DISCLAIMER: I own nothing about of the RWBY universe, or the song in this story, I only own the characters Silver, Koel, and Alexandrite
Happy Thanksgiving everybody, I hope you've had a good day, or at least better than mine! I'm pissed right now... really, really pissed. You wanna know why? It's because my computer randomly restarted by itself while I was working on this, and after I signed back in, I lost EVERYTHING that I was working on at the time, including the document that had chapters 10 and 11 of Up In SMOK, so yeah, I'm fucking pissed the hell of at the current time
But it's whatever, I still got this done, so here is a quick little one-shot that I had mentioned in my message in Up In SMOK a few days ago. It's in the same universe, and revolves completely around Koel and Silver, but it takes place two years before Up In SMOK, so Silver is 14, while Koel is 15.
Another thing about this is that there are some things mentioned here that haven't been mentioned in Up In SMOK, so be on the look out, they are also explained in the A/N's at the end. This one-shot also serves to give a little bit more character to Silver and Koel, I hope I achieved that.
Anyway, on with the words!
Running… running… that's all Silver knew right now. She didn't know why she had woken up in this strange forest, but she wasn't supposed to be here, that she was sure of.
As already established, she didn't know why she was here, or how she was for that matter. She had just woken up in the middle of this random clearing, in this random forest, with nary a clue as to how and why.
She observed her surroundings, thinking that she might be in one of the forest's on Patch for some reason, but noticed quickly that that was NOT the case. Patch was not a big island, but it was big enough to have a few forest's here and there, but still small enough for someone to tell them apart if they were familiar enough with them. But that was the major dilemma, there was NOTHING familiar here.
The next thing Silver noticed was just as nerve-wracking to her, it was the middle of the night, and pitch black as well. But not only that, as she looked up to the sky, she discovered that there was NO moon in the sky. 'But why, there's almost always a moon!' She thought with unease. The next thing was that there were also no stars around either, encasing the world around her in complete darkness, which would've been much more trouble if she was just a human, but luckily being a faunus gave her something akin to night vision, but even with this, it was still difficult for her to see.
The reason why this was equally as worrying for Silver was the embarrassing fact that she had always had a small phobia for being outside when it was dark. She could handle dark rooms, but not being outside while it was dark, she always felt most vulnerable, call it paranoia, she would probably agree, but it was just the way she was.
And the last thing she realized about the situation was that she didn't even have her wrist blades that her and Alex had recently made for her. 'What's going on!? Why am I even here!?"
She rapidly started to panic as she looked around for anything that could help her, a path in the forest, some sign of life maybe, even if it was just a freaking bird or squirrel, she would've been happy, but there was nothing… nothing at all.
Silver started to hyperventilate, something she had a habit of doing when she was feeling extreme anxiety, and with feeling like she had no other option, and no idea of what to do, she took off down a path she found that led deeper into the forest as fast as she could.
Which led to her current position. She had been running down the same path for some amount of time she was too distracted and scared to keep up with, but she knew it was a long time. But when you run, you have to stop to catch your breath at some point, which she eventually had to. She stopped, and rested her hands on her knees as she hunched over, breathing the heaviest she probably ever has in her life. She was trembling fiercely, and her legs couldn't keep her up, and she collapsed onto her knees.
'What is it with this place, it's like it goes on forever!' Silver thought as she continued to try to keep her breathing under control. Despite how fast she had been running, and non-stop until now for that matter, it seemed like she was getting no where. But even in her frightened state, she knew that the idea of an endless forest was ridiculous, so once she thought she had herself relatively under control for the most part, Silver got back up on her still trembling legs, and went on her down the path once more, in hopes of possibly finding the end of the treeline.
She ran for a few more minutes with no such luck, but then she came upon another clearing, similar to the one she had woken up in, and she was met with a confusing, but scary scene.
Koel was in the clearing, fighting what seemed to be… 'Is that… ME!?' Silver thought as she watched Koel and the lookalike fight inn the clearing.
Silver didn't know what to do, or what to even think. She saw Koel back away from the doppelganger, breathing heavily, and she did the only thing she could think of doing.
"Koel!" She called out to her. Koel snapped her head over to her, and Silver was surprised to see how bad of shape she was in. Koel had cuts and gashes all over her body, including a particularly bad one on her head right next to her left eye, and it made a small river of blood that ran down her face and neck. Silver was horrified at the sight of her sister's condition, and she tried to run forward to help her, but Koel stopped her before she could even start.
"W-wait Silver, don't come any closer, you'll be next, just run, please!" She shouted back desperately.
"B-But, look at you, you need help! Please Koel!"
Koel shook her head, but before she could say anything else, the doppelganger shot towards her at an impossible speed. Before Koel could bring her daggers up to defend herself, it was upon her, and thrust its right wrist blade up at her in an uppercut. Koel barely had enough time to gasp before the wrist blade plunged straight through her throat, giving her no chance of survival.
Silver was utterly petrified at the sight. She had just watched… herself kill her sister straight up. She saw Koel's eyes roll back into her head, and her daggers drop from her lifeless hands, as the clone removed its wrist from the now dead faunus' throat, the blade of Azurewrath now coated in the sickly red that was Koel's blood. Silver couldn't move, think, or even call out to her one last time as she watched it all unfold in front of her very eyes.
The clone then turned itself to face her, and the lifelessness in its eyes shook Silver to the bone and beyond, and a fierce chill went up and down her spine as it looked at her, completely unmoving for a few moments. Suddenly, it disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke, almost like that of when Grimm die. Silver's mind yelled at her to run for her life, but she was still far too petrified to even move a muscle.
Just as quickly as it had disappeared, it reappeared right in front of her again, the same soulless eyes staring at her. She gasped sharply, and tried to back away, but before she could, it grabbed her by her throat, and slammed back into a tree, still holding her. Silver cried out, and flailed against it, trying to break free of its grip, but it held her strongly in place, seemingly without effort.
She stopped long enough to open her eyes and look into the emotionless red eyes of herself, and it brought up its right hand and wrist blade up, the same one that was still painted with Koel's blood. Silver's eyes widened, she knew what was coming next, and she couldn't do a thing about except scream.
And scream she did. She bellowed out a bloodcurdling scream as it thrust it through her stomach.
Silver woke up with a scream dying in her throat, and she shot up in her bed, breathing rather heavily, and looked around the bedroom that she shared with her older sisters, certain that she woke one of them up.
But to her surprise, all she heard was the steady breathing of her adopted sister Koel. She then remembered that their oldest sister Alexandrite was currently on a mission for the week, so it was only her and Koel at their home.
Silver was surprised that she hadn't woken up Koel, so she either somehow didn't scream loud enough to wake her up, or she didn't really scream at all, but either way, Koel was still sleeping soundly across the room, unaware of her sister's highly startled state of mind.
Silver sat in her bed for a few moments trying to catch her breath. Tears started to fall from her eyes without resistance, and she couldn't even bring her hands up to wipe them away, they were shaking too much. The platinum-haired faunus flopped back down on her bed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying desperately to grip on herself. She looked over at her clock on the nightstand next too her bed, and saw that is was a few minutes past two in the morning. Silver considered going back to sleep, she was still tired of course, but she was also far too terrified right now to really try, and she then thought of something she hadn't done in a couple years.
The distressed girl sat back up in her bed, and looked over at Koel's own, considering what to do. Embarrassment was the main obstacle in her decision making, but after a minute of her staring at nothing, she caved in.
She slowly got out of her bed, and padded over to Koel's bed, her shaking legs barely keeping her upright, but nonetheless, still carrying her across the room. She stopped in front of her sister's bed, and she had second thoughts, she didn't want to disturb Koel, and, once again, embarrassment was still poking at her. 'But I'm already here, might as well. I'll certainly feel better.'
Silver made up her mind with that thought, and she quietly walked over to the side of Koel's bed, and once she was there, she made her way into her bed, wiggling her way under the covers, and over to her sleeping sister. The younger faunus loosely wrapped her arms around Koel's torso, and she laid her head on her chest, straining to hear the rhythmic thump thump of her heartbeat, and let it try to lull her to sleep. Just as she was about to close her eyes, she felt two slender arms wrap around her as well, and tighten slightly, and she looked up to see a pair of tired misty gray eyes gazing down on her with love and solicitude. "Bad dream huh?"
Silver shakily nodded, and buried herself deeper into her embrace, and her tail came around to wrap itself around her older sister protectively (yep, she has a tail, will be explained in the A/N's). "I'm s-sorry, I-I just… I just want to be with you." She said in a fragile, quiet voice, which was a voice you didn't hear from Silver too often nowadays.
Koel sighed, and tried her best to console the poor girl, stroking her long platinum hair, while the other one was rubbing comforting circles on her back. "It's okay Silver, you don't need to be worried about anything, you're safe here." She reassured her in a soothing voice.
Despite this, Koel could still feel the younger faunus trembling against her form, and she tried to think of something to calm her down. She then remembered the song that Alex used to sing to them when they were younger, so she figured she could give it a shot, and she started singing in a smooth, soft voice.
"I can see you running, running,
Every night from the same darkness,
It's coming, coming,
But you are not alone,
If you just say the word,
I'll be there, by your side,
You make me more, you make me superhuman,
And if you need me to, I will save you,
Send out the signal, and I'll fly low,
If it means the death of me,
I won't let go,
And if I'm lost in the world's shadow,
I'll use the light that comes to me, from your halo,
Your halo, your halo."
She finished singing, and looked down at Silver to see that she was now close to dozing off, and that she had stopped quivering, and her eyes were lazily drooping shut. Koel smiled, and she brought her own tail around so it could curl itself around Silver's (yes, Koel also has one, and once again, will be explained in the A/N's). The younger faunus flinched slightly at the unexpected contact, but she quickly relaxed, and laid her head fully on her adopted sister's chest, finally closing her eyes all the way.
Koel's smile widened a bit, and she brought the one hand that had been softly running through her hair up to one of her cat ears on the top of her head, and softly stroked the velvety surface of it. After a few moments, she could hear a small purr rumbling its way through Silver's chest, and she pressed her head into Koel's hand a little more, trying to get more of the feeling.
Koel giggled quietly, and kept this up for a few minutes until she was sure that Silver was asleep, and once she was, she kissed the top of Silver's head, and held her close as she closed her own eyes. "At least I know she still needs me." She whispered to herself, and after a few more seconds, she was once again soundly asleep along with Silver.
Needless to say, no nightmares plagued Silver's dreams for the rest of that night.
First things first here, yes, Koel and Silver have cat tails to go along with their ears, but they keep them hidden because they feel like their ears give them enough unwanted attention, and as for why they have them, but Blake doesn't is because in my own cannon of the RWBY universe, some faunus' have more traits/appendages than others, plus I also just simply like the idea of them having tails :P. Secondly, they are indeed from Patch, mainly because I didn't feel like making them from anywhere else, sue me :|. Lastly, Silver's nightmare is supposed to depict her greatest fear, which is herself being the death of, not only Koel, but of everyone else she loves.
Anyway, I honestly have no idea when the next chapter of Up In SMOK will be, but I'm going to dedicate as much of tomorrow as I can to rewriting it (I'm still pissed), I want to get it out before I go back to school next week.
But whatever, that's about all I can say about it now. I'll talk to you guys when that happens. Later guys!