Chapter Text
Sunlight flittered through the windows, shining faintly through the thin curtains, shedding light faintly into the modest bedroom. With a light groan, a weathered womanly voice cut through the faint sounds of birds chirping outside.
Rising from her place under the covers, a woman no younger than seventy stretched amicably as she sat up on the bed, the weathered lines on her face wrinkling as she blinked away the heaviness of her eyelids. It had been like that for a few months now, waking up feeling more tired than she went to bed, the weight behind her eyes never quite settling up, even after nine-sometimes ten hour nights of solid rest. She chalked it up to allergies, though in the back of her mind she knew it was really her age catching up to her. Not many people, let alone huntresses lived as long as she had after all.
Yes, she had truly lived a long life, loved and lost, and loved again, only to lose again so soon. Sighing to herself, Aurum Lazuli, the only name she had known for decades now, got up from her bed, long since used to the lonely space that occupied the second half. Nevica had passed almost sixty years ago, but the empty bed still saddened her to think about.
With a wave of her hand, flames sputtered to life surrounding her eyes, the powers of three maidens coming to her call to perform the mundane act of bringing her clothes across the room to her telekinetically. She had been a maiden for longer than she wasn’t one now, going on seventy years of maidenhood, first the Summer powers, a gift from a dear friend, then Fall… Cinder never deserved it anyways… and finally Winter, the most painful to remember, though it was nice to know her late wife’s last thoughts were of her.
Aurum, at the ripe age of one hundred and two, had lived lifetimes compared to most huntresses, and though at this point she was a fragile old woman, living alone on the outskirts of the island of Patch, she was still a formidable opponent, likely the only beings left on the planet that could defeat her were the brother gods themselves, though that would be a fools errand given what happened the first time magic was used against them.
Aurum made herself a light breakfast, not having the appetite for anything more than some oatmeal. She then set out to her destination for the day. Today was a special day after all, the fiftieth anniversary of Salem’s defeat.
Aurum made her way up to the cliffside, the walk not taking her all that long, and soon enough, she found herself at a familiar overlook. At the top stood fourteen headstones, all dotting the cliffside. The oldest one, though still taken care of, read the same message it had since she was a girl,
Summer Rose
Thus Kindly I Scatter
The others were added much later, decades even. In order, they read as such:
Qrow Branwen
Albatross No More
Nevica Lazuli
Hold fast against the night
Raven Branwen
To find one’s self, in the end
Taiyang Xiao Long
By The Heat of my Heart
Blake Xiao Long
Beauty’s Beast
Yang Xiao Long
Beast’s Burning Beauty
Pyrrha Arc
Guiding our Hearts North
Nora Ren
May the Storm Rage On
Weiss Rose
Pale Blue Rose, Scatter me to the winds
Lie Ren
In Tranquility, Lightning
Jaune Arc
Stand Strong, Stand True
Cobalt Lazuli
Stoic to the last
Ruby Rose
A Simple Soul, I Scatter as the last Rose of Summer
Aurum wondered, idly shedding tears as she did every time she visited this cliffside, what her epitaph would say. Aurum chuckled wetly at that, morbid thought or not, it still boggled her mind how out of everyone, she was the last one standing.
Hours passed, and soon the sun was directly overhead. Aurum left not long after noon, walking slowly back down the path that had long since been built to her home, and the town beyond. Upon entering the town, she was greeted by nearly everyone as she passed by. It made sense to her, she was probably the most famous woman on the island, the last of the original Saviors of Remnant.
Continuing her walk, Aurum made her way to the ferries, then to Vale proper. Her destination set.
Hours passed, but eventually, Aurum arrived at her destination. On the outskirts of Vale, in the location of the last stand of humanity all those decades ago, now stood a golden yellow field, and a small hill. At the top of which was a pool of the clearest water on the planet.
Walking up to the pool, Aurum stopped at the edge, her bones weary at the hours of travel, and the sun beginning to set on the horizon. Looking up at the pool, she spoke towards it gently, “Brother of Light… I come to you with a question.”
Slowly, out of the pool rose the form of the God of Light, looking exactly as he had in the visions Jinn had shown her all those years ago.
“Speak Child, and I will answer. Though I already know what you will ask.” The God spoke to her.
Aurum swallowed thickly, “Half a century ago today, we called you and your brother back to this world. On that day, you asked me if I felt I had done my duty in aiding this timeline to be worthy. I told you in no uncertain terms that this world could never be worthy with the immortals and magic you brothers left behind as you departed remnant. You agreed, and gave me fifty years to work in earnest, without Ozma or Salem, or the Relics, to unite Remnant once again.”
Aurum looked up, staring at the featureless face of the god before her, and she asked, “Did I succeed?”
The God of Light rumbled softly, a deep sorrowful tone. And soon he was in the form of a dragon, with a roar, he was joined by his brother, who looked on to the mortal before them with pity.
The God of Light spoke in a voice like rolling thunder, “On this day we Judge Humanity… and find it lacking. Aurum Lazuli… Ruby Rose of the Thirty Seventh Timeline, you have failed in your quest to unite Remnant. The kingdom known as Atlas enslaves the city of Mantle. The Kingdom known as Mistral prepares a Coup in the Kingdom of Vale. The Kingdom of Menagerie creates weapons of war for use against The Kingdom of Atlas. The Kingdom of Vale eyes the Kingdom of Vacuo for annexation.
All of these indicate that Remnant is not united, and instead still fights against itself. For this, this experiment will come to an end, and this timeline will start anew. In the next cycle, may you find peace.”
As the God of Light finished his sentence, a beam of golden light pierced the sky, expanding outwards from him and engulfing the world.
Not long after, in the blank expansive void of nothingness known as Nowhere. Aurum regained consciousness.
She floated there for what seemed like forever until a voice rang out in her mind. One she vaguely recognized as her own, oh so long ago. It only said a single word, one that resonated with her like no other.
“Again”
Aurum, as a rule, never expects anything when dealing with magic. Because frankly in her opinion, magic, and the gods, are bullshit. But even in her wildest dreams, she never saw this one coming.
With a shuddering gasp that made her body ache and her head throb, Aurum keeled forwards, her aura flaring as bright as the sun, the shining light of her soul blazing outwards as the power of three maidens, and the hundred year old soul of a warrior erupted outwards. Vaguely, she registered a gruff voice shouting, and a few other people standing nearby. Reigning in her aura, Aurum felt like her body could just barely contain the depths of her soul but after what felt like hours, she pulled her aura back, at least enough to where she could feel her soul naturally trying to relax. Allowing her reddish pink… more like rose gold aura to…
What.
Opening her eyes, and finally tuning in to the cacophony of yelling around her, Aurum gasped. She was currently on her hands and knees, soft green grass under her, her hands were small, childlike, her sleeves ran all the way down to her wrists where they ended with red poofy cuffs. Around her, a gruff male voice was frantically shouting at her while a high pitched girly voice echoed him, “Ruby! Ruby, can you hear me?!” and “Rubes? Are you okay?! Uncle Qrow what’s happening?!”
Ruby. She hadn’t heard that name in decades. It’s been eighty years since she last heard her own name, and not the one she gave herself.
Looking up, Ruby couldn’t stop the tears from forming in her eyes, a choking sob coming out as she saw the concerned face of her uncle. Not the wrinkled, gray haired twig of a man he was when he passed. But the face she knew from her youth, the relatively young face of Qrow Branwen stared at her with worry in his eyes.
Disbelieving, her voice came without thought, high pitched and unfamiliar to her, “Uncle Qrow? Is… Is that really you?”
Confusion blanketed Qrow’s face, “Are you okay Kiddo? Of course it’s me.”
Ruby shook her head in disbelief, emotion thick in her head, looking down from Qrow to her own body, she realized she was small, a kid again. Allowing her aura to flare up, she winced as she quickly began to glow like a lightbulb, the strength of her soul erupting outwards in a blinding flash. Reigning it in once again, she marveled at the color of her aura, it was a two tone color, a pinkish red hue with golden yellow undertones, Rose Gold… Fitting.
Once again realizing she had lost herself in her thoughts, Ruby once again looked around, and all over again she broke, seeing the figure of a ten year old Yang Xiao Long looking over her with concern and worry.
In an instant, to the two bystanders, Ruby went from on her knees to wrapped around Yang in a bone crushing hug, literally, as they would later find out. To the two standing there, it appeared as though Ruby had simply teleported, flickering out of existence in one spot, and reappearing five feet away wrapped around Yang, squeezing her so hard that Yang got a hairline fracture on one of her ribs
Through her tears, Ruby muttered to Yang, “I missed you so much.”
After a moment, Ruby pulled away from hugging Yang, pushed away by a bit of protest as Yang clutched her chest, worried that Ruby might have actually broken a bone with that hug (how in the world she’s only eight and literally just had her aura unlocked).
Ruby, after recovering and orienting herself, turned to Qrow, who immediately spoke, “Ruby… Are you okay? That was… quite the reaction to having your aura unlocked.”
Ruby smiled softly, “Yeah… yeah, I’m okay uncle Qrow.”
Ruby tried to remember back to when she had her aura unlocked, she remembered it was when she was eight, that Qrow had unlocked it and Yang was there to watch, but the specifics were lost on her. After all, it was over ninety years ago.
Sighing to herself and letting the smile fall off her face, replaced by a small frown, she spoke slowly, “I… Think my memories… might be off. I… I remember that I’m Ruby Rose, and you’re Qrow Branwen, and she’s Yang Xiao Long… I remember that I’m Eight… that mom died two years ago and that I want to be a Huntress, and what that is. But, I have no idea what day it is, where we are, when we are, what I did yesterday… or even thirty minutes ago… I can’t remember basically anything about the little details of my personal life before today.”
Qrow and Yang looked at her concernedly, Ruby continued undeterred, “And… I… I have memories of stuff that hasn't happened yet… that might never happen, might even be impossible to happen, now.”
After that, Qrow sighed loudly, and spoke, “Alright kiddo… we’ll uh… let’s get back to the house, do you remember where that is?”
Ruby looked around, seeing nothing but forest at the edge of the clearing she was in, “No… I suspect this is Patch, but beyond that I wouldn't have a clue as to what specific clearing we’re in or where it is in relation to the Xiao Long Cabin.”
Qrow raised an eyebrow at that, “The ‘Xiao Long’ Cabin huh? Well, it’s this way kiddo. Come on firecracker, keep up.” Qrow shouted to Yang at the end of his sentence as he began walking away, Ruby following closely behind.
Ruby was reeling, if she was being honest. This was not how she thought her day was going to go. Still, as she walked along in her unfamiliar body behind her Uncle and followed by her sister, her mind raced at the possibilities, and her heart ached at the loss of her old world.
From what she could tell, she still had the entire breadth of her aura and magic from her previous life, plus the innate aura she had when she initially unlocked it, not that that small amount accounted for more than 3% of her total capacity.
But that meant one thing was for certain, this time, strength was of no concern. Already making plans for the future Ruby was sucked out of her thoughts by the sound of a voice she hadn't heard in decades, her father Taiyang called out from the door of the cabin she grew up in with a cheerful wave, “Hey girls, you’re back soon, did everything go well?”
Qrow rubbed the back of his neck and opened his mouth to speak before hearing an ‘Oof’ sound coming from Tai coincided with a loud crack like a gunshot as Ruby bolted from her spot behind Qrow to tackle and hug her father, a sonic boom echoed through the forest as red-gold rose petals fluttered in the gust of wind left behind by the movement and birds flew away from nearby trees.
Tai, to his credit, at least managed to catch himself as he fell backwards from the unexpected hug, but still winced as he felt the strength behind it and the gust of wind blasted him.
Qrow blinked, “Was that your semblance Rubes?”
Ruby pulled away from hugging her father and blinked away a few tears, smiling softly, “Yeah, Scatter. I turn any mass into a burst of petals with no mass, and can move the petals as I see fit, and reform them as well. I originally called it Petal Burst before I figured out how to use it on inanimate objects.”
Everyone stared at Ruby with confused expressions. Ruby then realized her error. “Oh… yeah right, that’s part of the memories thing, I think… I think I have my Aura from… I’m just gonna call it my past life.”
Qrow stared intently, and Tai still looked completely lost. Ruby continued cautiously, “I… sorta remember better now, I was thinking actually on the way back about it… I don’t really remember anything from my past in this life, I just remember what my childhood was like… the first time around. Sorry, my head is a bit fuzzy still. I think it has something to do with me having so many memories to sift through.”
Taiyang spoke confusedly, “Qrow why is my eight year old daughter talking like a grown adult with amnesia?”
Qrow sighed heavily, “Let’s go inside.”
Once inside and sat around the living room, Qrow explained what happened to Tai, “So we got all prepped, and I did my mantra for Ruby here and as her Aura came to the surface I was surprised, because it felt like it just wouldn't end. Then she gasps and keels forwards onto her knees and her aura just keeps increasing in intensity, I’m panicking thinking I did something wrong, but her Aura just wont stop, it kept getting brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at her, it was like staring directly at a lightbulb. Then it started flickering and pulling back, and when it finally calmed down, she was like this… she’s…” Qrow sighed, “For lack of a better word, she’s eloquent, she talks like she’s an old woman.”
Ruby’s face wrinkled at that, her nose scrunching up, “Well forgive me for learning how not to sound like a hooligan when I speak. I couldn’t exactly go around babbling on about weapons and heroes and fairy tales like I was still ten well into my later years. Eventually one has to learn how to compose oneself. It only took me forty years, but hey, I got there eventually.”
Tai just stared blankly at that, and Qrow continued, “Yeah… she says she has memories of a past life, but not someone else’s past life, hers. Though she hasn't really given any proof to that beyond having a crazy aura and talking like an adult.”
Ruby smirked, “Oh come on Qrow, all you had to do is ask. What do you want to know? Obviously some things can’t be said because well, I don’t want to bring Yang into the wrong circles, but other stuff is on the table.”
Yang looked at Ruby confused, “Uhm, Sis? What does that mean?”
Ruby’s smirk softened into a gentle smile, “I uh, know some stuff that’s pretty dangerous Yang. The less people that know about it the better, you included.”
Yang frowned but nodded. Qrow, seeing the interaction between the sisters was over, asked, “Okay then, something you might know in the future… What’s my semblance?”
Ruby’s smile widened slightly and she easily spoke, “Well, your semblance is ‘Bad Luck Charm’ you bring misfortune to everyone around you, yourself included. Though you also have another power, gifted to you during your time at Beacon. You, along with your sister Raven, have the capability to transform into your namesakes at will. Your semblance evolves later in life, becoming known as ‘Luck's Favor’ Still bad luck for those you deem enemies, but good luck for yourself and your allies. It came in handy many times.”
Qrow’s eyes blew wide, his jaw dropping, “B-but! How?! How do you know either of those things?!”
Ruby smiled wider, “I already told you, I have memories of my previous life.”
As Qrow sputtered, Tai stared in disbelief, not quite comprehending what Ruby was saying. Ruby looked at Tai and smiled, “I… I know it’s weird Dad, I’m still kind of, figuring things out as I go. You would not believe the day I’ve had honestly. I think only one man on Remnant would really…”
Tai snapped out of his disbelief and sighed, shaking his head, “I believe you Rubes… gods I don’t… man. That’s gotta be weird. At least as weird as it is for me to suddenly have a… how old?”
Ruby scoffed and brought her hand to her chest, “Taiyang Xiao Long, don’t you know it’s rude to ask a lady her age? If you must know, I passed away at the ripe age of one hundred and two years old in a blaze of glory only seen once before.”
Qrow spit out the alcohol from his flask, almost blasting Ruby with spittle, though the spit take instead sloughed harmlessly off Ruby’s quickly raised aura barrier, a bright rose-gold flash blasting through the room before disappearing just as quickly. Ruby spoke, “I’d appreciate it if I stayed dry thank you very much, but yes, I lived… a life well lived, though a tad long for my tastes. But well… I had things to see through.”
Tai raised an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate?”
With a small shake of her head, Ruby declined, “No, I think that’s a conversation for another time… perhaps a few years from now.”
Tai just stared back blankly for a few seconds. Before he could speak again, the silence in the room was interrupted by a loud growl from Ruby’s stomach. A light blush on her face, Ruby turned to Qrow and asked. “Uhm, Qrow? When did I last eat?”
Qrow pulled out his scroll and looked at the time. “Uh, about five hours ago, It’s around two in the afternoon”
Ruby’s stomach rumbled again, “Well… Seems like it’s lunch time then hmm?”
The rest of the day was… Weird. For Ruby at least, I mean, it’s not every day you’re tossed seventy five years into the past, though for Ruby it was more like being tossed ninety four years into the past… Time travel is weird.
More awkward conversations occurred, more questions were dodged, and eventually her family stopped asking questions… until the next day.
Qrow pulled Ruby aside after breakfast and spoke in a hushed tone, “Look Rubes I know it’s weird to talk about but uhh, today is Sunday… tomorrow you would be going back to school… at Lamplight elementary. As a third grader.”
Ruby stared forwards for a second, and then threw her head back with a loud groan. “...Gods Fucking Damnit,”
“Language young lady.”
Ruby stared at Qrow with disbelief on her face. “Qrow I am at least twice your age, closer to two and a half times… regardless, I am absolutely not going to elementary school. Where’s Dad, I need to have him arrange for me to test into signal. Yang should be going this year right?”
Qrow nodded and found Tai, arranging the test which Ruby very quickly aced the next day, scoring a perfect 100% on the final exams in every subject except history for her grade, the next grade, and the entry exams to signal. Having tested out of the last semester of third grade, and fourth, and fifth, Ruby now had nothing to do until the next school year… except train.
Ruby realized that, though her Aura, magic, and knowledge came back with her, her muscle memory and physical strength didn’t. And while strength can be made up for by expending Aura, that’s a stopgap, not a solution.
So Ruby’s next few weeks ended up being her getting up, dodging questions from her family to their increasing chagrin, and working out until lunch, then weapon design (material and dust science had advanced so far in the next seventy five years and it is criminal how simplistic ‘modern’ technology is) and then practice katas.
Soon (three months later), with the help of her inhuman Aura capacity and control, and the dogged practice she had been putting in, Ruby felt she had trained well enough to begin actually using a weapon other than a staff. One tends to forget just how much work muscle memory did when wielding a weapon as dangerous as a scythe, and Ruby did not want to end up chopping a finger or hand off by skipping rebuilding her muscle memory.
Sadly for Ruby, recreating her beloved weapon from her last life was impossible with the technology of the time. After the gods had been summoned back, Ruby had retired Crescent Rose, as it had been fused with the form of The Relic of Hope, and the relic had disappeared from her timeline with the god’s return.
Her replacement weapon, Halcyon’s Moon, was a technological marvel, at least two decades away from being even theoretically constructable, the scientist that had developed the off the shelf hardlight emitters that she had modified to make the blade wasn’t even born at this point, and the dust itself wouldn't be commercially available for years anyways.
But this presented an opportunity for Ruby. In her past life, the return of the gods had heralded the return of many old and esoteric techniques that were long forgotten, one of which was an advanced Aura manipulation technique known as ‘Materialization’. Otherwise known as the act of forming one’s Aura into a semi stable permanent object.
She had learned of it, but never made use of it because she had already constructed Halcyon by the time she heard about it, and so Ruby set about designing a weapon to materialize.
Later that month, Signal would begin its school year, and Ruby would attend alongside Yang, who had slowly become used to her (younger?) Sister’s cryptic shenanigans, and who was also having to unlearn some habits.
Their first class together, Qrow’s combat training class, was one such example. Yang sat next to Ruby in the front row as Qrow went on about the rules of the arena, and how they would be unlocking auras in the first week of school, and then making weapons while training hand to hand.
After the class, a group of girls had stopped Ruby in the hallway and began making fun of her eyes and her age, calling her names. Yang walked to intervene but stopped short as one of the girls burst into tears at something Ruby said, and the others stared slack jawed.
As Yang walked up to Ruby and the other girls to ask what happened, she heard the tail end of what Ruby was saying. “-urthermore if your wish is truly to become a huntress, what does it say of your character, beyond that it is detestable, that you would accost a fellow aspiring huntress to sling base level insults about physical appearance. I suggest you re-evaluate your priorities, and your friends, keeping company with a girl with such an awful personality really does not reflect well on either of you. Oh, hi Yang, I was just informing these two that their choice in companionship is rather lackluster. I mean, really, what future huntress insults their classmates, younger ones especially. And with such poor material too, ‘mirror eyes’? Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”
Yang almost laughed at the situation, her little sister, who just a few months ago was playing with popsicle sticks making arts and crafts and eating cookies by the dozen, was now systematically deconstructing the arguments of her would be bullies with an almost bored look on her face, and was only insulted that the bullies couldn’t come up with better insults.
Yang did snort a little at Ruby’s comment, “Yeah sis, that is really uncreative… you’re doing it again by the way, the uhm, talking like an old lady.”
Ruby blinked and turned to the still stunned duo of girls, “Oh, uhm, Sorry. Sometimes I get, how did Qrow put it… yeah uh, Eloquent. It’s my default way of speaking. Apologies if I confused you.”
Almost getting whiplash in the change of tone, the two girls nodded in sync and looked at one another before one squeaked out a meek goodbye, and the two hastily walked off.
Ruby turned to Yang, “Jeez, you’d think I threatened their lives or something.”
Yang smiled and shook her head, “I mean you did chew them out like a parent scolding a disobedient child… I will never be used to you talking like that and then immediately after, using a word like ‘Jeez’ you goober.”
Ruby shrugged, “Eh, sue me, I’m an eight year old with the mind of a hundred year old, I’m relearning the slang.”
“Sure Grandma, don’t worry, I’ll help you kick it with the youngsters in no time.”
Ruby scoffed with a smile, “Yeah yeah, laugh it up sis.”
After that, the two walked to their next classes together in an amicable silence.
Ruby found the experience of going to school again quite novel. It wasn’t every day one gets to re-experience their youth. But she did find the classes… monotonous. There really weren't words to describe the level of boring it was to sit through lectures in classes like ‘post elementary arithmetic’ or ‘Primary combat tactics 101’, when one had already lived an entire lifetime as a huntress.
Still, Ruby muddled through, spending most of her free time practising her weapon materialization. Hours a day were spent in classes tuning out teachers while channeling her aura into forming various shapes.
It wasn’t until nearly three months into her first year at Signal that she managed to even begin to materialize something. A relatively simple scythe. Ruby knew the steps to materialize a weapon, but never did she think it would be such a mentally taxing activity.
The scythe Ruby materialized was as basic as it comes, a straight polearm with a single curved blade. The shaft of the scythe was a pale pink color while the blade was a pinkish yellow metal, in other words, the whole scythe was Rose Gold.
Ruby lamented not being able to materialize anything more complicated just yet, but she still rejoiced over finally having a weapon. In the time it had taken her to figure out how to materialize her new scythe, Yang had built Ember Celica Mk 1, a rudimentary set of bracers with gloves attached.
The months had passed by relatively quickly. Ruby’s family gave up on interrogating her about the ‘future’ by about two weeks in, though she still got several looks whenever she would begin speaking in long eloquent sentences.
It wasn’t until nearly the four month mark in her school year at signal that anything truly interesting happened. While on an evening outing with her sister and father, a small trip to Vale, Ruby spotted a young girl, not too much older than Yang, being accosted by three girls with spiky green-streaked hair and matching outfits. Nothing was out of the ordinary, until all of a sudden a hauntingly familiar figure appeared out of thin air and punched one of the girls, the figure shattering into motes of pink light as their fist connected.
The girl who was struck fell backwards onto the ground, blood coming from her face, while the other two stood still in shock.
Ruby watched the interaction with fascination, before noticing two officers approaching. Using her semblance, Ruby blasted into rose petals and picked up the girl who had been surrounded by the other three, quickly bolting into a nearby alleyway. Releasing her semblance, the girl stumbled forwards towards the wall of the alley and fell onto her hands and knees. Ruby watched passively, letting the girl collect herself. When she did, she looked at Ruby with confusion written all over her face.
Ruby spoke up in a disarming tone, “Hello, I saw that you were being… picked on, and that there were policemen approaching you to… I thought it would be best if you didn’t have to deal with that, miss…”
Ruby trailed off, hoping to get a response from the girl. But the girl frowns and gestures around, not making any sound. Ruby anticipated this though, and smiles softly, “You can’t speak can you? That’s alright, I can make do, do you know any kind of sign? I am fluent in VSL and Vacuan Thieves Sign, and my MSL is not bad either, I only can’t understand Atlesian Sign.”
The girl relaxed slightly at Ruby’s tone, though looked a bit confused at the way she was speaking, hesitantly, her hands came up in a series of halting gestures that Ruby recognized as extremely rough Valean Sign Language.
‘I Call Me T R I V I A. You Thanks Save Me. You Call You Question. Small Old Question.’
Ruby’s face scrunched slightly, but she quickly figured out what the girl was trying to communicate, and responded in kind, “It’s nice to meet you Trivia, my name is Ruby, and yes, I am quite young. I've gotten that a lot recently.”