a text back rather quickly.
Alright, we saved you a seat and they are setting the food out now
He read as he began to jog across the stone pathways and into the dining hall, scanning the room quickly until he found his friends, both old and new waving to him. He rushed over and sat down, dodging servers before sitting down between the two of them, the students around them taking notice and giving the three of them, especially Mydnight, unimpressed looks.
This area had always been an unsavory one for Faunus, even more so now that they were at an actual academy and taking students from all over the world. The students coming in from each part of the world were very easy to pick out, just from how they reacted to seeing the few Faunus scattered around the room. The Vale students would turn up their nose or make fun, the Mistral and Vacuo students treated them like normal people and the students from Atlas would openly persecute them and go out of their way to make a Faunus feel worthless.
Back in Signal, he had endured some small spouts of bullying at first but once his classmates had seen how capable he was in a fight they quickly decided they were better off ignoring him instead. Even without a semblance to fall back on he had never lost a match. Of course, having Qrow train him early before class had helped greatly in that regard.
As they ate they began to strike the conversation back up, Bronzine in particular prying into what Mydnight's meeting had been about. “So you're really not gonna tell me huh?” His best friend rolled his eyes.
"Nope," he shoved him back, "Top secret," before looking over at Ambur, whom he found staring back at him, as if in a trance. "Yo," He said as he snapped his fingers in front of her, causing her to blink and reel backward in surprise, being ripped out of her trance.
"Oh sorry!" She blushed as she stared down into her lap. "I didn't mean to stare, you just..." She began before falling silent and closed her eyes.
“Just what?” Mydnight asked.
“I've never really been this close to a Faunus for a long time and I just,” she fumbled over her words, “It's rude to stare but you're just so interesting,” she said quietly.
“Hah,” Bronzine laughed to himself, covering his mouth to keep from losing any of the food he'd been chewing on. He swallowed it before speaking again. “Mydnight couldn't be any less interesting if he tried,” he teased before his wolf friend jabbed him in the side, paying him back for before and shutting him up.
“It's fine then,” Mydnight shrugged before returning to his food.
He felt Ambur’s eyes on him again, watching him eat. As the class began to finish eating the trio stood and headed toward the grand hall, unpacked their sleeping bags and each of them took the chance to change into their nightclothes before meeting each other in the far corner of the room, spreading their bags out in a small triangle.
The lights eventually got low, dimming as the night went on and more students fell asleep. The two boys talked up a storm all night, not having seen each other since the end of the last school year at Signal since Bronzine lived so far away. Still from the Kingdom of Vale, however, much farther south than the main city or the island of Patch. Ambur, however, sat in near silence, laughing at their jokes occasionally and reacting to their stories in her own head. She never said much though, too nervous to interject her opinions for fear of derailing the boy's conversation.
Eventually though, Mydnight looked over after a particularly long while of Ambur not saying anything, and he found her sleeping peacefully.
After a few minutes, the boys blew out their candle they had lighting their little corner of the room, agreeing to hush up and let her sleep. As they lay down Mydnight rolled onto his side, his golden eyes glowing in the darkness, looking across the small space to see Ambur facing him in her sleep, a faint smile plastered on her full red lips making him crack a smile of his own.
What a nice girl