Behind Bars
Part One: Welcome to the Birdcage
Looking through the bars, Yang Xiao Long remembered the day they had come for her.
It was several weeks after the fall of Beacon. Sitting in her bed at her house in Patch, she'd heard someone in the yard. The conversation trickled up through her window, muffled by the glass.
Then she'd heard the door. Her dad was shouting.
"This is insane! You can't just take her!"
Someone with a low gravelly voice said something, and then Taiyang swore.
"I don't give a damn who issued the warrant!"
Footsteps clomped up the stairs. The door to her room banged open and three men in gray uniforms barged in. Both her dad and Ruby were nowhere to be seen.
The man in front spoke, his voice clear and commanding.
"Yang Xiao Long, you are under arrest for the assault of Mercury Black by order of the Council of Vale."
What?
Yang stared at the wall, unseeing. Her body had gone entirely numb.
This isn't happening…
Downstairs, something crashed. The sounds of a fight drifted up through the floor.
One of the officers looked behind him, concerned. With a nod from the man who was clearly in charge he went to investigate.
The lead officer grunted, golden captain's bars flashing on his chest. He issued another wordless command, and the third man came forward, grabbing Yang roughly under her good arm.
When she didn't move, he yanked her out of the bed, spilling the sheets all over the floor. Holding thick metal handcuffs, he hesitated when he saw the stump hanging uselessly from her right shoulder.
"Dumbass, get out of the way," said the captain, pushing him aside. He took the hand cuffs and clipped one end to another pair that he withdrew from his belt. Taking the elongated chain, he cuffed one end around Yang's upper bicep on her left arm.
The metal bit into the soft flesh under her arm, tears of blood trickling down towards her elbow. The pain shocked Yang out of her stupor and she started to resist the hands gripping her.
Annoyed, the officer struck her in the back of the head with his elbow and used his weight to shove her up against the wall.
"NO!" she screamed, still fighting. But pinned between him and the wall, she had nowhere to go. If she'd been able to push off with both hands, then maybe, but as it was – she was stuck.
Leaning against her with his body and holding her shoulder in place, the captain used his free hand to squeeze the other end of the dual handcuffs around what remained of her right arm. Still sensitive from the damage Adam had done, every nerve in Yang's arm burned and she screamed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
The chains of the handcuffs were shorter than her back was wide, and they wrenched her shoulders back awkwardly. It felt like she was folding in half along her spine.
Struggling to breath, Yang leaned towards her injured side, trying to find some relief. The captain stepped back, jerking her away from the wall. Yang's breath whooshed out in a hiss, vision blurring.
Pushing her at the other officer, the captain strode out of the room and returned to the first floor of the house. Taiyang was still yelling, but what – Yang couldn't focus enough to hear.
The officer stood behind her, placing one hand on her good arm and the other on her right shoulder. He forced her to move forward, walking her downstairs and through the living room to the front door.
Taiyang was with Ruby in the kitchen, but when he saw her being perp-walked out of the house he tried to fight his way past the officers standing in the doorway, attempting to corral him into the kitchen.
"You can't take her! You can't take my daughter!"
"One more step and you'll be coming with us in cuffs too! Step back!" roared the captain, standing with his arms behind his back.
"Dad!" yelled Yang, still crying from the pain. She tried to turn around to face him, but the officer held her tight.
Through it all, Ruby just stood there – looking dazed. Her hands drooped by her sides and her mouth hung open, silent.
After that, Yang had been forced out the front door and shoved into the back of a waiting police car. Looking out the rear window, she watched the house shrink into the distance.
She'd spent the night locked up in a cell at the back of the station. It wasn't until the next day that they'd started questioning her about the Vytal Tournament and what had happened with Mercury.
Over and over again they played the video from the tournament's live feed. For hours, all Yang did was watch herself attack a seemingly defenseless man. Even to her, it looked vicious. Every time she heard the crunch of his bones, she winced.
Mumbling weakly, she had explained what she'd seen. To her, it had looked and felt and sounded like he was attacking her – but the police just looked at her, shaking their heads and scoffing, disgusted.
Not a single one of them believed her, and there was nothing she could do to prove her story.
The match had ended, so when she had struck Mercury it was outside of the purview of the tournament. It was assault, plain and simple. If Beacon had still been whole, then maybe – just maybe – the school could have acted on her behalf, claiming responsibility for her and asserting jurisdiction.
But with Ozpin nowhere to be found, it was hopeless.
By the end of the day, they had officially pressed charges. Taiyang had hastily scrounged up a lawyer, a connection through a friend of a friend of Qrow's.
Three months later, and her case was tried before the court of Vale. Under normal circumstances, the trial would've started much sooner. But the kingdom was in a state of panic. Crime was on the rise – and the courts were flooded.
In the interim, Yang stewed in a cell in a jail on the shadier side of town. Not far from the docks, she was held in an eight by eight gray box, facing a much larger cell. This was the "gen pop" holding cell. A flux of drunks, addicts, thieves, and god knows what else flowed in and out – going on to court dates, larger jails, and for a lucky few – release.
Once in a while, a low ranking member of the White Fang would get thrown into the mix, but usually they were taken to more heavily secured facilities.
The day the trial began was the first time she'd seen her father in weeks. Ruby was there, but Yang wished she wasn't. She didn't want her little sister watching this because inside her heart of hearts, she knew this was hopeless. There was no way she could win.
That's not to say her lawyer was going down without a fight.
Maxwell Cloud, esq., was a well-dressed, confident man with steel grey hair and bright blue eyes. He kept his hair cropped short on the sides with an elaborate mass of curls on the crown of his head. He favored gray and navy suits with sharp creases, always with a blood red handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Yang had to appreciate the energy with which Cloud attacked the case. He paraded a stream of character witnesses through the court – everyone from her sister to her professors at both Beacon and Signal; even Weiss testified. Blake, however, never once set foot into the courtroom. No one had heard from her in weeks.
Cloud had initially hesitated to put Yang on the stand, but with some finagling he'd been convinced. But only if she'd submit to a psych evaluation.
He put her on the stand first, and then the good doctor – bushy mustache and all – who attested to her sound state of mind and sincere grief over what had happened (never once using buzzwords like "assault" or "attack" or even "incident").
However, no one could prove that what Yang saw was the truth.
The prosecution had torn into her on cross-examination, shredding her story to pieces. The prosecutor bisected every moment, every one of her memories from that day. He asked about her emotional state during the match. He asked about her semblance and how it worked. He asked about the connection between rage and her ability to wield a mysterious aura that not even she fully understood.
It took everything in her not to scream in the attorney's face. By the end of it, she was left completely and utterly broken. Again.
Thanks to the embargo on non-military and non-essential flights between the kingdoms in addition to the damage done to the CCT, Mercury was not present in the court. Instead, the prosecution presented a signed affidavit, relating the contents of his testimony. Even without a sympathetic victim to put on the stand, the evidence severely damaged Yang's case.
And then the video.
If at any point in the trial Maxwell Cloud looked worried – it was when the prosecution queued up the tape for the jury.
The assembly of her peers looked on in horror. Yang couldn't watch. She heard the resounding crack of Ember Celica firing. Then a wet crunching sound, followed by Mercury's screams. The footage was damning, leaving little room to maneuver.
In all, the trial had lasted nearly two months.
On the afternoon the jury returned with a verdict, Yang had begged her father not to let Ruby into the court. He hadn't listened.
Paraded in before the gallery, Yang stood in front of the bench. Unshackled but dressed in a drab grey jumpsuit and white tennis shoes sans laces, she faced the judge.
Sitting atop the wooden podium was Judge Maud Bergan. She had a hooked nose like a Nevermore's beak and jet black hair. Stern brown eyes peered down at Yang over the rims of half-moon spectacles.
Judge Bergan had a reputation for being fair but strict. She had been a member of the bar for longer than Yang had been alive, and she fielded most of the juvenile cases in the city.
"Madame Forewoman," trilled Bergan, "Have you reached a verdict?"
Yang knew that her chances were abysmal, but she couldn't stop her heart from fluttering in her chest. Hating herself, she realized that she still held out hope – even though she knew that it would be crushed in a matter of seconds.
"We have, Your Honor," she said, not once looking at Yang. "In the case of the People of Vale vs. Yang Xiao Long, we find the defendant guilty of assault in the first degree with a deadly weapon."
Yang's stomach dropped and her whole body went cold as the breath she'd been holding whooshed out of her chest. If the bailiff hadn't been holding her by the arm she would've dropped to the floor on her ass.
The judge banged her gavel and adjourned the court, pending sentencing the following day. But Yang heard nothing – her ears were ringing and the world was spinning. She didn't even remember being led out of the court and back to the jailhouse.
For the rest of the night and the next morning, right up until she found herself back in front of the massive wooden bench, everything was a haze. She'd spent hours staring at the wall and seeing nothing, barely moving. Yang Xiao Long was an empty shell, incapable of thought or action.
The world slammed back into focus when the judge's voice snapped at her, trying to get her attention.
"Ms. Xiao Long! Seeing as how this whole spiel is about you, don't you think you ought to listen?" she demanded, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"As I was saying," she continued, pushing up her glasses and looking at the piece of paper she held in her hands, "Even though this is your first offense, I can't in good conscience place you in a minimum security facility. Due to your status as a huntress-in-training – as well as your considerable proficiency with your semblance and the violent nature of the offense – I have no choice but to sentence you to eight months in the Briarcliff Correctional Facility for Young Women. You'll be eligible for parole in six months, pending good behavior."
"Your Honor!" Cloud shouted, rising. "Briarcliff is a bit extreme for a first time offender! And she's a teenager who's never been in the system – do you really think sending her there is the right thing to do?"
The judge was sucking in a breath – clearly readying a retort – but Cloud pushed on.
"She only has one arm, Your Honor," he said, pointing at Yang. Listening intently now, Yang flinched. "You can't put her in a place like that! It would be unconscionable! Sentencing her to the Birdcage-"
"Counselor!" she reprimanded him, pushing herself up from the bench. "Don't think for a moment that I didn't give this decision every consideration!"
Straightening out her robe and sitting back down, she continued.
"I'm sorry, truly I am," she said, eyes softening above her gold-rimmed glasses. "But Miss Xiao Long knew the stakes when she signed on to become a huntress. She knows that she'll be held to a higher standard as a member of the fighting class here in Vale. Besides, Briarcliff was the only facility designed to contain huntsmen."
She paused. "If she wishes to maintain her future in her selected field, she'll have to comply with sentencing. If not, she can relinquish her status as a huntress and then maybe I will be able to reconsider my verdict and recommend that she be placed in a minimum security facility."
Catching Yang's eye, Bergan said pointedly, "Miss Xiao Long, the decision is yours. Choose wisely."
To this day, Yang still wasn't sure if she had, because here she was – standing with her face pressed to the bars of a cell in Briarcliff. A spiraling fortress built on the edge of one of the mountains that protected Vale's eastern flank, it was a mass of gray steel ribbed with bars that reached for the sky.
Her eyes boring holes into the floor just on the other side of the bars, Yang was jolted out of her memories by a voice that came from behind her.
"Ave rota," said Cadeja, rolling the 'r' heavily, "What you starin' at?"
Saying nothing, Yang pushed herself away from the bars and walked past her cellmate. Not making eye contact, she clambered up into her bunk.
Looking up at her from the bed below, Cadeja asked, "What's going on in that big blonde head of yours?"
Lying back with her hands behind her head, Yang drew up her knees and focused on the ceiling.
"Nothing," she replied.
"Pendeja! Don't lie to me. If your hair weren't so damn thick I'd probably see a million thoughts buzzin' around inside your brain."
Yang managed a weak smile.
"Look who's talking."
Cadeja huffed. Yang could practically hear her crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes.
Cadeja Álvarez was a wolf Faunus with spiky white-gray hair that reached all the way down her back. Two shaggy ears stood up from her skull, tipped with black tufts of fur. She had a deep-olive tone to her skin and dark green eyes that didn't miss a thing. Yang had only been bunked with her for a few days, but Cadeja could already read her like a book.
As far as possible cellmates went, Yang counted herself lucky. Cadeja's moods could shift at a moment's notice – but for the most part she was kind. As a frequent visitor of facilities like Briarcliff, Cadeja was experienced and she'd taken Yang under her wing.
In a strange way, they were becoming friends.
The first night Yang had been there, when the lights shut off and the sudden darkness covered her eyes, she had felt the tears welling up. She fought them with everything she had – she definitely did not want to look weak.
But Cadeja had heard her snuffling.
"Oye, life here isn't so bad. You'll get used to it," she'd said in her thick accent. "It'll all be over before you know it."
Yang had thanked her, wiping at the corners of her eyes.
"No problema. Welcome to the Birdcage," she'd said, using the nickname for the notorious Briarcliff.
Back in the present, Yang smiled, remembering.
"Fine, keep your secrets," Cadeja said, under her breath, "You sure are a strange one little ave rota."
After a moment, Yang asked, "Why do you call me that?"
The bed below her squeaked, and Cadeja's head popped up beside Yang's. Clinging to the bedframe while on her tip-toes, Cadeja smiled at Yang – flashing her fangs. The weak light in the cell caught the golden spike she'd had driven through the cartilage of her left ear.
"Ave rota?" she said, tilting her head to the side. Jutting out her chin, she indicated Yang's ruined right arm.
"Because you have a damaged wing," she said. "It means the broken bird."
Author's note: This is something completely different for me! Usually I tend to stick much closer to canon/canon-esc type stuff but this is an idea that's been floating around in my head for a while. I have a whole bunch of chapters planned, hope to be posting new stuff soon! Also just a side note – this is my first time working with OCs. Please leave any comments/suggestions – I'd really appreciate your feedback!