A clang rang threw the silence that fell on the old farm of Patch. While the town as a whole was commonly refered to as Patch, even by the people there, it was just the farm that was actually named such. Ruby dragged her scythe threw the dirt, mixing in freshly layed fertiliser in with the naturally rich earth of the farmlands.
Ruby always took the night shifts. Perhaps it was because she found comfort in the bright moon above her head. Perhaps it was, beacuse of her sister, Yang, who was almost always dead tired, for one reason or another. Or, perhaps, it was beacuse Ruby was best to face what lurked in the shadows.
Its not every day a simple Farmhand slays one of the worlds most infamous Necromancers afterall.
Patch was a small town, and a closely packed community. Well Ruby wasnt friends with everyone here, she was still on a first name basis with everyone living in the nearby town, and could recognise any of their faces with even a glance. Sadly a small town attracts alot more problems than one would expect. Alot of evil people practicing in dark magic attempt to collect what they need for there rituals by preying on a small, 'defenceless' town. Most of these ingridience would be something only obtained from a human courpse.
Thankfully her deeds had proven the town was not to be messed with.
There had been no threat of any new alchemists in the woods, only the occasional undead left after Cinder, the last Necromancer she had met, had been cut down by her farming tool. Patch has attracted alot of attention after word spread, and Ruby was both thankful for, and loathed it. While more tourists meant more money, it also meant alot more trouble was attracted to the town; although that was usually in the form of bandits, thieves, fortune seakers, and traveling merchants who didn't know when the Town's 'Generosity' ended, and fanatics who would love to add the local hero to thier personal collection.
Ruby was enjoying the peace, however. New problems were better then the old, which could wear down on you after an extended period of time. Plus, she could finally stand outside and admire the moon without feeling fear pulse through her.
Sadly her star gazing woulden't last forever, as a scream echoed from the town. Lights shot on throughout the town in a wave, and Ruby, being a hero in everything but official title, rushed towards town to see what was going on.
When Ruby arrived on the scene, it was already over. A local house, which was elevated off the ground ever so slightly, had its door ripped off its hinges, cracks in the wood signaling ungodly brute force, if the hand prints were anything to go by.
A blood streak was along the ground, where piles of dirt lay from someone's recent struggles. The blood was less a streak, really, and more so a trickle. Small patches of blood was scattered about, somewhat covered by the upturned dirt, leading off towards the woods.
People began to come out of the houses to see what was going on, and almost as quickly as they came, they returned out of fright. You didnt grow up in Patch without learning to recognise an undead attack.
Ruby sighed, still carrying her massive farming tool, she let it hang off to her side as she ran after the blood trail. Ruby had killed many undead before, but this didnt sit right with her. Most undead would try to pick off people who either stayed out too long at night, or was near the borders of town where an escape would be quicker. This was neither of that, this was barging right into someones house and tearing them out of there bed. Not to mention this house was right in the middle of the town.
Not to mention the lack of blood. No undead can eat its meal this fast, they had to be carrying them. Ruby was confident a undead couldn't outrun her, but they still gained considerable distance. Not to mention how they managed to pry the door off without making enough noise to even arouse the neighbors.
Ruby was worried.
Leaves whiped by her head, twigs threatening to tangle themselves in her hair and grab at her skirt, she managed to jump over any rocks or logs, over hills and weave between trees in such a way that one would think she was a wolf, or at least knew the woods like one.
Another scream echoed through the woods, and Ruby knew she was close. Her inner monologue was broken as she skidded to a hault. Despite killing a necromancer, and fighting more undead than she can count, the sight infront of her was downright horrifying; revolting even.
She could recognise the man's face, but almost nothing else was the same. His legs had been broken and carelessly ripped apart, hunks of sharp broken bone piercing the bloody flesh. His right arm had been devoured down to mere bone and blood, and she stood there, watching, as an undead tore through his chest with delicate fingers, stuffing her face with his internal organs.
Ruby had to cover her mouth to avoid vomiting. "Oh god... Tukson..." She wasnt close friends with him by a long shot, but seeing a member of the town in such a state made her stomach contents fight to escape. The undead heard her voice, visibly perking up like a wolf, and she shot to her feet in a matter of moments, standing over the almost unrecognisable corpse.
The women's hands were dripping in fresh blood, the frilly ends of her dress sleeves stained with blood that weighed them down. The entire length of her outfit's sleeves was stained various shades of pale red, cleary from previous feeding attempts. Despite that, the rest of her outfit looked almost untouched. Aside from some recent dirt at the bottom of her dress, due to just having been kneeling over, her outfit looked fresh out of the wash.
Her hair was bright white, almost unaturally so. It shone as it reflected the moonlight, and it was tied back in a neat ponytail. Her hair, contrary to most undead, was smooth and refined, comparable to that of someone going to a job interview. She had a strap around her shoulder, and Ruby could see a few filled syringes in a small, fancy purse off to her side.
The girls body was in pretty fine shape for an undead, her flesh being mostly intact, although ungodly pale, having lost any life in it. The only exception to this was her face. Her right side of her face had a mighty gash, tearing down from above her eye, just below her forehead, to her chin. It had scarred at her chin, and a large layer of flesh had been peeled down from her right side of the face. Large hunks hung off, and below it, suprisingly red flesh, black hunks of dead, rotting meat, and a unnerving ammount of bone. Seeing a person walking around with there skull showing was beyond unsettling.
Her right eye was as dead and lifeless as any undead would, but her left was quite the contrast. Not only was her left face the pinnacle of perfection in every meaning of the word, delicate and well kept, but her eye looked far more intact and dare she say; human, than she had ever seen in an undead before. Two sets of eyes were locked with each other, Weiss with Ruby in what almost resembled a Western standoff. Ruby's eyes fighting a mix of sickness, anger, desire for justice, and fascination at the unusual girl infront of her. While Weiss's beautiful, sea blue eye was trying to focus on the girl infront of her without rolling right out of her head.
Weiss was the first to act.
Weiss tore a mighty rapier from below her skirt, having been mostly concealed by her frilly dress. While Ruby would have spotted the long blade if she had paid attention, she had been distracted, a foolish mistake for someone who had just walked in on a undead's feast. Weiss pointed the balde at Ruby's feet, her other hand outstretched and glowing ever so faintly.
Strange markings appeared on the ground around Ruby's feet, the magical incarnation spinning in a haze of white and black, steadily gaining speed. Ruby heard the screams of the damned, a familiar sound, one that was almost exactly like Cinder's runes. The familiar sound had snapped her out of her daze, and she lunged backwards, as the runes exploaded were she once stood.
A fine, snow like powder spewed into the air, hovering for a moment before a flashfreeze occurred. Long, thin spikes of ice protruded from the ground. A large hunk of ice remained, with many, many smaller ice spikes scattered in all directions inside it, making it look like an intricate prism. If she haden't moved, she would have been frozen solid, and impaled in every direction by countless weapons.
Ruby bit her lip. She coulden't mourn, not now. There was an angry undead staring her down, and it needed to be dealt with.
Ruby swung her blade behind her head, and Weiss took a fighting stance, Rapier pointed out, ready to counterattack the incoming swing. After a few moments, Weiss staggered, and looked at Ruby with a dumbfound expression. Ruby was just standing there, weapon held far, far behind her back in preperation for a huge arch, but she just didnt move. Even now when Weiss had dropped her guard, she didn't move.
'Why cant I kill her?' Ruby's voice rang threw her head like a siren. 'Not HER, its a undead, not a person. You shouldn't be hesitating, you have done this before'. Yet here she was, hesitating, frozen like a schoolgirl on promnight. Once again, the staring contest resumed.
'Why hasn't she killed me?' Weiss asked herself, staring at the warrior infront of her. Or was it farmhand? She didnt have armour on, and apon closer inspection, her weapon looked more like a oversized gardening tool then a blade designed for war. Why was a farmhand even out here in the woods chasing her to begin with?
Weiss hesitently lifted her thin fingers to her lips, licking and sucking the blood of her prey off. Weiss kept a close eye on the girl, watching her face recoil in disgust as she licked a boney finger clean, before doing the same to one of flesh. Even now, the red clad girl didn't swing, nor did she lower her weapon. Weiss breifly wondered if her ice magic had hit her afterall, but quickly disregarded the idea. But it wasn't like she had a better reason for why the girl was just staring at her.
'Whatever' Weiss says to herself with a huff, raising her rapier to her shoulder and pushing one foot foward to angle herself, pushing dirt aside with her heeled boot. She aimed her blade at the girls heart, where delicious blood was being pumped. 'If she wont fight me, then she's nothing but the second course.'
Even with the angle perfectly lined up, Weiss too, faltered. She hesitated, and Weiss felt sweat dropping down across her brow. The two stared at each other, waves of confusion in both girls' eyes. It was almost like they were reading each others minds. 'Why cant I kill her?' rang through thier heads. 'Why hasen't she killed me?'
Weiss heard a small growl from her gut, looking down before back at the girl. Hesitantly, afraid the warrior would lunge at her, she lowered her rapier and slowly slid it back into place. Weiss parted her soft red lips, a course voice coming out, before quickly correcting itself into one of elegence, as if she was getting used to her vocalcords again. "Staring at each other will get us nowhere" she said, her voice colder than a winter storm.
Ruby stumbled backwards and fell onto her rear end when the zombie spoke. She haden't expected it to speak, not after such a long, tense silence. Ruby dropped her weapon in her shock, before instinctivly reaching for it to protect herself. When she turned back to the girl after grabbing her weapon, she saw, instead of going after her, she had hauled the corpse over her shoulder, even as it fell apart, limb from limb. Weiss looked at her, almost disapprovingly, but curiosity still rang through her eyes despite her attempts to act above her. With a spin of her heel, the undead walked into the woods with her meal, the occasional hunk of flesh, bone, or organ falling from it as she walked with a sassy sway to her hips.
Even when the two were far from each others gazes, the two still had the same question running through their minds like a broken record. 'Why didn't she kill me? ...Why couldn't I kill her?'
Ruby sat there for what must have been an hour at least, beacuse she heard noise in the woods behind her; the noise of much less coordinated footsteps. "Ruby?" The girl perked up, standing up and rushing back towards the voice, pratically divebombing her sister before the blond had even seen the girl. "Hey Ruby" She said with a smile, holding her torch up in the air to avoid burning the girls hair. It was times like this she wished she still had two arms, she would love to hug her sister right now.
"Hey Yang, what are you doing out here? You should be asleep, leave the zombie hunting to me" Ruby scolds her, despite her being over two years older. Yang let out a bellowing laugh in response, taking a step back, forcing Ruby to uncurl her arms form around the blonde's waist. "I was woken up y'now, with the rest of the town. You were gone for almost two hours, I had to check in on you." She said, her voice dripping with concern. 'W- was that really two hours?' Ruby stiffens at the timeframe. It felt like only a few minutes had passed!
"Ruby, are you okay?" Yang asks, putting her arm around Ruby despite holding the torch high in the air. "What happened to the undead? What happened to Tukson?" Ruby lowered her head shamefully, leaning into Yang's touch, although she coulden't help but feel she didn't deserve her comfort. "Tuksons dead. And she- the undead, it got away." She corrected herself from saying she. Undead are not people, she shouldent refer to it by a gender. Yet for some reason, it felt wrong to call the mysterous girl anything but.
Yang clearly looked hurt, more so then she would like to admit. Losing one of the town hurt, and Yang could only imagine Ruby's confidence crashing down, and tried her best to prevent that from happening. "Its okay Rubes, no ones perfect. Come on, lets go home and rest. We can help the town prepare a memorial tommorow. God knows you need a rest." She pats Ruby's back as best she can, and starts to lead the girl back to the town.
"Ya..." Ruby nods hesitantly, looking over her shoulder in a somber, longful tone. "I really should rest. I need some time to think."
Weiss, meanwhile, had made her way back home, swiftly reaching the far side of the island despite carrying a dead body over her shoulder. "Ugh..." She gave a groan as she dropped the man in the sands of the beach. "Im going to have to clean my dress again after this." She hated having to clean her dress, it was so hard to get blood out of it, sometimes impossible if it was soaked long enough, like with her arms. That's why she prefered to eat as much of her meal as she can right after a hunt, sadly dinner had been cut short.
Weiss marched towards a small overhang near the water, the ghostly clicking of her heels sounding even while she was walking through the shallow, sandy waters. She stopped infront of the cave, one hand on her hip, the other out foward, she quickly waved her hand from one side to the other, and the simple motion caused the rocks to tremble.
The rocky wall shook, cold air rushing over Weiss in a familiar, refreshing feeling that made her feel alive, if but for a moment, before the rocks came crumbling down. The rocky wall was nothing but a pile of rocks she had gathered on the beach, held up by a wall of ice behind it, having froze the rocks in place. Half the rocks in the ice, and half on the outside, resulting in looking mostly like a normal wall, as the rocks mostly ligned up somewhat naturally and those that didn't were hidden behind stalagtites and stalagmites formed by yours truly.
She walked into the Schnee Manor, an inn turned church turned pirate headquarters turned ghosthouse. it was a comforting -20 celsius, and she walked through the halls with a echoing click to her heels that would send chills down the spines of anyone living in the area. Thankfully, no one was. Weiss had made sure of that long, long ago.
Grabbing a shovel, she turned back towards the beach. While her hands were perfectly good at digging, she hated getting sand out from under her nails; it was very hard to do without causing them to fall off. Digging her shovel into the beach, she moved load after load as the sand gave away, revealing what looked like a very large bucket. She hopped inside the now emptied bin, feeling a relaxing chil as she touched the sand. Ice was in the walls around her, and the sand moved ever so slghtly as she pushed two glaciers aside, revelaing yet another passage way: a hole deep underground.
She went back to retrieve the body, carelessly throwing it down with not an once of respect before sliding down the wooden pillar. Soon her heels met wood, and she arrived at a sunken pirate ship. If her manor was cold, this was brutal. A heavy -50 degree celsius filled the area, the sand held up with intricate, ornate ice woven between the small rocks, the entire ship bathed in frost.
It was like standing in a utterly gigantic cooler, and Weiss never felt more alive then when she was in this ship. The cold, the crushing loneliness, barried beneath the earth like she had dug her own grave; sometimes, she wished she could live here instead of the manor.
She grabbed the dead man on the ground, who's neck had snapped from the fall, and he was mangled even further in a way that probably would have made Ruby vomit. Weiss dragged her meal to the lower layer, tossing him into a massive pile of remains that looked like a mass grave. Most of it was either rotten, frozen, or both. She didnt disregard the bad meat, she needed food, and if she ever failed to real in a catch, she'd need a foodsorce to fall back on. Thus, reason for her stockpile.
Weiss got down on one knee, tearing the leg off her still unfrozen victum before biting down, relishing in the satisfying crunch of bone as she rended flesh and drank his blood. She ate slowly, not as ravenous as before. She used this time to think on the day now passed.
The entire encounter with the farmhand simply didn't make sense to her. Every time she seeked an answer to a question, the answer just seemed to give her another question or contradict a previous answer. More than anything, she was bothered by her own actions.
She looked at the pile of bone a little ways away from her mass grave, the bones nearly reaching the cealing of the lower deck. She pictured the warrior laying amongst them, she imagined the delightful taste of her blood. She wanted to eat that girl, so that begs the question; why didnt she?
Frustrated with her own inner monologue getting her nowhere, she threw what remained of the legbone and its meat into the pile, standing up and heading back outside. She climbed the mast and covered it with sand fairly quickly, sparing a gaze towards the sea. Pinks and orange had just managed to break the dark blue and purple of the sky, signaling it time for Weiss to head indoors.
She returned to her manor, taking a deep breath of the cool air and watching as a cloud came out of her lungs. With a wave of her hand the rocks closed behind her in the same manner, and she went deeper into her home. Her heels, which always had the click and echo as if she was walking in a lone hallway, was louder and more pronound here, were that was exactly the case.
She arrived at her bedroom, taking a syringe from her purse and grabbing a glass off her desk, she put the tip into the cup and slowly pushed, watching the essence of life fill it, more instantly starting to slow in response to the cool air. Watching life crumble under the cold always held some sort of morbid amusment. After sparing a chuckle, she lifted the glass to her lips and drank it like a normal human would milk before bed.
She sighs in relief at the taste, the life essence of human blood being one of the few things to clench the neverending dryness in her throat. She put the cup down, satisfied for now, and put her sachle on a hook on the backside of her door, one originally meant for coats or sweaters. She quickly slipped off her dress and folded it neatly off to the side for future washing, before reaching into her drawer and pulling out a light, equally petite and fancy pair of pajamas. She spared herself a glance in the mirror, nodding in satisfaction that her body hadn't decayed any more. She put alot of effort in keeping her from looking so good, the battle would on her face not withstanding.
Quickly slipping into the dress, she layed down on the soft bed and pulling the blanket over her, warmth and cold battling each other for dominance over her body. A soft smile formed on her lips at the comforting feeling, before her mind drifted back to that mysterious girl, and a frown quickly replaced it. She shook the ideas out of her head and closed her eyes, choosing to sleep off the problem.
She wasn't going to get food just thinking of it, afterall.
It was a similar case back at Patch. Ruby went right home, her sister insisting instead of telling the town what had happened. Ruby was pretty sure she coulden't keep a straight face if she did, knowing what she actually did.
Ruby had quickly chugged a glass of warm milk, changed into her pajamas, them promptly paced in her room for another two hours, even as the sun started to creep its way up through her window, her mind didn't rest. How could she? After what she did? The worst part was Ruby didn't understand herself. Maybe if she had a reason for stopping it'd make her stomach stop turning, but she had none. If anything she had more reason to cut the girl down, she killed tukson! She was eating him right infront of her!
"Ruby!" She hears her dad call from the next room. "You're really not as quiet as you think you are. Go to sleep young lady, you need it!". Ruby knew better then to argue with him on something like this. besides, she was tired afterall. She layed down in ehr bed, wrapping herself in teh warm blankets, and after staring at the wall for a while, soon passed out to exhaustion.
All Ruby wanted was answers, but it looks like she'd have to dig deep to find them.