A/N: Ozpin, Jaune, Weiss. Why them? They just spoke. What about the others? I tried to poke my muse with a stick and it ate the stick.
When I chose Ruby as the leader of Team RWBY, I did so not because of her speed or her strength, both of which she undoubtedly possessed, but because I could see that she already loved her team. Love made Ruby strong. It drove her to expand, to excel, to become a person she never thought she could be, to do things she never thought she could do.
It is with a heavy heart that I see her growth cut short.
As Huntsmen and Huntresses, as anyone alive in this world, you will lose people you love.
Whatever you are feeling, I advise you to feel it. Cry. Fight. Run. Curl up in a corner and shake. Whatever it takes, short of harming yourselves or others; let it out, all of it. It is only after you have felt everything you have to feel that you will find peace.
I still remember meeting Ruby. "Aren't you the guy that threw up on the ship?" she asked. Yeah, not my best first impression on a cute girl. But then we got to talking, and to my surprise she didn't hold it against me.
Ruby was my first friend here at Beacon, and one of the best friends I've ever had. She was a great person. Easy to talk to, fun to be around, would stand up for you, and worth standing up for.
I'll miss her. A lot.
Ruby was not just our leader. Yes, in battle we looked to her. But more than that, wherever she was, whatever she was doing, Ruby was our light. No one had a brighter, fiercer desire to protect than she did. We followed her without hesitation, not because her name was called by an authority and placed first in our team acronym, but because we trusted her vision of a world where everyone was safe.
I speak for all of three of us, when I say that we will forever regret our failure to keep her safe. We have reviewed everything, over and over, these past few days. There were a hundred things we could have noticed, could have said, could have done. We have spent a lot of time on "I should have" and "If only".
But, at the end of all that discussion, she is still not here.
All we have is the light she left us.
Now we carry it too.
A/N: This was originally conceived as a multichapter titled "WBY", but I am nowhere near a good enough writer to do such a story justice. Instead you get this. I'm sorry.