Walking Along Brimstone, a rwby fanfic

Walking Along Brimstone

Summary: She was nothing in the eyes of the world, but found purpose among cinders and ash. Now all she knows is she will walk along the brimstone until the end of time. (Character Study: Emerald)

…

She thinks nothing of family, because she isn't meant to be with one.

She realizes this one night, using a newspaper as an umbrella while looking for a shelter to trick her way into. She doesn't remember anything from her parents, whether her mother was a woman bloated on happiness or sunken with doubt and fear, whether her father held his head high and walked to work with a skip in his step or came home stinking of another woman's perfume and an empty paycheck. Her parents might as well not have existed. She is born of the streets, a proud street rat with only herself to depend upon.

At least, that is what she tells herself. She pulls the wool over her own eyes with her semblance, illusions dancing around her to make her feel wanted and warm. The rain pounding down on the streets and turning her makeshift umbrella into a soft, goopy mess of paper said otherwise, but she didn't acknowledge it.

Eventually she'd find a home that opened its door, and she'd slip inside without the home owner knowing a thing. She transforms herself into a specter, a ghostly resident that drank their milk and carnivorously dug into their bread and honey, and once her belly was filled she'd wait until the family, or couple, or lonely little person, retired to bed before hunting for a place to curl up and sleep the night away.

…

Other teens stranded on the corners of the street or hidden deep in the alleyways watch her as she walks confidently down the streets and sneaks her hands into the pockets of pedestrians. They envy her as she counts her stolen lein and stores it away in her pockets, her shoes, her bra. Her chocolate skin contrasts against the bright world of the kingdoms, and she acts as a wayward shadow rebelling against the light.

They try to corner her sometimes. Ragged clothes and scabby knees surround her in darkened alleys, gnarled hands grab at her pockets in an attempt to steal away what she rightfully stole. It taxes her, but she pulls blankets over their eyes with a thought and walks away as they run after her shadow. When this happens, she slips into open windows and hunts for fizzy sodas, enjoying how the liquid bubbles in her throat and stirs at her overzealous stomach acid. If she's lucky, she snatches cold pizza from fridges and licks the congealed sauce from her fingers and lips. It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

…

Necessity drove her to stealing. Necessity turned to thrill. Her blood eyes begin to ease over to the sparkly jewels displayed in glass windows and she finds herself wandering into these stores without a single bill of lein in her pockets.

Security cameras cannot be tricked. She is smart enough to know as much, so when she sees the beady black eye of the camera, she makes an easy, smooth escape. She wanders into stores often though, learning the tricks of observation through trial and error, and, in turn, learning how to dial up the innocence factor and charm once caught in the act. It's worked so far. Her name stays unknown and her face nothing but a meaningless memory to those who notice her.

Sometimes she slips small jewels into her pockets. They might be small, golden rings with little diamonds. Maybe a sterling silver bracelet with amethyst dangling from little chains. Platinum necklaces with sapphires fitted perfectly into cross pendants. She takes them greedily, sometimes keeps them, sometimes pawns them, or, if she sees a younger rat (after some time on the streets, she can tell with just a look), she slips it into their hand with a twinkle in her eye. Maybe she understands their troubles too well. Maybe she doesn't at all. Not all can be lucky to have an illusory semblance like herself.

It's a kindness she has never received. But it feels good all the same.

…

Sometimes she can make mistakes. Sometimes her mind goes overload after trying to trick so many at once, and her head feels like it'll split open like a watermelon struck by a hammer. Then the illusion buckles and the people she had meant to trick turn on her and she runs with a pounding head and empty hands. Sometimes people are simply too sharp to be tricked. It leads to an empty stomach and irrational mind.

When this happens, irrationality turns to action. She ties her green hair in a messy bun atop her head with the red hair tie she plucked out of a blonde woman's hair when she looked her way and sneered. Sneered at her clothes, her uncombed, messy green hair, the bit of dirt clinging to her cheeks since she had to sleep in the alleyway the night before. She takes the black gloves she took from a well off child, around her age, in the dead of winter, and slips them over her hands and breaks into homes. She doesn't bother with a mask. Her face becomes a blur of colors as she casts illusions over homeowners eyes, her body turns invisible as she tears apart nightstands and safe boxes for lein.

In one of her break ins, she claims her two revolvers. Break ins turned to muggings. When the victim fought back, her illusions saved her. Sometimes she holds up camera-less convenience stores and treats herself to a hot meal. Sometimes she pays for a motel room if she hit a well-loaded store.

…

She realizes the desperation within her lifestyle when a queen walks into her life.

She was tired. Her crimes were fruitless for a few days, and her hunger made her sloppy. She aimed for a jewelry store, and while she tricked the cashier, she reached over and grabbed all the fifties from the register. Her semblance-induced headache jolted her from her work, and she was caught standing there with a clump of fifties in her hands and pain pulsing in her temples. She runs.

The alleyway she runs to is a dead end, and panic seizes her body. She doesn't want to surrender to the system. She knows people who did, and they never are the same. The system doesn't care whether life is kind to people like her. The system just eats street rats up and spits them out with all the wrong attention.

But a red dress walks into her life with glass heels and a sultry smirk. Something in amber-colored eyes charms her, and the promises this woman, Cinder, cooes to her intrigues her. She doesn't believe her. But she's willing to risk at least a little to sate her curiosity.

"Follow me and you'll never go hungry again."

She follows.

…

Cinder makes Emerald her first hot meal in months. The aroma fills her nose and makes her stomach scream. Mashed potatoes and medium-rare steak and cranberry sauce and all these other foods she hasn't even dreamed to taste are suddenly at her fingertips. No more cold pizzas and stale bread and lukewarm milk. No more half-toasted sandwiches from cheap sub-shops, and all the fizzy soda she could possibly want.

The flavors coat her tongue. It feels like Cinder herself is breathing life into her again.

Her next words are broken and breathy. But they make this angel before her smile and her golden eyes to light up with a soft glow, and she feels like it's right.

"Thank you."

…

Watching Cinder float around the kitchen enchants her. The slow movements, the ingredients given the proper care. No morsel wasted, no food thrown out. Cinder understands, even though Emerald is certain Cinder was never on the streets. Cinder understands the glorious meaning of food.

Golden eyes lock onto her. "You should learn to cook. Come now."

…

Emerald is a glutton. It takes all her willpower not to dip her finger into chocolate batter as Cinder stirs it around in a flower-decal bowl. Cinder sees all though. She holds the wooden spoon to Emerald and encourages her to lick it clean. "It's all about the small pleasures."

…

She knows not to question when Cinder recruits a boy by the name of Mercury into her small fold. Cinder is a kind heart that takes in the abandoned, the strays. But Mercury is also wicked. Emerald sees it when Mercury spits on his father's corpse. But she also sees the stray in him when he reluctantly shows his mangled legs, how they're damaged beyond repair, and how he must now cope with his newly amputated status.

She sits with him at the kitchen table, in Cinder's small apartment. She's sucking the butter from her fingers after trying corn on the cob for the first time. Butter and salt sticks to the sides of her mouth and makes her lips look glossy. Mercury's cob is barely touched, cooling slowly in the warm kitchen light.

"Why aren't you eating?" Emerald asks. It's an incredulous thing, not to eat. But, then again, only one that has felt the hollowness of a stomach for days could truly understand.

Mercury scowls. He doesn't have his prosthetics yet: they are undergoing adjustments. He's confined to the wheelchair. "It just tastes like ash. I've survived on less, anyway."

"But you don't have to." Emerald frowned. "It's better to taste ash than go hungry."

She knows this too well. The stale cereal she's had to munch on, the molded bread she's forced down her throat, the sour milk that had a fifty-fifty shot at making her stomach chuck it's contents right back up. It is all a risk she doesn't need to confront anymore. This is fine dining. This is luxury.

Mercury grunts. "I need to break an old habit first. Gorging myself on food in my household wasn't the greatest idea when he was around."

Emerald scoffed. "One cob is hardly gorging."

"Tell that to the shitstain that's rotting outside my house."

Emerald wisely stops speaking. But she understands.

…

As Cinder's plan advanced, the intimate moments, with just her and Cinder in the kitchen, slowly diminished. But sometimes, Cinder will pull her into the kitchen (or whatever resembles a kitchen in the places they stayed), with Mercury lounging at the kitchen table, and they'll cook something Emerald has never tried before. Cinder's cold personality will warm to the woman she saw after her first hot meal in so long, when she first uttered thank you and made Cinder's eyes light up.

These are the moments Emerald craves for. These are the moments where Emerald takes back her previous thoughts during her time on the streets, where she didn't belong to a family and could only depend on herself. This is the family she would die for, with a smile on her face at being something more than a street rat that leeched off of other people's fridge contents and snuck jewelry into the crevice between her breasts.

She will let Cinder lead her. She will let Cinder lead her down a path of fire and brimstone, and the smell of sulfur won't burn her as it would have before meeting her. She will walk the path happily, knowing that there is someone who saw promise in her, someone who loved her and provided for her. Someone who made sure she would never go hungry again.

For as long as Cinder knows Emerald is by her side, Emerald will always know that milk and honey will be sitting ready for her to consume, letting the small luxuries of food cling to her throat and soothe her ever carnivorous stomach.

It is a kindness she will never betray.