"...You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural..." -Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator
She silently cursed to herself how awful her luck had to be. The Grimm snarled behind her, crashing through the trees like a child through a small town made of building blocks. Triangular ears swiveled at the din of the Grimm's rampage behind her. It was almost overwhelming to her senses. The forest went on in all manner of direction, sometimes it sloped upward towards the mountain peak, but she reasoned that would make it easier for the Grimm to catch and kill her; an idea she wasn't too fond of. She could lose the Grimm down a river, but there were no streams to follow.
She cursed her awful luck once more.
Through the trees, as she wove through them, she spotted the glint of firelight. She readied her weapon-folding scythes strapped to her forearm with comfortable leather-and hooked a tree to her right and spun toward the firelight's direction. The Grimm lumbered behind her, crashing headlong into a boulder. She looked over her shoulder at the spectacle, glad that the heavy rain affected even such a monstrous beast. It wasn't before long that the damn thing changed direction and continued its pursuit of her, though.
She cursed her luck for a third time that day.
The trees thinned in front of the firelight and she bounded off the last strong tree she could grab onto. The remaining fleeting strength in her legs propelled her through the cave entrance and she spun to face the Grimm and bore witness to it skid to a colliding halt at the cave entrance. Coarse black fur and bony protrusions on its arm swiped feebly at the girl, before retreating. The Grimm had to have some amount of intelligence, as it gave up on trying to get at its prey. The girl with fox ears exhaled a relieved sigh, leaning on her knees in front of the small campfire that served as her beacon to safety. She wrung the water from her vibrant orange hair, running her fingers through so it didn't tangle or mat. Movement in the cave startled her; she stiffened, still and attentive of her surroundings. The walls of the cave were natural, it was large for who-or what-ever was in there with her. A bundle of darkness on the far end of the cave shifted and tanned skin peeked from the dark folds. He was a boy, of that she was certain, but his scent wasn't of any Faunus she recognized. She finally saw the large and impressive weapon leaning against the cave wall; it looked to be a two-handed sword, its blade capable of folding over on itself for its wielder to pump the shotgun grip.
"Oh, hello," he spoke up, seeming to be aware of her presence now. "Traveling rather late at night aren't we?" She bristled, unsure of how to respond being addressed. The silence was answered with the crackling of the fire and he reached out, adding another log to keep the warmth and light going.
"Please," he offered with a small gesture, "have a seat. Dry your bones. There's plenty of room and food and drink for another." His eyes sparkled in the firelight, filled with pure happiness to see another. She did as he offered, finding a seat. She undid the straps on her wrists to lay her weapons at her side. She felt his eyes on her, unsure of whether it was disdain or genuine-oh, what was that word? She heard it before-kindness.
"You," she trailed off, not really knowing where her thoughts were, "You don't hate that I'm a Faunus?"
He laughed lightly at her words, "Please," he said after catching his breath, "I've no need for hate. It's too tiring and distracts from enjoying life. It reduces how many friends one can really make." Such an unusual thing for a human to say, to a Faunus even. She voiced the observation and he reached into folds of darkness that enveloped him-by now she realized was a blanket-and tossed a small flask over the fire to her. Reflexively she flinched away thinking it an assail on her person. She fumbled to grab it out of the air barely a thought later and saved it inches from a fiery demise. She inspected the battered old canteen in the firelight and unscrewed its top. She sniffed at its contents warily, attracted to the sweet sting of alcohol.
"I have no cause to poison my only canteen," he spoke up to deter her concerns and paranoia, "I insist, drink up. I can refill anytime." She eyed him cautiously. She knew of a select few whose Semblance could neutralize poison or venom, but they were few and far between. She took a tentative sip of the canteen's contents. The alcohol burned on her tongue, at the same time leaving a sweet taste.
"What is that?" she choked on her question, coughing at the strong flavor.
"It's a family recipe," he answered, reaching across the fire to take the canteen back. "My family runs a distillery in a small town in Vale. They'd send me a jug of their batches while I'm training at Beacon." He took a sip, then spat a small mouthful into the fire. The fire answered with a small fireball that brightened the dismal cavern chamber. The firelight was brief, but she could make his features out better in its radiance: his hair was messy, as though combed forward to hide a receding hairline.
"You're a Huntsman?" she put the pieces together.
"Same as you," he answered with a nod. Haven taught her a great deal of things, but one lesson learned the hard way was she would never be the same as anyone else. There was one of her. The fur on her ears bristled at his words, said so pleasantly, almost like they were condescending. Was he mocking her now?
"We're not the same," she retorted with a growl. The fur on the back of her neck, hidden by her hair, turned upward.
He put his hands up to offer calming her down, "The difference in us is just how we look," he replied calmly, "We fight for the same cause, we walk the same earth, we stare up at the same stars at night, we feel the same wind on our faces."
"We're not the same," she insisted.
A long pause passed between the two. She was stubborn, and that stubbornness was what helped her win fights and arguments often at Haven. Nothing deterred her stance. She was one to get to her feet even after another student had just knocked her down. She wasn't one to ever give up, ever.
"Close your eyes," he requested. She scoffed at his words. He repeated, this time adding, "Please," afterward. She rolled her eyes and did so, deciding it better to follow along after he asked so politely.
"Put your hand to your chest, please," he spoke once all she saw was in the interior of her eyelids. She did so. Her hand felt the tremor in her chest. It was rapid, pumping blood through her body. She felt every contraction and expansion.
"What do you feel?" he asked in the silence and darkness.
"My heartbeat," she answered. It was so calming, whatever she was upset about dissipated with her body's rhythm.
"Reach your hand out," he requested, his voice sounding closer than before. Fingers groped blindly in the air until they felt cloth. She recoiled in a lapse of distrust, but strong, soft hands caught her wrist. She felt through the shirt and buttons on it. She focused, thinking she wouldn't feel what she may have been looking for. But there it was; soft and slower than hers, but its rhythm was the same. Her breath caught in her throat and her hand pulled away released from his grip. Her eyes adjusted to the cavern's firelight once more and she found him across the campfire from her. His blanket was around his waist, he was garbed in a blue tunic, the buttons she felt were open underneath his neck until halfway down.
"Did you feel it?" he asked. She nodded, almost ashamed of how she acted before. "How are we so different?"
Silence. This human had to be, by far, one of the most perplexing of his kind she ever met. His actions were so confusing to her.
"How can you be so kind to someone you've never met?" she asked. "You don't know me. You don't know what I've lived through. How do you know that I won't kill you in your sleep?"
"Because," he answered, studying the tension she put off, "you know what's the right thing to do."
Even to her, that made no sense.
"Maybe the right thing to do is to kill you and take your stuff," she countered. She scooped her weapons off the ground and shifted them into combat-ready and took up a fighting stance.
"As long as you think your actions are justified," he replied neutrally. He took another sip from his canteen. She lowered her weapons and folded them away.
"You're not going to fight for your life?"
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. "Why should I? I've no need to fight a fellow Huntress."
"But I'd kill you."
"Why haven't you already?"
Color in her face rose out of frustration with the human's disassembling of her argument.
"If you have to kill me," he continued, "then do it already and let all my kindness and generosity go to waste. I will not raise my weapon against another Huntsman or Huntress."
"Why not?" she demanded, having no more of his nonsense.
"Because we both share the same sense of honor," he finally came to his point, "We both honor the lives of others. Not just ours, but of everyone else around us. We cherish and protect the lives of others; that is why we fight the Grimm and not one another. Haven't you ever felt that before?"
She could recall fleeting moments where she had such sensations. Those moments were violent, but she distinctly remembered them best fighting against Grimm. She could recall the cries from others around her as she fought off Grimm; They were not cries of disdain for her cursed existence, but cries of exultation. That wasn't what he was talking about, was it? Her weapons grew heavy in her hands and slid from her grip, landing on the ground with a thud. She slid back down to sit in front of the fire. Her eyes stung with tears and her ears drooped with the realization of what she wanted to do.
"We all lose our way," he offered as comfort, "We take the darker path thinking it would be easier to shrug off the contempt of others; but it becomes a burden we eventually come to hate, and we hate ourselves in turn for bearing it. The hate consumes until there's nothing left in life worth enjoying."
Her sobs nearly drowned out his words, but she heard them, and the truth of them squeezed tighter on her heart. Tear-blinded and paralyzed with the revelations of her own burdens, a warmth fell gently across her shoulders. She looked up, seeing him stand before her, wrapping his blanket around her. He turned and resumed his seat across the fire from her. The blanket smelled strongly of his sweat, it was threadbare and ragged, but for him to part with it for her sake... she understood how precious it must mean for him to share it like this. Her fit of emotion dissipated and she fell silent watching the fire. He replaced another log from the dwindling pile to keep it burning.
"I..." she hesitated, "I never got your name,"
"It's Titan," he answered serenely.
Her body convulsed trying to fight off the sudden fit of laughter. She couldn't help but find the name so funnily unfitting for him; he was scrawny and looked near starved, which made it seem all the more impossible for him to heft the massive weapon beside him. He caught sight of the small smile on her face, and joined in the chuckle she let slip.
"I'm sorry," she said weakly afterward, "I've just never known a human to be so nice to me."
"Kindness is not unnatural," Titan returned, "you'll find many around Vale who would openly offer the same kindness I do." Her ears perked. Was he offering her an invitation to Beacon? How much did he figure out about her from just this meeting? No, that couldn't be what he was suggesting, was it? In her mind, she welcomed any chance to escape Haven campus to be by herself. He was right about one thing: she hated forcing herself to be alone.
"I'm tired of hate," she finally admitted with an exhausted sigh. "I'm tired of being alone." She brought the blanket further up around her until she swaddled herself in it.
"Well," Titan moved another log onto the fire, "You're not alone tonight, now. Rest easy here." She sighed in welcome of the new comfort.
An hour burned on the campfire. The storm pushed over the mountain bending trees with its driving rain and harsh wind. Titan and the girl sat and listened to the thunderclaps outside. She often flinched at the sound and hid under the blanket when they were too loud. Titan, on the other hand, sat and roared in contest with the elements. He savored each sound as it were a beat on a large war-drum.
"How can you stand that?" she asked, edging closer to the fire away from the spray of rain at the cave mouth.
"That is true power," he pointed to the outside as a clap of thunder shook the cave around them, "Not something any Semblance can ever duplicate. It is the most primordial of things on this world, before human, Faunus, or even Grimm. That power is deserving of my respect and admiration." A loud crack echoed from the skies and he laughed as he felt the air reverberate across him.
"You're crazy!" she exclaimed.
"No," he disagreed, "I just find something soothing about thunderstorms."
"I hate thunder," she grumbled about the subject, "It's loud and means rain, and that means my hair gets tangled and doesn't dry right and I look like a mess-What's so funny?" she stared across the fire at Titan, who was now doing his best to stifle laughter.
"I'm sorry," he waved a hand to her, "you didn't strike me as the kind of girl who cared so much about her hair or looks. You seemed so above that." She blushed in realization. This was something she never addressed in the presence of others. At Haven, she could recall other Huntsmen and Huntresses who teased her about it. They came so close to breaking her will.
"I have to look civilized," she spoke with dignity, "I don't want to be some wild animal."
Titan hummed at her words. "Sounds like those people that tease you are talking," he observed, "How do you really feel about it?" A snappy comeback caught in her throat. She closed her eyes and inhaled, finding the calming rhythm of her heartbeat once more. She unfolded one of her sickles and stared at her reflection in the blade. She saw a girl tired of fighting against disdain and contempt, the pretentious mockery of her life, a girl who didn't know how to change amongst everything that was always the same. She bunched her hair into a handful and took the blade, slicing neatly through it all. She sighed relieved of its weight. It had grown down to her elbows, now it was so the front barely reached her jaw and the back was neatly shorn.
"Feel better?" Titan asked as she unceremoniously dropped the clump of hair in her hand on the cavern floor.
"It feels so liberating," she ran her fingers through her now shorter hair.
"It looks good, too," he complimented. She couldn't hide the flush of color in her cheeks.
"Do I really?" she asked doubtfully.
Titan nodded, "It suits you," he insisted, "I think you look better with short hair, honest." Her fox ears twitched as another chuckle of thunder sounded in the distance. Titan raised his head and listened as well.
"Sounds like the storm's passing finally," he considered. Her ears wiggled at his words. She remembered it was over this particular mountain she had to rendezvous with her team, and her ears drooped.
"Then soon we have to part ways," she observed sullenly.
Titan tilted his head to the side. "You don't want to leave?"
"I don't want to go back to my unit." she shook her head, "They're the reason I'm out here in the first place. They've left me out of all their decisions, never inform me whenever there's a change in plans, they treat me more like an enemy than an ally!" She didn't realize she was shouting at this point, and the echo of her voice on the cavern walls had her look up, teary-eyed at Titan.
"They keep pushing me away and I'm sick of it!" she continued, fighting to speak through her sobs, "They're the reason I hate myself so much!" She closed her eyes, blinded by her tears for nearly a moment, and opened them to see Titan's seat across from her empty. Strong, wiry arms wrapped around her shoulders and back, and she struggled a moment against the embrace, before she fully processed what this was.
She had seen other people do this with one another in every city and village she visited. It was a sign of affection, she surmised, a gesture of comfort of sorts. She desired for someone to offer one of these to her, wondering what sort of effect it had. Now she knew. She reached her hands around Titan's back and returned the hug, grabbing handfuls of his shirt to never let him go. Her voice went up in unrestrained sobs, tears hot and heavy cascaded down her face wetting Titan's shirt. She sounded like a wounded child, unable to keep her emotions in check anymore.
The embrace between them released, though she didn't know when that was. It felt like a long time.
"Feel better?" Titan asked.
She nodded. "I feel lighter," she answered honestly.
"Then the burden is lifted. You're free of your hatred. Cast aside your old life. Come back with me to Beacon. The Headmaster can ensure you fit right in. And you'll have a friend there."
A friend.
Never in the girl's existence had she ever heard such a word associated with her. She mouthed it to try for herself, and sounded as light and free as she felt. She liked it. With hardly another thought of it, she nodded in agreement. Titan smiled at her. In a moment of realization, Titan swat his forehead with an open hand and barked a laugh.
"Stupid me!" he exclaimed, "I was so caught up in the moment, I never asked your name! How unfair that you know mine, and I never got yours."
She chuckled along with him, and the mirth of the moment seemed to fall away. She stared at the ground ashamed.
"I," she trailed off a moment, "I don't have one." Titan scoffed in disbelief.
"You sure?"
She nodded. "All anyone calls me is 'Fox-Girl'."
"That won't do," he tapped his chin in thought. He stared at her for a lone, silent moment. "How about Kit?" Her ears perked, and a spark ignited in her eye; a spark Titan could see easily.
For the first time since she could consciously remember, her smile was as bright as the sun outside that little cave. "I like it," she finally decided. "My name is... Kit."
AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY: This story was an experiment of sorts. I wanted to tell a story of a human and a faunus spending time in a cave. No names, no fighting, just two humanoids talking and discussing philosophy or finding comfort and friendship. That concept eventually evolved into this story, which kept the original idea: a Faunus who hates herself because humans hate her, finds a human who just changes her life for the better. Originally, I wanted the story to follow a simple concept; just tell a story with no names. It starts off well enough, I think, and planned to end it when they did tell each other their names. But I decided later on that maybe it would be better for it to end when the girl found her own name. In my mind, I wanted the story to be about this faunus girl who finds not only a friend, but also her own name. I really liked how it came together, and how it wrapped up as it did.