A/N: I was inspired to write this by the latest chapter, because what is happening to this poor kid is ABSOLUTELY NOT OKAY. There are very slight spoilers for chapters 3 and 4 in this, so be warned.
Take it as a friendship, take it as a romance, however you like.
RWBY is, of course, owned by Rooster Teeth, and not me. If I owned it, I would include a floating pair of arms whose only purpose was to follow Oscar and Qrow around and give them god damn hugs all day.
Looking up at the night sky from his position just outside the old farm house, at the stars that dotted it, each one possibly representing entire worlds out in the darkness of space, gave Oscar some comfort.
Because after all, compared to the vastness of the universe, wasn't everyone's life kind of pointless, really? Even great and powerful people like Qrow, like James Ironwood or Leonardo Lionheart. Even Salem was irrelevant next to something so incomprehensibly huge.
It made him feel a little bit better about his own situation, and what they had learned from the Relic of Knowledge. About the fact that he was merely a single chapter in a story that had already gone through entire books. Nothing but another short, unimportant life in the grand timeline of Ozma, the legendary ancient wizard chosen by the god of light to save humanity.
What was Oscar Pine, the simple farm boy, in comparison?
Nothing.
He wondered why Ozpin ever even let him have control at all. He may as well have just taken over full-time and got it over with. It was probably fortunate that he hadn't, however, given that it gave the immortal wizard's consciousness a way to hide from the group that was currently furiously angry at him, and though they tried not to say it out loud, at Oscar by extension.
Well, all of them except one. The one who was currently sitting down next to him.
"I know you haven't known her that long," Ruby advised him with a raised eyebrow, "So I'll warn you now. If you keep sitting away from the rest of the group and brooding silently, Blake's going to start thinking you're stealing her thing."
Ruby Rose. The only person who knew about his reincarnation and still tried to treat him like he was still a person of his own and not just their former professor or leader or whatever Ozpin was to them.
"I guess I probably shouldn't give her anything else to be mad at me about," he sighed quietly.
Ruby's smile flickered, but she pushed on like a trooper. "Don't worry, they'll come around. They're all just really mad right now and they aren't thinking straight. They all know it's not you they're supposed to be mad at."
"Is it?" Oscar pondered, "Shouldn't they? You saw it, same as I did. All I'll ever amount to is being another body of his. I'm inheriting his powers. His memories. His mistakes."
"No," Ruby objected, "You might get access to his magic, his aura, his memories and all kinds of stuff," she frowned, "But not his mistakes. He made them, not you."
"But I am him," Oscar said in frustration, "Or at least, I will be!"
"No you won't!" Ruby shot back fiercely, startling him, "You're Oscar Pine, and that's who you'll always be, memories of a super-old wizard or not!"
He almost wanted to believe her. "Your uncle doesn't seem to think so."
"Uncle Qrow has been wrong before," Ruby shook her head, "He wasn't in a good place when he said that and I know he'll come around too. Trust me."
"But how do you know he's wrong? How do we know that I'm Oscar, that I'll keep being Oscar?"
"Well," Ruby raised a finger, "How about this? You think that people are just going to see you as Ozpin, that Oscar Pine doesn't really matter because of that, right?"
"...That about sums it up, yeah," he admitted.
"So if someone, even one person, sees you as Oscar, it means your worries were wrong, doesn't it?"
His brow furrowed in thought. "I'm not sure that works."
"Of course it does," Ruby explained simply, "Because if someone sees you as Oscar and not Ozpin, that means that Oscar is more important to them than Ozpin, right? And that means that you matter, that Oscar Pine matters, right?"
It did make sense. "I suppose so," he agreed cautiously.
"Okay, good!" she nodded happily, "Then I'll be that person."
She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder as he stared at her in shock.
"I'll be the person who cares about Oscar Pine."
A vow, made with the kind of unflinching determination that he knew from memories that were not his could change the world, inspire armies and even drive someone to challenge the gods themselves. And she was making it for him.
"Even if the entire world comes to me and tells me that you're Ozpin the headmaster, or Ozma the wizard, or any of his other lives. That Oscar Pine doesn't exist, that he's just another name on a list older than human history, that he's just a new body with the same old soul in it, I'll tell every single one of them that they're wrong," she declared, "Because you're Oscar Pine, and you matter to me."
Was it really so simple?
He mattered to someone.
Oscar Pine mattered to someone, and therefore, he mattered full-stop.
He mattered. Not because he was the newest reincarnation of an immortal wizard. Not because of the knowledge he would unlock or the incredible powers he would possess... but because he was Oscar Pine.
It was a good feeling.
It was an incredible feeling.
He swallowed the lump that had conspicuously appeared in his throat.
"I..." he said shakily, trying to find the words to convey the depth of gratitude he felt for this girl, this wonderful, fantastic person who from the very start had gone out of her way to look past the immortal wizard of legend and see the simple boy from a humble farm who desperately needed help.
Finally, he said the only thing he could.
"Thank you."
She smiled at him. "You're welcome, Oscar."
Oscar. That was his name. And as long as she kept calling him by it, that's who he would be.
"It's… been rough," he said after a moment, "I lived on a farm. Things were simple, and safe, and it was hard work but it was easy all the same. And all of a sudden, I'm on an adventure, and there's someone living inside my head, and people are angry at me for things I had nothing to do with, and my life is in danger constantly," he listed off with a shaking head, "But It was all worth it to meet someone as incredible as you."
She looked embarrassed. "I'm nothing special."
"And if the entire world comes to me and tries to tell me that," he replied, "I'll tell them they're wrong, too."
It was embarrassing to say, too. But he knew it had to be said.
"I feel a lot better now," he said with a small smile, "Go back to the others. I want to think for a bit but I'll join you shortly," he chuckled slightly,"And you can tell Blake her niche is safe."
She looked at him carefully. After a moment, she apparently decided that she was happy with whatever it was she was seeing, as she smiled again. "Okay. I'm glad I could help."
As she headed back to the old farmhouse where the rest of the group would no doubt be found, he looked up at the stars again.
Maybe they were all irrelevant in the big scheme of things. But they were all relevant to someone, right?
And maybe that was enough.