Dream.
Summary: Dead men don't dream. They remember.
Tags: future!AU, Grimm War, dark, old Jaune Arc remembering his past.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and the blessed Monty Oum. This is merely a fanwork, and my only profit from this is practice in writings and self-amusement.
Chapter 01: a prologue on a train.
It was late into the night. As usual, Jaune Arc, War Hero, General of the Valean Militia, Commander of the First United Corp and legendary Huntsman was diligently going through the countless arduous but necessary processes that keeps an army running. Requisition files and combat plans, reports to read and phone calls to make, logistics to be run and men to be commanded. Shifting probabilities and impossibilities, alternations and changing tactics, the cogs and gears churned behind blue eyes of steel, in muscles of metal and of human flesh constant and unceasing, those of a man forged for and from war that could only be described as somewhere between 'gritted determination' and 'more resembled a machine than man'. A General, a Holy Knight, an Aegis, an Ideal accomplished but not at all wanted; he was many, he was busy, be it with Protection or Death. But not today. Today...
Today, those cogs and gears inside his mind were stopped; not quite stopped but slowed to the point that it didn't differ all that much from stopping. He was not sitting on the too-big commander's chair of his flagship or even the barebone, crowded metal bench of a troop train, but a civillian skytrain, with its' too soft seats and packets of peanuts untouched since ages. Jaune Arc's blue eyes, however, were staring outside the oval bulletproof window of the train all the same, its' inky blackness reflecting his aged face and grayed hair tied into a small tail behind his head. Today, his desk - even if only a tiny desk on a train - was empty; there was no paper on his desk, his laptop was closed shut, put inside a Huntsman-sized brown traveling pack along with a yellow file containing several small and medium sheetlets of papers he so cursed. A white paper cup stood on that desk, the expensive amber liquid inside shaking rhythmically with every shake the carriage made, expanding waves threatening to spill out into the white napkins it was placed on. Next to it sat a similarly-colored glass bottle still lidded and full, waiting patiently as always.
Today...
Today, for the first time in his life he was not busy. No. That would be a small lie; the first time in his later life, later being after his official joining of the United Remnant's army and rapid rise through its ranks, after his adventure with RSJC ended with the Grimm Queen's death, after his forceful drop-off of Beacon Academy after the school went up in flames as with a girl with autumn leaves as hair and summer as eyes and whatever childhood innocence he once held. The first time since even before that when he was not busy with leading men and women to victory or to their deaths.
His 'friends', if they be so called, men and women he hardly knew but for their names and bloody-minded determination to intrude upon his life stemming from either some undue gratefulness or not-undue deep-seated hatred toward him, every year on this day had tried to make him not being busy. But today they had made -sure- of that. Today, they had finally succeeded, permanently; today, for the first time he was not busy, and that left him a lot of time to think. It was best that he not, so at the moment all Jaune Arc was doing was staring outside, his blue eyes trying to make out the nebulas and constellations he had once gazed up in that past-time he'd kept all the way into his early adulthood.
Once. Now, the starless sky of Sanus was all that looked back at him, that broken moon shining its pale, lifeless light onto wild dark woods. Even that light seemed so weak, faded, hidden behind the curtain of the ashen, bitter smog that had swallowed up stars, the curtain made by man. Millions of cubic meters of burnt Dusts and dusts had painted a shade of burgundy in the all-consuming blackness of the night even decades after the war have ended.
The old veteran sat and watched. Jaune Arc sat to the passing landscape, feral and wild that sung of a future to be claimed yet to an old man like him only mourned of price in blood yet to be paid. All he saw was ash. Ash that rained, just less than a decade ago. Ash rained on hair, ash rained on buildings, on empty streets on gravestoned fields and broken nations in a mockery of snow; ash rained on brows, eyelids that could not blink and painted faces of survivors with the whiteness of bones and death. Ash dusted on a white cloak unweaved, ash burning now in his mouth as two lines of tears parted that masque, rolling down his cheeks. Ashes that to him was but yesterday, ashes that the young seemed to so easily forget, or yet to seen.
And that's good. Better, at least, than letting an old man like him out there spoiling those hope and dreams.
The skytrain let out a long, mournful wail, the sound breaking the silence of the night. Flocks of bird parted from the forest below, spots of black that melded into the night. They flew away. Not Grimm then, the knight's hand inched away from Crocea Mors on the seat to his left. As if he'd be that lucky.
Jaune Arc shifted in his seat, and caught something in that darkened glass. Blond hair and a rugged face, faded scars and blue eyes hard like steel yet not unforgiving and harsh. Blue eyes gazing at somebody as they grew softened, smile on lips shining past the mask of stone.
The man's gloved hand touched the cold glass, and the illusions disappeared, leaving behind his reflection. A frown permanently set in stone, chiseled onto a rough face lined with wrinkles and scars that stayed, like trenches on a battlefield. Hair platinum with age, old eyes stained with blood and jaded with the weight of ghosts haunting them. Eyes that could no longer see the simple beauty of this world. The fires beneath so dim now compared to the bonfires of his innocent youth. His hands did not clench up. Such was the signs of futility, and he refused to be so. But not for the first time in his life, Jaune Arc felt tiredness and age seep into his very bones, and the grimace dipped just that much down.
Maybe his friends are right.
The weary man reached his hand inside his coat, in search of something. The many pockets and convents of a Huntsman's coat made it a difficult and long process, but he had time. His hand brushed onto his scroll. A scroll, old and outdated, screen cracked and back scratched with age. He pulled it out to check the time and any important message. None, except for friends inviting him for a drink, those organized together a party back at Beacon. 'Retirement', what a word. He hated it with all his heart, and yet they had already forced him to. What could joining a little party make it any worse.
None of them had even seen him in his sister's dress.
A ghost of a smile flickered at that memory, as quick as it faded. Jaune scrolled through them, until a message dated more than twenty years ago, and he turned the scroll off.
Another try, and he found what he searched for. Two plastic bottles, each the size of a fist which gave a rattling sound when shook. He pressed down and twisted the cap. Blue eyes stared at the screen on the back of the seat before him as two blandly colored pills rolled out and sat in his palm. Innocent. Bitter.
It was time the present catch up to him.
With a hard swallow the old man swallowed them down. A deep drink from the paper cup, burning amber flowing down his throat helped the pills stay there. They weren't poison, they just taste like it to him.
An electronic clock somewhere ticked 1 A.M. Never before had he felt so tired. Jaune put the caps back on the bottles, before he let his head rest on the window panel of the train. Dim eyes watched the scenery go by, until he slowly slip to sleep.
You should come home, sometimes.
He still has so, so much time to think, after all.