A small, dainty hand gently tapped the back of a young man's back, urging him forward onto the walkway. The sound of waves, machinery and gulls were the most common sounds in the area, with an occasional loud whistle to signify another ship coming in to dock. While typically, for many, such a sight might be an almost everyday occurrence, or at least nothing exciting. But not for him, the young man whose mother had brought him out of his daze as he looked over the dock from the massive cargo ship they were walking away from. His mother looked at him with a smile and spoke.

"Lái," she spoke in their mother tongue and the boy nodded in response and they were on their way.

Taking in a deep breath, one could smell the smoke that came from both the workers' cigarettes and the heavy machinery, the faint saltwater scent barely breaking through the clouds of smoke. But somehow it was better than the musty air of being stuck in a metal container for weeks. It was a different smell than he was used to back home, having lived far from the ocean. He picked up his bag, along with his mother's, before they quietly left the dock where men were loading and unloading cargo from ships of all sizes that had docked, from barrels being rolled on planks and collected into groups on the dock, to crates of various goods and cargo. The two weren't on their own, however. A few other small groups of people who had been on the same ship as them had also disembarked and were making their way to leave the docks with luggage in hand. He had spoken to a few of them on their journey, a couple of them his age. They had been told they could find a place to stay in Downtown LA. They had no map and most of the group of other refugees had either separated or didn't know English well enough to ask for help and directions. The boy was having trouble taking it all in, the sights all so new to him.

It took them nearly seven hours to finally find what they had been directed to, passing by different parts of town and occasionally gathering looks from passersby, their destination turned out to be a small apartment complex in a run down alleyway located in Chinatown, but this was barely anything like their old home. The buildings looked like they all came from the opulent parts of China, unfamiliar to where they had come from in poverty where they had shared homes with tens of families and lived in places comparable to shacks. To them, this was like a castle compared to what they had before. They entered the building and had to walk up a couple flights of stairs before they reached a plain wooden door with the number '4' screwed on, and an outline of a '3' to the left of it. There must have been another number here at some point and it was either stolen or had fallen off.

The woman's hand slipped into her pocket in search of a small key, which she soon fished out and slipped easily into the lock on their door and turned it clockwise… A click resounded from the other side and the door was soon opened. Beyond this door were new possibilities and hope; for the 'American dream' they had heard so much about and for a new start in their lives.

"Kàn yī kà-" His mother started, before cutting herself off. They were in America now, she thought, so wouldn't it best she start to use the common language of English, even though hers was rather broken and stilted, not much better than a young child's skill level.

"Look around, put bags in room Lie Ren" She said in a soft tone, looking at her son Ren, with a caring smile and placing a soft, loving kiss on top of his head. Her sentence structure was off by a bit and was missing a couple words, but she had the basics down. They were both in a place neither was familiar with. All he had seen was random pamphlets and posters that were scattered about on the ship they had travelled on. Ren's mother went into the small kitchen and dining area to sit at their small dining table. She had some papers to sort through that she said Ren didn't need to worry about, so as per her instruction he explored their new home, room by room.

They had one bedroom, a small bathroom with all the basics; a steel basin, a toilet, and a bath with a showerhead protruding from the wall above it. It had a shower curtain with some kind of floral pattern. They also had a kitchen and a small living room area. Each room was no more than roughly 4 metres square, except the living room area which was still only a little bigger than that. But even with something so small, they were happy with it. It was theirs and they didn't have to share it with anyone else they didn't want to.

Ren had brought both his and his mother's luggage into the bedroom which they would no doubt share, he thought. It was taking him a little time to adjust to their new home, but it was only the first day so it was to be expected. They were lucky the house was already pre-furnished when they moved in, there was almost no way they would be able to afford their own beds and chairs and tables. They had all the bare essentials plus a little bit more. He noticed how there was only one bed; a double-sized mattress on top of a metal frame. When he sat down on it, it made a rough creaking as his weight shifted the metal frame underneath.

He leaned down and brought his bag up beside him on the bed, removing the tag with his name from it. He left his mother's alone, which also had a tag tied to it that said "An Ren". He opened it and first pulled out a photo that was at the very top of his things. It was a black and white photo of his father during the war, alongside all of his comrades and brothers in arms. He placed the photo down on the small bedside table the pulled out the small amount of clothes he had packed. Most of it was dirty, including what he was currently wearing, due to having been on a ship for the past few weeks with no means of cleaning either himself or his clothes. They didn't have a laundry, so they would have to use a public laundromat. He took out the last set of clothes he had that he hadn't worn yet, placing all the dirty clothes back in his bag then went into their bathroom to wash up.


It's been a while, huh? My first public RWBY fanfic. Please dont look for my old Kingdom Hearts fanfics, they're terrible and I'm not continuing them .

So I came up with this AU on a RWBY Discord server and it started with cute images of Nora posing from one of the recent episodes where I made the comment that Nora's outfit looks like it fits right in during the 1950s, then it just kinda grew really fast from there and have had some help from some of the people on there with ideas.

When An says "Lái" that means "come", or at least that's what Google translate tells me, I dont know Chinese or anyone that does so I cant really confirm. Sorry.

More characters will show up eventually, I just wanted to start with their arrival and a bit of settling in and I'll get to work on the next chapter as soon as I can. I've done a bit of research to try and keep it as accurate as I can to the time, but don't expect to be able to write a history paper based on this :p

There's something ironic about an Australian writing about a Chinese person moving to, and living in, America. Don't you think?