The last mission had been the stuff of legends.
There was no mercy or quarter in the final battle, but the war had finally been capped. Peace was kept. The day was saved. In years to come, the mission would be taken to text, retold in bars and pubs, recalled again and again. When enough years pass, there would be television syndication, movies. The story of Team RWBY, and all the others, would forever reverberate into legend, into myth; a singing thread in the tapestry of human history, a singing sinew in the proud hearts of men.
Every morning, Ruby woke up and only heard the silence, reminding her what it had cost to win.
"Ruby? Are you awake?" Penny's muffled voice asked from behind the door to her small room. Ruby shifted under the quilts and looked out the window above her bed, seeing the gray beams of morning light her room.
In the weeks after, Ruby realized she didn't Belong. There was no where left. Even Patch, her childhood home, reminded her now more of failure than comfort. She couldn't exorcise all her ghosts, but she could run from those that were bound to homes.
So she left. Left and hobbled the span of the Kingdoms. Until finally she found a place that was empty enough that she could fill it with just herself and not remember that once, she had had others by her side.
"Ruby?" Penny asked again.
"I'm awake." Ruby answered, and slowly sat up in bed, sweaty hair clinging to her and falling down her back from years of inattention. She felt her muscles protest, saying they had been savaged and couldn't pull like they used to. It was the same protest, they and the raw joints, the battered cartilage, the deadened nerves, the marred flesh. She ignored it as she had every day, swinging around so her leg could touch the floor.
Penny entered, wearing a long shawl.
"Did you have a good dream?" She asked, smiling with hope.
Ruby shrugged listlessly. "Maybe."
Penny waited patiently as her friend reached for the mechanical appendage leaning against the bedside table, and strapped it around the gnarled stump and her knee so that Ruby's remaining foot could be matched by a rubber tipped metal spike. After redheaded woman pulled her pants and jacket on, she wearily stood up, and rested on Penny for support as the two walked to the wheelchair so that she could be pushed into the outer room.
These days, her life was within the four walls of the mountain cottage she and Penny had found. They hung with tools and intricate benches. Once upon a time, the cottage must have been a workshop for other Hunters, but these days, the two helped themselves to whatever left they could find of the long abandoned home.
Just the grime left over from the necessary days, all of them. Clinging on out of sheer obstinacy.
Time lost all meaning here. Ruby's only duty left was to keep her body alive. She slept as long as she wanted, and ate when she felt hungry. Every day left to her played the same. After she lunched, Penny would wheel her out to the porch outside, where Ruby could peer past the mountain mists down into the world below. Or sleep in them. What did it matter.
"Ruby... maybe it's time to go see how things are down in the Kingdoms?" Penny asked.
The woman sat, feeling very comfortable in her wheelchair. "...I don't want to."
"Maybe at least to hear how Jaune and Pyrrha are doing?" Penny ventured.
Ruby thought about Mistral and grimaced. "Hate" was not the right word for what she felt about those two... but they were so photogenic it hurt. After she left, it was up to them to speak for the survivors, and speak they did. It was so easy for everyone to hold the two up as the Heroes, the Protagonists of the Story. The shy little boy who grew into his great destiny, the gifted paragon of feminine strength who stood equal, and their ridiculous burgeoning romance while everything was just teetering on the brink of annihilation...
They fitted so perfectly into the tale that RWBY practically became a footnote. Everything they had done, everything fought for...
Ruby looked at one of her hands. Still bandaged. Still found it hard to look underneath.
No. Ruby didn't have the will or the right to stand next to them, look them in the eye and say they were friends with this shredded body.
"Maybe next time..."
Penny's warm face faltered for a second before nodding in understanding, "Well, there's plenty enough to do here! I think there's still a few books left we haven't read! I will be right back."
The girl was already moving to head back into the cottage, excited for reasons Ruby wasn't sure of.
"Penny."
She turned to look, while Ruby continued to whisper.
"...Why do you stay here? You know... you know I can look after myself... You should be out there, helping people, living your life... you don't need to take care of me... I'm finished, anyways..."
Ruby's voice ran away with her, as usual, while Penny circled back around.
"...You know how much Ironwood and Polendina care about you! They'd welcome you back if you went to Atlas... I'd be okay with that, really... I don't want to tie you down here, if you want to leave-"
She was stilled when she felt cool metal on her hand. Penny's true hands. Poking out from under the sleeves, visibly jointed and artificial, like a puppet, or a doll's. They had tried to tidy up the edges of the destroyed synth-skin from when she grabbed the... but it couldn't be replaced. Penny's hands remained a reminder that the departure from Atlas was absolute, with all it entailed. Another loss that couldn't be made up for.
Ruby looked at her companion, who had dropped to her knees to look at her eye to eye.
"Because we are friends," Penny said simply, "And because we are friends, I want to be there for you. Maybe I should see the world, but I wouldn't be happy leaving you by yourself. Don't worry about me, Ruby. I'll be by your side, first and foremost."
Ruby looked down at the hand and put her own overtop, and smiled back. Penny grinned and headed back into the cottage. As soon as she was out of sight, Ruby's face fell, and she sat while feeling herself shrivel up in her wheel chair, feeling sick at having to pretend.
I wish we weren't... I don't want... not any more...
Oh, it was impossible to forget. No matter how far she ran, all she could remember was her defining moment of weakness. She couldn't stand the possibility of losing Penny to that weakness, too. The Mission... she fought as hard as she could, until her body well and truly failed her, and in turn, she failed so many countless...
Velvet, Yatsuhashi, Cardin, Neptune, Sun, Nora, Ren... Ozpin...
Blake...
Yang...
What was "the world" she had saved? What was any of it worth? All Ruby knew was that she had failed. It had come down to "Us" and "Everyone Else". The answer should have been "both". It was always "both". That was what it meant to be a Hunter. No compromises. But Ruby had run out at the very end. So to save everyone else, she sacrificed everyone she loved, and herself, as necessary. They all fought to the last, because they had run out.
The world would sing of their brave sacrifices, like there was something noble about watching her family die... but she only felt the emptiness. There must have been some other way... but she couldn't see it, even now... so weak. So weak.
So Ruby Rose sat in the mountain mist, alone, and waited for the end of the world. Whatever it took to live another minute without the shame.
"Let me go!"
Ruby woke up one noon to the sounds of struggles. She was still nestled in her chair, but Penny was nowhere to be found. It sounded like a few people were thrashing about outside, wrestling.
"You are a very suspicious looking person, suspiciously sneaking up here, so I'm not going to!"
That explained enough.
Ruby groaned to wakefulness, tried to stretch as best as she could, and rolled herself out into the porch. There, Penny was indeed employing one of her many useful unbreakable locks on...
...Weiss? It's you...!
She felt her breath catch, as she saw that familiar white hair, that slender frame... oh Weiss, it's you again... the years haven't changed you a bit, still as beautiful as when I realized you were the stars in the bleak night...
She reached her hand out, and the memories were coming back, what it was like to even have the joy of running...
And Weiss raised her head to glare at her, and then it wasn't Weiss.
It was some boy with her hair, but the cloudy gray eyes weren't. He looked young, maybe fifteen. His clothes looked expensive, but it was clearly worn down from time outside, and given how he was trying to pry himself free from Penny, it was clear he used Quality than preserved.
Ruby dropped her hand. The dream was over.
"Who are you?" Ruby asked icily. A little something Blake coached her on, once upon a time.
"Are you Ruby Rose?" The boy growled back.
Damn it. The last thing she had wanted, even after all this time, was awareness of who she was. She didn't need people chasing her down to the ends of the earth, just to point fingers at her and dig up what she had buried with herself. But there was always someone...
Ruby groaned, and rubbed her face.
"Can you please answer my question?"
"Are you or are you not Ruby Rose?" The boy failed to, again, "Youngest student to enter Beacon when Ozpin was Headmaster! Leader of Team RWBY! The one who lead all those Hunters against the-"
A day ruined spectacularly by the insensitivity of some punk. That's it. She was going to get Penny to kick him off the mountain. No, she was going to do it herself. She still had one foot, damn it!
"-Are you or are you not the Huntress who partnered with my mom back then!?"
Ruby paused.
His mother...
She looked at the boy more carefully again, wondering if he was lying or not. Ruby asked one more, carefully, clearly, and slowly.
"Who. Are. You."
The grave annunciation was enough to still the boy. Something in his eyes showed that he understood this was one of those questions in his life that would determine a great many things. Including his life span.
"Look, get your assistant off me and I'll tell you."
Well, at least he wasn't calling Penny anything prejudiced. Ruby rolled her eyes and motioned to the vise that was attached to the boy's back.
"Let him go, Penny. It's not like he can hurt either of us with that toothpick he taped to his waist."
Penny released him at the same time the boy spluttered, protectively clutching the sword he was carrying.
"T-toothpick!? This is a scientifically refined perfection of the rapier!"
Ruby rolled her eyes, slumping in her wheelchair, "'Refined'. Tch, some people have no appreciation for classics..."
"I am Boreas Schnee, heir of the Schnee Company. I will not be talked to this way!"
God, every time I meet a Schnee, that's comes up in the first five sentences...
"Very well, is there something your heir-ness needs from me?"
"I need you train me to be a Hunter."
"I'm no Huntress," Ruby spat at herself.
"Don't feed me that! You are Ruby Rose! You're pretty much the best Huntress of your generation!"
"I'm sorry, but I think you have me confused with Mistral's reigning champion and hero of the war. Besides, you're a Schnee, why don't you just hire some tutors?"
"I don't settle for anything but the best. I'm not going to get some prissy duelists-per-hour, and I'm not going to idolize some over-glamorized war hero!"
"Go home, boy. The only thing here is a cripple," Ruby muttered, "Penny, take me back inside."
"Oh... Okay." Penny meekly obeyed, while the boy frowned.
"We're not done here!" He shouted at Ruby's back.
"You're not welcome. You come in here, I'll get Penny to throw you out."
"Then I'll stay right here until you acknowledge me!"
As the door shut behind him, Penny looked worried.
"Is this alright?"
"He doesn't know what he wants. He'll be gone before the week is out. All that matters is that he doesn't let others know I'm here."
"If you don't want others to know... wouldn't it be simpler to keep him here?"
Ruby turned a dark searching gaze on her friend, "Do you want me to train him?"
Penny shrugged, "I wouldn't hurt. You are still a Huntress."
"I'm no Huntress," Ruby repeated, "Neither is he."
That was a lifetime away. She couldn't put another person's life in her hands again.
Ruby consoled herself that she only needed to ignore the issue for a week, at most, and the kid would walk home, upset but alive, with better avenues of training.
She lasted one night.
The next morning, she peered through a window, and realized it had rained while she slept. Still out in the yard, ankle deep in mud, was the boy, shivering, glaring and looking a lot more blue than before.
Ruby groaned.
Oh god, Weiss is going to kill me if he's really a Schnee...
Ruby hobbled out into the yard, supporting herself with a cane so she could look at the boy in the face.
Still defiant. Still serious.
"Look, to humor you, you do know how that thing works?" Ruby said, appraising the boy's toothpick of a sword.
"...Of... Of course. The pointy end goes into the Grimm."
Ruby stared at the boy, who started to squirm under it apprehensively.
"...What?"
"Nope. So you have no idea what you're doing."
"What!? How dare you! I know how to fight-!"
He wrenched his sword free, and after he brought it around his head and his sides in several useless windmilling flourishes, pointed it at Ruby.
The woman brought her cane up for a second to swat the sword out of his hand. As he looked dumbly at his empty hand and back to Ruby, she sighed.
"Well, this is going to take a lot of work."
Penny had been ecstatic to have a new face to coddle.
Ruby wondered what she had been thinking. No wait, she knew. Super Deadly Schnee Retribution. The only question was why she was still humoring the boy's demands for "training".
Granted, it wasn't really anything. Just what she remembered of her Uncle's teachings, plus a bit of her own observations when she was still a Beacon green. Basic stuff that could be applied to the boy's pointy little toy. While it was a given he would probably be all over having a scythe if offered, that would just be a quick trip to the hospital.
But the inclusion of the boy into the daily life screwed everything up. Waiting for someone else to wake up and stumble out of his room, in time for a breakfast for two. Lecturing him on his form before sending him off to be thrashed by Penny. It wasn't quiet any more. Her time wasn't her own. She wasn't free to sit quietly in reflection.
She had to talk to this boy. Interact out of sheer necessity. Make sure he didn't kill himself accidentally because OH GOD WHAT IS HE DOING.
"What are you doing!?"
He leaned up from the ground, face twisted ugly. His sword had been knocked free.
"I was trying to impress you, since obviously nothing else I've been doing has!"
"I don't think I'd be impressed with having the firing mechanism in that sword explode in both our faces!"
"I know what I'm doing," he argued as he rose to his feet, tone very defensive.
"I saw what you were reading the other night. Those manuals for cartridge pressures are out of date by almost a decade. You were going to take untested and outdated loads into practice without even knowing what would happen if they fired! What if it was overpressured? What if it caused a feeding failure?"
"The Ritter Pallasch could have taken it."
"Are you willing to bet your life on it?" Ruby muttered. God, was she ever this dumb when she was his age? Barely even lived his life and he's already seeing whether dumb luck would get his hand blown off or not, and that not even accounting for the Dust fuelled shrapnel.
"I wouldn't have done this if you gave me something other than stupid drills every day!" The boy snapped.
"Oh, so it's my fault you were going to do something stupid?" Ruby scoffed with rolling eyes.
"It's been a year!" He shouted, "A year of kiddie exercises and katas! What do I have to do to prove I'm ready to do real training!? Sparring!?"
"All you're proving is how stupid and reckless you are! Hunting isn't fun and games, kid! We practice the same thing over and over, and test anything we try again and again until we get sick of it! Until we can't forget about it even if we tried! The moment you try to be cleverer than you are, that's when things go wrong."
" You won't know how good I am if you don't let me try! I had to do something."
"All I need you to do is listen. Far as I'm concerned, my first concern is keeping you alive. I'll decide when you're ready."
"I thought you'd understand I was serious," The boy spat, "But I'm just a kid, huh? I get it, you were never going to actually teach me. Goddamn it, I should have known. I thought it'd be different once I left the city, but it's always the same. None of you ever want me..."
Without another word, he had snatched his weapon and marched past Ruby.
"Kid, it's not like that... hey, wait-"
The door slammed shut, leaving her alone in the yard.
All dead because of you.
"Ruby...!"
Holding nothing left. Nothing left to hold you.
"Ruby! RUBY!"
Everyone who deserved to live... and the moon settles for you.
"RUBY ROSE! WAKE UP!"
Ruby was finally shaken awake, and found herself in her pitch black room, Penny's silhouette grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Mnghwhua?" Ruby blearily asked.
"Boreas is missing."
"Mngh-what."
Penny had lit a candle, bringing a yellow glow to the room to frame her stern, worried face.
"He's not anywhere in the cottage. I would hear... and I'm detecting grimm further down the mountain."
"What!? Why are the grimm here of all nights?" Ruby snarled, throwing the blanket off herself.
"I don't know! I've never felt this number of grimm before. They must be attracted to something."
"But there's only..." Ruby trailed off as the answer supplied itself.
Grimm were attracted to strong negative emotions. Boreas was an angry teen who wanted to prove his worth as a Hunter to anyone, at the very least himself. He wasn't here.
"That IDIOT!" Ruby raged as she fought her clothes on. Her old cape was thrown over her shoulders, dull, threadbare, with its edges tattered, but still comfortingly familiar. "Penny, get my weapon! We have move now!"
With any luck, Boreas would have gone down the mountain, and she could catch up easily, then.
Without even waiting for Penny, Ruby grabbed the Charon Spine from her waiting hands, and stumbled out of the cottage. Ruby couldn't run anymore. There was no way her stilt of a leg could take her faster than a clumsy walk.
But she still had her Semblance.
Rose petals exploded under her and threw her off the cliff, and she rebounded off outcroppings and trees, each followed by another burst of speed and a change in angle as she searched and listened.
Below right. Sounds of howling and roaring. Puncturing flesh. A boy's pained and defiant cry.
She fell harder.
There he was, in the clearing, littered by vaporizing corpses of grimm. He did this much damage by himself already? He was stronger than he thought. If he just had more patience to let that potential come naturally...
He was running out of time. The last of the beasts were too much for him, standing over the bodies of its brethren, a ball of flowing fur and angry musculature, so large it was half hunched just to support its own weight. The boy was disarmed, his Ritter Pallasch lodged partly in the abhorrent grimm's skull, but not enough to pierce all the way through. He was leaning against a tree, frozen in his own despair. He couldn't see the way out.
Not if she had something to do about it. She was pulling her weapon free from behind her back as she dive bombed the grimm. The curving blade was folded downwards against the segmented handle, which had folded in two. It gave the entire weapon the appearance of an ornate and overly smooth hack saw. She slammed the entire assembly into the side of the abhorrent grimm's head, throwing what weight she could behind it. The Spine bit in deep, lacerating neck muscle, but it wasn't enough to down the grimm, who looked back up at Ruby furiously. The mountainous Creature roared as it batted her off, while the old Huntress used the force to right herself in the air, letting her land on her foot between it and her charge.
"Ruby...!?" She heard behind him.
"Stay behind me, Boreas. Looks like it's up to your little helper to clean up your mess..." Ruby calmly quipped back, and let him watch as she held the scythe out to let it unfold and curl back in anticipation, like a scorpion's tail and a blooming flower all at once.
Oh, to think once upon a time she thought needed something like a .50 caliber round to propel her scythe. All that excess weight, all that... junk... The Charon Spine might have been built with what was at hand, but nobody needed to be told what to do with a wicked Siderite steel.
She swirled her scythe under the moonlight until she let it rest hang blade downwards over her shoulders. She could feel her muscles protest at the sudden practice, but she hadn't felt this lively in forever. It was all coming back to her, like it never left...
Petals beneath her feet, and she charged at the monster, scythe drawn back.
Ruby lay on the grass, sucking in breath and groaning as everything hurt.
She was so out of practice. That back hand... she saw it coming but her body was too slow... she really let herself go, hadn't she?
Better to be battered than headless at least, comparing herself to her opponent as it was now.
"Ruby? Are you okay?"
She turned to look at the boy, face torn with blood and anxiety as he limped over.
"Hey kid... out of breath, but I'm alive," Ruby grinned.
He collapsed next to her, the last of the fight sucked out of him as he began apologizing.
"God, I'm sorry, Ruby. You were right. I'm wasn't ready. I had my head up my ass and I just wanted to show off. I'm a screw up. You shouldn't have saved me-"
Ruby was already rising up so she could wrap an arm around the kid and pull him close.
"Hey, hey, I protected you because you're worth it. Don't let anyone say you're not worth saving. Not even yourself. Besides... I should be the one apologizing for messing up."
Boreas recoiled, dumbfounded.
"What? You can't say that, I was the one-"
"I was the one who didn't take you seriously. I lived in that cottage to get away from... everything, you know."
"And I barged into your retirement." Boreas sullenly concluded. Ruby sighed.
"Stop that. I trained you to try and keep you occupied. I insulted you that way, and now, you've been hurt because of me. I'm sorry."
They sat in the dead silence of the clearing, alone.
"...What do we do now?" Boreas asked.
"Come on. You're shook up. We'll go back, get Penny to look at that wound on your face, and debrief. You'll feel better. Then tomorrow... well, can we can start over again?"
"...Thanks, Ruby."
Ruby muttered in her sleep, and she had slept often before Boreas came. She would sit in her wheelchair and envision things with closed eyes. Even now, there would be days when the company was too much for her, and she would rest. Speak.
"Yang... Blake... please don't... I'm so sorry... Weiss... I'm so useless... I've grown too old for those... of little use now..."
As she slept, she'd never realize who would be standing by, just happening to listen as she poured out her heart. But sometimes, there would be someone to listen.
"Ruby...?"
She turned from where she had been ruminating into the fireplace. Boreas stood nearby. He looked a little older now, dressed in hand me downs scavenged from around the cottage, and the bumpy gray line that swept across his nose, under one of his eyes, and faded away on his cheek. There was no Dust in the cottage, so there was nothing to mix any of the miracle salves the Kingdoms' hospitals would have. Penny could make impossibly fine sutures, but they couldn't help any of the scarring that would follow.
He'd carry that for a very long time. It made Ruby a little ashamed.
"Yeah, kid?"
He rubbed his neck, nervous. "I don't really know what's the best way to say this..."
She shrugged, "If there's no best way to say it, Boreas, then there's no worst way, either. Out with it, kid."
"...Can you tell me what my mom was like, back when you were... you know, in Beacon?"
That question gave Ruby pause as she considered the whys of the sudden interest. In the end, though, what was there to ponder. Ruby Rose's career was no real secret. The only real question she had was-
"What, didn't Weiss ever regale you with tales of her rousing heroism?"
He gave a short laugh. More like a snort really. A bad joke he inadvertently let slip, and it told Ruby enough even before he answered.
"Nah, mom never really went into the details. She just said she was in Beacon for those years, and that she partnered with you, but nothing else. I thought she would be proud of it... hell, I'm proud of what my mom did. But every time I even bring up hunting, it's 'no, Boreas, it's too dangerous! You'll trip and break your head on the rocks!' Shit, I hope my sister isn't getting even more crap over me. But it's so frustrating... Everyone knows you two were some of the best fighters in the day, but all mom and dad go on about is the Company, and how I'll have to assume responsibilities..."
Ruby gave a snort of her own at the mention of the Schnee patriarch.
She and Weiss... she would never call it betrayal. There was nothing to betray for nothing that was never admitted. But sacrifices had to be made for all. The world was going crazy, and a Schnee was needed to ensure Mankind continued to have Dust. It was a simple choice to make.
To hang the sword for everyone else's sake... Weiss had to protect the company, the mines, the laborers, the world... She and Ruby had to belong in different worlds, for there to be a tomorrow for the Kingdoms.
Ruby could not blame her for finding someone worth loving since then.
She shifted in her wheel chair, peg leg scrapping on the foot rests, "If I were younger, I would have thought Weiss was crazy, as well as I for agreeing with her. But at my age, I know Hunting's not the same as heroism. It's dangerous work. She just wants you to be safe. You know how real the threat of dying is, beyond the walls."
He winced, scar shifting with his cheeks, "...Yeah. But... Hunting's still part of my legacy, you know? I can't just not do anything about the grimm. Not when my mom made the same choice."
Ruby wasn't sure if she was supposed to be feeling proud at this point. It wasn't like he was her kid, or anything...
"Still, I just wish mom would let me know what it was like. You're the only person who knows. What was it like when you were partners?"
She had been an insufferable, over rich prima donna. Arrogant. Soft in all the wrong places and shrilly high pitched. Combative. Impossible to please. Hard working. Loyal. She had depth, surprises, likes and dislikes. She was brittle with a thousand things she hated about herself and she still fought, never knowing what she looked like as she gracefully danced and fenced; sacred ice and soothing moonbeams. What she sounded like when she thought Ruby was too sick to hear her hummed lullabies. How much she gave up to make the rest of us happy, and please Weiss, stop saying you're not perfect. You couldn't be any more perfect to me.
Ruby finally smirked.
"You know, the first time I met Weiss, I sneezed on her and we blew up. Literally."
"No way."
They talked into the night, and Boreas eventually learned about Yang, and Blake, and Nora and Ren and so many others. They were finally worth talking about again and Ruby felt it didn't hurt to do so.
Another winter, and then it was over in spring.
The three of them were in the front yard again, all muddy from the constant showers. Boreas sheathed his sword, but Ruby couldn't help by cast a judging gaze on its chipped and pocked blade from where she sat. He'd have to replace it soon. Build something that was really of his own.
"I'm glad to have met you, Mr. Boreas!" Penny said, enthusiastically marking her farewell. Never let it be said that parting had to be a sweet sorrow for her, "I hope you visit again soon!"
"Well, we'll see who visits whom, wherever, I guess."
"Where are you going from here?" Ruby asked, to which the boy shrugged again.
"Not sure. I'm still going to look into Hunting, no matter what my mom says. Maybe I'll look into Signal, or something."
"You'll figure something out," She consoled, "The world's a big enough place. You'll find just as many friends who understand as there are those who won't. So don't be afraid."
"...I could say the same to you."
Ruby blinked.
"What?"
Boreas shook his head, "Naw, it's nothing... Ruby, seriously. Thanks so much for looking after me. I won't let my training go to waste."
She scoffed, and waved her cane at him, "Oh, spare me the mushy stuff. Get out of here and go save the world, Boreas, before I chase you out."
"Heh. Alright. See you later, Master."
He turned his back on her, and that was that.
She sat in the cottage, oddly numb in all sense of the word, while Penny puttered around the kitchenette, experimenting with lunch and talking aloud.
"Wow, to think it all this happened in two years, Ruby! Times flies? Or was it a lot of time used, too? I hope Mr. Boreas visits again... Visits like those are a breath of fresh air, really."
Two years. That felt like it should be a lot of time. Yet it didn't. But the most frightening part of it was how quantifiable that number was. A definite chunk of her life had been used up before she knew it. For a good cause, but it was her mortality all the same. How many years left did she have? How many years had she lived?
She tried to remember when she had arrived in the cottage, but she couldn't. It was a merged blur, all the seasons and days and nights running one after another as she sat decrepit, collecting dust and mold, breaking under the weight of remembering the fallen at all costs.
Was doing that right? Was it wrong?
What was she doing here?
"Ruby...!? Are you alright?"
Penny's doll hand grasped her shoulder, bringing Ruby's attention back to focus, enough to recognize her cold sweat and harried panting as oncoming panic. She swallowed and fought the emotion down.
"Penny... I don't know if I can stay here anymore," she rasped. She looked around, and it felt like the walls were starting to shrink inwards on her.
"Where do you want to go, Ruby?" Penny quietly asked, putting her hands over hers.
"...I don't know."
"Do you think you can see the Kingdoms today?"
Ruby began to shrivel up, sink deeper into her seat at that proposition, "But it's been so long... I can't just... drop by and see my friends and pretend like nothing changed."
"Probably not. But I think Jaune and Pyrrha would be happy to see you're well. Them, and Glynda, and Mr. Peter, and Coco and Fox... and Weiss-"
"Penny. Stop." Ruby silenced her friend, and swallowed heavily. "I just... what do I even say after all these years..."
"...They're our friends, Ruby. We all went into that mission together... they'll understand. At the very least, Mr. Boreas will be happy to see you again, I'm sure."
Ruby blinked her wet eyes, and hugged herself. She was afraid. She couldn't stay, but she was still afraid. All that time wasted. All that distance made. She may as well be a stranger all over again. Why would they welcome her back?
But that small chance, Ruby realized, that small hope, to see them all again... God, to see the faces of those who were still alive... could they really forgive her for everything...?
At the very least, Boreas would still be her friend...
Ruby had been sorely tempted to burn the cottage down as they left. To burn it all away and make one more attempt at a clean start. But it was a good place, a hidden place. It was best to keep it in mind, for whenever it could be useful again.
But they did burn the wheelchair. Burnt it to ash. Ruby now hated the thought of shriveling away in that ancient seat. She only had one leg, and her body wasn't what it used to be; She wasn't going to stand forever, but she couldn't let herself sit forever, not anymore.
She... needed to move.
"Are we set, Ruby?" Penny asked. Between the two of them, two large bags were filled with whatever necessities they could scrounge out of the cottage's remaining artifacts to sustain them as they headed back to civilization.
All the same, she grimaced and looked around her. The mountain mists were still thick, and she didn't know a single damn thing about what was going to happen, going forward. She only had promises, a faint hope that at the end of all this, someone would be waiting for her, because she couldn't stand to be alone anymore. Was that really excusable? Was that worth anything?
How would she ever know.
But she looked at the path down the mountain, and for the first time in the longest time, it felt like she was no longer dreaming.
She kept a solid grip on the cane, and made sure her scythe was still on her.
"Yeah. Let's go home."
RWBY Series property of Roosterteeth.
(What? "'Give Ruby a peg leg' my only motivation"? Whatever gave you that idea?)