Author's Note: The second of the two stories I hung on to for a while. I'm not as fond of this one.
It has a lighter tone than the last, as I meant for it to be humorous and easy to read. It didn't feel fair, therefore, to categorize this story under "Mystery", since the mysteries here are solvable from the start. It's like a sitcom where the characters keep walking into problems that have obvious solutions. Without finding them obvious.
I wanted it to be Templeton Woods, but Lauren Groff already wrote a novel titled The Monsters of Templeton. I'd have felt cheap using it, so Evermist it is.
Also, I pulled up random worldbuilding stuff that has nothing at all to do with canon. Went along with the territory of bringing in an OC.
The darkening days of November lingered toward a winter blanketed in fog. Each day the element grew thicker around Beacon Academy, shrouding the campus into itself as the student body came to a close in learning the history of a famous war. Countless hours of lecture had slowed to make room for a final essay, but the announcement of that assignment threw its once merely tense subjects into delirium. Desperate for a distraction, they clung to one of the few palpable aspects of the curriculum: the dramatic tale here and there they could expand beyond the known.
"It's a monster that manifested from all the darkness and destruction that went on during the war!" one student cried in a study lounge of the second-year dorm.
"It was harbored by negativity," said Weiss, looking up from her essay. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, having long given up on getting Ruby to focus on work. "So, a Grimm?"
"No!" said the other student as Ruby listened beside Weiss in rapture. "Like, it's sort of like a Grimm, but worse. I heard it breathes fire from its mouth."
"Fire," said Weiss.
"Great roaring flames of FIRE!" Nora yelled the next afternoon. She stooped around the courtyard with her arms raised, voice dropping in a breathless rush. "Bearing down on those who disturb its cabin, burning a thousand degrees right from the maw! Well, actually, nobody knows what its mouth looks like. But everyone says it breathes poison gas for sure!" A crow flew overhead, cutting a black spade through the sky. Weiss watched it disappear into the fog before Nora spoke again. "Poison gas that spreads all around! With giant horns to gore anyone who comes near its territory!"
"It always has bloody horns, because it's always goring someone!" someone told Weiss and Ruby in the library. "Whatever's left hangs down in strips, all red and stuff!"
"Whoa," said Ruby, as the storyteller nodded intently from his place on the ladder.
The gossip was endless. Everywhere Weiss went the next few days, she heard more tidbits of the mysterious beast that came from the War of the Shadow.
"It breathes really heavily, kind of like its mouth's being blocked, and the gas spreads into the air."
"I heard it leads people into the woods and gets them lost in the fog."
"My uncle swears he saw it once on vacation. Swinging its arms and it looked at him before disappearing into the trees."
"They say it's, like, brown, even though it probably came from the Shadow. With big clomping feet. Hey, are you gonna finish those fries?"
"Cloven feet, strong enough to crush diamonds!"
"Not that it needs to. Sometimes when it waves its arms this light comes out and everything in sight explodes. Plus, you know, the poison breathing."
"Its mouth was halfway closed by this really brave Hunter! He used a sewing needle made by Dust, but before he could close it entirely, the monster grabbed him and burnt him up!"
"A sewing needle," said Weiss, and in the next moment a crow landed outside the classroom window.
"Oh! That reminds me," said Ruby, turning to Weiss at their table behind the storyteller. "I got the stuff to sew up that new blanket of yours. Sorry I kinda slashed it tripping over Crescent Rose."
"You ran into me because of the fog," Weiss said dismissively, secretly glad to move away from the campus fascination.
"Fog as far as the eye can see," Yang said, dramatically swinging open the classroom doors. "Just put me on a pole already and make me a lighthouse. I don't know how I would have found my way here without you, Blake."
"You make it sound like you'd have fallen off the cliff," said Blake, following in behind Yang as the doors started closing. "The fog's not that bad yet."
"Maybe for you, Blake, but you're a rare case. A normal person's eyesight can only go so far. Just look at it." Yang grabbed her partner around the shoulders and slid to the window. Weiss saw the crow startle before taking off. "It's the middle of November and already it's like we're stuck in the clouds," said Yang. "I don't want to be walking blind out there, Blake. One wrong move and I'd plunge right into an untimely Olympic dive. Seriously, it's too cold for the water."
"I get it," said Blake, and though her tone was short, Weiss could tell she was smiling.
They took seats next to their teammates. Before long they were sucked into the nerve-racing lecture of Doctor Oobleck, who always taught like he was trying to describe the entire history of the world in one class period. As he raced around the room, Yang leaned to Weiss and Ruby. "Have you guys heard about the monster of Evermist Woods?"
"Yes," they responded with completely opposite expressions. "And I wish I didn't," Weiss went on. "I'm sick of hearing about it."
"One guy who works in a coffee shop downtown swears he saw it on a rainy night when he was biking through the woods," said Yang. "He had a headlight on, and all of a sudden when he's on the trail, it steps out from the trees and just stares. He swerved like crazy to avoid getting hit."
"What kind of person goes in there alone?" said Blake to Weiss's dismay. "With the Shadow taking over it during the war? I heard there's something really wrong with that place."
Their discussion continued on-and-off throughout the period. At the dorm, Weiss tuned them out to sew the tear in the velvet blanket she'd bought the previous week. Ruby was writing on a postcard next to her. Yang was pacing around the floor, making it creak as she protested against the homework.
"It would be so much cooler if we had a field trip to a museum or something," she was saying.
"But we don't," said Blake. The Faunus was on her bed with a textbook laid open in her hand. "So stop moving around and concentrate. That essay's not going to write itself."
"I already know what I'm going to write."
"What is it?" said Weiss. "The monster of Evermist Woods?"
The floorboards stopped creaking as all three of Weiss's teammates looked at her.
Weiss jerked a stitch into her blanket. "Don't you dare take that seriously."
"That would be SO AWESOME!" said Yang, as Ruby stared into the distance in revelation.
"If I wrote about the monster," she said, "my essay would be fun."
"Ruby, you can't write an essay on an urban legend," said Weiss.
"It might have a basis in fact," said Blake. "This was a war where Grimm no one knew existed appeared and haven't been seen since. And what about those strange black shadows that swallowed anyone who went near? Maybe those things combined and the creature never went away."
"Write about that, if you're so obsessed with the unknown," said Weiss. Her fingers passed over the doves stitched around the blanket as she sewed through another gap in the border. "The shadows. The spike of Grimm. Maybe something about the history itself. Oobleck's told us all about it, anyway. A century ago a strange black shadow appeared and spread across Remnant. It wasn't connected with Grimm, though they multiplied like crazy. The Shadow also enveloped living creatures and turned them into Grimm. So the kingdoms set aside their differences and started reforming their tanks and planes—"
"Blah blah blah. Boring," said Ruby, falling backwards onto Weiss's bed. "Everyone's gonna write about these things. I want to write something exciting."
"The planes!" Weiss said. "They had to reform their planes to be resistant when flying toward the Shadow! Write about that, you mechanics-obsessed dolt."
"Weiss, when Ruby and I were little, our uncle taught us how to trail creatures around Patch," said Yang. "We spent entire weekends doing it. One more beast in the woods is nothing we can't handle."
"I'm even writing to Qrow now," said Ruby. She got up and waved the postcard. "I was going to write about field conditions for soldiers in various parts of Remnant, so he's been telling me about the creatures that live there. Did you know caribou shed their antlers every year? They get covered in fuzz that falls off. My uncle says they feel like velvet."
"Blake, please," Weiss implored.
"It sounds interesting," said Blake, though her shoulders were tense when she stood. "And I've always wanted to know if something makes Evermist different from other woods. It might be worth a trip."
"Operation: Check Out the Woods is underway!" The bedsprings squeaked when Ruby jumped up. "You're coming with us, right, Weiss?" she said, and the others turned to her.
Weiss stared at them, closed her eyes, and counted to 10. It was her way of trying to calm herself when people around her were getting excited over the irrational. Yet despite her acknowledgment it was irrational, all the talk of the past few days burrowed in her a niggling feeling of curiosity, too.
"Fine," she said, opening her eyes after she stood. "We'll go see about this monster. But if we find it, don't fight it. If it's really so good at goring, burning, and poisoning everyone it meets then it's better to stay on the defensive and run."
The soil in the woods was cool, despite the fog. It whited out the area into a ghostly sheet, seeming to suck out the warmth that could otherwise be found in the dense space. Weiss breathed in the pine and water on the trees as she followed the others into the infamous land.
"That rock right there," she said, pointing to a cracked boulder next to a birch tree. She shook a branch to be clear, ducking the cobwebby black strings that draped from it. "That'll let us know we're close to the exit." The others looked, Blake squinting to get a better view through the fog. Weiss looked at it over her shoulder a few times as they advanced, until it was obscured completely a few yards later.
The fog enveloped them. After a while Weiss could only make out the forms of her teammates in front of her. They couldn't have been inside the woods for half an hour. She started looking down to avoid tripping over rocks or roots.
"I can hardly see a thing," Yang said a few minutes later.
"Same here," said Blake, sounding agitated. Weiss could see her hand settling around the weapon on her back as she scanned the area. "I can still make out the trees, but everything is so thick."
"Well, I guess that's why they call it Evermist," said Ruby.
She reached back instinctively to pull Weiss up with the group. "I knew this was a bad idea," Weiss muttered, but she was glad to now be beside them.
She couldn't help believing, the deeper they went, that the fog was thickening. She felt it press into her skin and scratched herself, sensing something was off. They walked under the lacy droop of a tree branch, and with sudden dread Weiss realized except for the grunts and footfalls of her team, she'd hardly heard any noise since entering the woods. It was as though they'd walked into a void.
She rubbed free from Ruby's grip and stepped into front. She surveyed the trees silhouetted among the whiteness, deciding to move from one to the next. The others followed without protest. Weiss began touching each landmark she passed to keep steady. It wasn't until her finger passed over an impossible smoothness beside her waist that she realized she'd landed upon something unnatural. She stopped, as did the others, and looked around the clearing they'd walked into.
"This thing is taller than me, guys," Yang said, rotating an object with three edges onto one of its prongs. The middle extended much more than those on the sides, narrowing on the way up to flatten into a tilted rectangle. A spike poked forward at the tip like a metal flag.
Blake crouched by a circular hull, smoothing her hand around the pointed tip in the middle. "Ugh," she said, when a trail of muck lifted off it with her fingers.
Ruby was beside Weiss, turning over a bulky square covered in loose strands. Weiss looked at it, then continued feeling item next to her. The black sheen came off with her trace the same as it had with Blake, clinging thinly between them like cobwebs. She waggled it away as best as she could and bent to the spot where it once was. A small crack was visible in the object now, and as Weiss inspected it closer, she saw the glint of a tiny screw still inserted firmly into place.
"I think it's a machine, guys," she said.
At once they heard a noise that sounded like the burst of a thunderclap, but when they looked back they saw it was a murder of crows taking flight. The birds spread until the air around them became a black wave, rolling individually and as one in procession. They filtered between the trees, pouring through the empty spaces on their way deeper into the woods. It took a while for them to no longer be visible through the fog. The girls stood awed in their wake.
A caw cut through the silence, bringing with it a crow that appeared in the clearing. Blake cried out, launching Gambol Shroud; the crow's next call was stifled with pain, the bird dropping as feathers burst from its right wing. It flew off lopsided, flapping noisily back into the fog. Everyone stared in shock at the act.
"It had red eyes, Blake," said Weiss. "Let's keep going."
They filed through the undergrowth. "Where did they say the creature lived?" Weiss heard Ruby ask a minute later.
"In an old cabin down the hill," Yang replied.
Weiss took another step and with a horrible jolt landed on thin air. She stumbled to regain her footing, but still pitched forward and plummeted down the drop. The crunch that came seconds later and the prickly sensation that bit all over let her know her fall had been broken by a bramble bush.
"She's alive, guys!" she heard Yang yell from the edge of the drop.
"Of course I'm alive!" she said, though amidst the blanket of white she'd feared a much longer fall.
There was a whirl above, then the sound of metal unfolding. Ruby leaped down the hill with Crescent Rose in hand and landed beside Weiss. Blake dropped in next, rising to her feet as Ruby cut away the brambles, and they heard Yang sliding down the drop's side. When they were all standing, they continued to walk. The black pitch on Weiss's fingers was spreading across her palm.
The air chilled in the pit, settling like needles into their skin. They all shuddered, huddling close. Weiss couldn't stand the quiet. "I wonder what that was, the thing we came across," she said. She grabbed the air with her clean hand, feeling for Ruby. "You like machines," she said when her leader's sleeve was in her grip. "What was it?" They could all see Ruby straighten and envisioned the gears in her head processing the data.
"The thing Yang had looked like a tail," she said. "It was probably aircraft."
"Guys," said Blake.
They followed her eyes. Standing atop a small rise near the back of the pit was the unmistakable form of a wooden cabin, covered in fog so thick it was only severed by the leaves on the tree branches that drooped around it. For a moment the girls' curiosity was tempered by hesitation. Then Weiss said, "Well, here we are." She turned to them and spread her arms. "You said it yourselves, you wanted to see." Her hand trailed unconsciously over the handle of her rapier. She heard clicks around her as the others readied their weapons. As they walked closer to the cabin, Blake said, "Yang, that black gunk hasn't gotten off my fingers."
They reached the porch. Yang and Blake looked into one of the cabin's cloudy windows while Ruby covered Weiss walking to the door. Weiss was about to grab hold of the handle but caught sight of a rustle in the trees. They all looked to the right, then the left, and saw the trees were weighted with not leaves but the crows, hunched and sleek, leering from the branches down on them. A few of the birds shook their wings, breaking the black mass; otherwise they presided naturally and eerily over the cabin. The girls, being future huntresses, prickled with an instinct that made them peer through the fog to look at the birds' eyes.
Ruby was the first to ask. "Are they Grimm?"
"If they are, they'll still be here when we get out," said Weiss.
She grabbed the handle and with a surprise that was only brief it opened without resistance. The unlocked cabin was nearly bare, furnished by a couple chairs layered with dust in the entryway. The fireplace was brick and long unused. That was the left side of the room, and on the right was a flight of stairs ascending in a half-spiral to a short hallway blotted in shadow. Weiss stood with the door handle in grip, her teammates peeking behind her to check inventory. She could feel the crows turning to watch them as they walked farther inside.
"Well," said Yang, surveying from the center of the room with her hands on her hips, "it looks like it was a homely place, once."
"Stop wasting time," Weiss said, scanning the dried dirt between the wedges in the floor. "Look for signs that something lives here." She went to one of the chairs and prodded the worn padding on its seat.
A minute later they had found nothing. "Well, with our grand entrance there's no doubt if something does live here, it's heard us," said Yang. She rubbed her arms together, sparking the Semblance that absorbed her in a golden glow. "Might as well make it easier to see." She flicked her hand, filling it with flames. Weiss was distracted when this happened, and only barely registered Blake's growing look of horror in front of her.
She glimpsed Yang leaning toward the fireplace when a dark shape slammed down from the hallway above. Everyone jumped, whirling to face it. Weiss was closest, and her skin flared with goosebumps as the shape rose to tower over them. Between flickers of flame, Weiss saw a set of tined horns protruding from the sides of the head. Red strips dangled from the horns all the way to the face, which gaped with a set of blank holes reflecting Yang's fire. The thing's neck appeared thick with fuzz, but the rest of its body was hidden under torn brown leather. It made a noise, an eerie hushed rattle, and when Weiss looked below the holes she saw the creature lacked visible lips. Its mouth rounded like a nub toward th chin, and as the team looked on, it stepped forward with a coldness that shot across the cabin.
"THE MONSTER OF EVERMIST WOODS!" the girls screamed.
Yang acted first, punching forward to launch a bullet. The monster deflected it with an arc of its arm. The bullet exploded in midair, expelling smoke; when it cleared, Weiss saw a thin stick in the monster's grip. It flicked its wrist and a flash of light shot from it, heading toward Yang. Everyone dodged, Weiss landing below the hallway with Blake. Up close they looked at each other, and Weiss realized Blake's fear had not come just from the beast but also the blackness that had now spread to their shoulders.
They looked to the scene. Ruby and Yang were trading blows with the monster, flares bursting and scythe a whirl in strikes dodged completely. When the monster sent light towards Ruby, Yang jumped forward for a closer shot. The bullet exploded with a muffled thump against the monster's shoulder, making it flinch. Yang reared back to fire again, but the beast stomped a foot forward, flinging its arm along in one shadowy sweep. The motion sent down a purple arc and Yang cried out at its force, knocking backwards to the floor. The monster advanced, staring down at her, its strange contained breathing churning around its mouth. Yang looked at the strips hanging from its horns and winced. She raised one arm to aim, but as soon as the bullet clicked into place Ruby struck again, slicing the space between them. The monster surged away. Again it waved its stick, summoning a brighter flash that dazzled Ruby into spinning around the room.
"There goes the camera…all around the world," Weiss heard her say, before the dauntless team leader collapsed on her stomach next to Yang.
Weiss and Blake watched stunned from their hiding spot, until with a horrible motion the beast turned to them. Blake tightened her grip on Gambol Shroud, but Weiss grabbed her wrist and flicked her own, pointing Myrtenaster in the monster's direction. A series of blue sparks crackled from the rapier, and Weiss pointed down, sending them like lightning into the floor. She and Blake slid down the spreading ice, ducking as the monster whipped around to trace them. Along the way Blake shot out the door hinges, breaking it open. They rounded to their partners and launched them out the open door.
"Guys, are you serious?" they heard Yang say, before they slammed into the wall and saw the sisters land among the restless crows.
The monster watched too, its head and shoulder lifted to get a better view. It slid carefully to the door, and oddly, holding onto the shattered frame, waved its hand. The rustles across the trees whispered to a halt, though the birds held their focus on the sisters. Weiss paused and curiously regarded the scene.
She heard the click too late. She turned and said, "Blake, don't—" but the girl had already launched Gambol Shroud, shearing into the monster from behind.
There was a soundless effect, though the black stain that oozed from its back showed the monster had been hit. As the jagged cut bled deeper it stood for a moment, almost more surprised than pained. It spun again, but by then Weiss and Blake were headed up the stairs, sneaking into dark refuge in the first room in the hallway. They stumbled in, cloaked in the shadows beside the door. As Blake fought to keep her breaths even, Weiss looked around and saw a large pile of forest bedding that had been gathered on the other side of the empty space. Some of the growth on the branches was dead, brown brittle crumples mixed with fresh greens. Weiss started to leave her cover, but Blake whispered, "It's on your neck."
Weiss didn't know what that meant, until she looked over with a frown and saw the black gunk from the aircraft had crawled up to Blake's chin. She pointed, fear squeezing away words, and before they could dread anything else the massive figure of the monster came through the door.
First it leaned its head straight through, looking across the room. Then, lifting its hand off the doorframe, it entered with one lilting step after the other, neck bobbing at each bend of its knees. The strips on its horns swayed without a sound. Weiss felt the temperature plunge and shuddered.
The monster swung in her direction, the space where its eyes would be certainly fixed on her. Blake fell on her knees and shakily tried to regain the grip on her weapon, but the black substance was now leaching across her face. She heaved a huge sigh, of annoyance as well as exhaustion, and dropped in a faint beside Weiss.
The monster witnessed this, and again reared back. It cocked its head, strangely like an animal, and with its rhythmic gait moved slowly toward Weiss. It stopped a foot from the heiress, the only sound the churn of its breathing, and as Weiss craned her gaze to meet its own, it leaned directly over her.
Weiss waited, breath hitched, and counted to ten.
There was the distant slap of something in uneven motion. A crow flapped through the doorway, beating its one good wing to stay aloft. The monster leaned into its full height. It turned away from Weiss and Blake and headed toward the bedding. The bird followed, angling painfully back to prepare for landing. The monster held an arm out and the crow perched; in its other hand, the monster rocked its stick almost idly. It traced the bird over with the stick and gave a light tap on its wing.
Another jet of light came out, heading for the wing in a narrow silky stream. Weiss did not see what happened when the light wrapped around it, but she noticed the bird rise into balance before becoming enveloped in a white glow. The beast tilted its head, then lowered its wand an inch from the bird's beak. The light sucked back into it, this time braised with dark blotches, and halfway through the sequence Weiss realized the bird was turning into a dove.
The monster angled its fingers, continuing to siphon out the pitch. The bird had dipped slightly as its body renewed, and when the black had left its head it opened its eyes and stood, feathers ruffling in contentment. Warbling, it shook its tail and wings in preparation to roost. It looked so different from the crow of moments before that Weiss breathed the words quietly, amazed by the revelation.
"The Shadow."
It was covering the right side of her face. Monster and bird regarded her both, until the monster walked in Weiss's direction. The dove lifted off, sailing like a ghost into the night.
This time when the monster approached her, Weiss didn't hold her breath. It waved its wand once more, and when it was pointed lightly at her, the Shadow began to seep away from her skin. She realized in the light's glow that the red strips around the creature's head were peeling from the antlers themselves. Her eyes went to its face, which she looked into with a jump. It was there she saw a pair of milky white eyes staring right into her, safe behind the glass holes of a gas mask.
Once she was done, the monster turned to Blake. The plague had turned her into an unmoving silhouette, but the moment the last inch of it had been removed she woke up.
"What?" she said, but the creature was already bobbing out of the room.
Blake raised one hand, then the other, and looked at her palm. "Did it—?" She pointed to the doorway. Weiss nodded, her eyes where the creature once was.
They exited the hall. The monster was outside when they slid through the doorway, having ventured past the sisters to move farther down the pit. The crows shifted in their branches, their beady black eyes following its movements. Weiss and Blake walked away from the cabin and bumped into something on the ground.
"Oh, hey, guys," said Yang as Ruby sat up with a completely unassuming face. "Did you know there are doves in these woods?"
The monster tapped the ground and a final stream of light came out, winding into a path leading away from the cabin. Weiss couldn't see where it ended, but was propelled toward it by instinct. The path was transparent and weightless, giving way to her heels. Ruby went next, making small noises of curiosity as her own footwear dipped in unharmed. When the others arrived, Ruby bumped forward and brushed the back of Weiss's sleeve. Weiss turned around, surprised; in trying to weave out of each other's space they touched arms.
The team was ahead of the monster now, and Weiss looked back at it. It tilted a hand, waving them off. The crows were still watching from the branches. Weiss turned around, releasing her fingers from Ruby's wrists, and halfway through the silver road out of the pit, the monster and the birds disappeared in the fog.
The fog was forgotten as the team kept their eyes on the trail, gradually making their way out of the woods. When the light grew fainter Weiss turned her head to the left and saw the rock they had earlier agreed on as a marker.
The path kept going until were out of the woods. The air began to feel clearer, and they all wobbled as they adjusted to the normal climate. Weiss turned around, saw the path fade. The others regarded Evermist too, wondering. When the wingbeats of a crow passed overhead, they came back to the present. Their walk back to Beacon was quiet and contemplative, until a foot away from the Bulkhead pickup zone Weiss spoke.
"Guys?" she said. "Do you think that was…a Faunus?"
Behind her the others stopped. They stared at the air, then at each other, then away into the distance.
"Oh my god," was all Blake said before she collapsed into Yang's shoulder.
They didn't talk about it for the next few days. They worked on their essays, like everyone else, and regrouped in the dorm the evening before it was due. Weiss was finishing revisions on her second page when Ruby said, "I got a letter from Qrow."
The others stopped writing. Ruby was standing by the bookshelf, holding a sheet of paper marked in scrawls. "I wrote to him about the cabin."
"Well?" said Blake. "What does it say?"
Ruby rotated the paper to read. "It says,
Ruby,
Are you out of your mind? Even seasoned Huntresses have a hard time getting through the fog in those woods.
The legend your school keeps talking about dates back to the war. I heard from a friend who knew a friend, that's how the saying goes. There was a caribou Faunus from Mistral who specialized in magic. Records say she could use it for offense and defense, and spent a lot of time healing wounded birds. It's not been determined what her name is, but everyone called her Pilot. She was young and really into the idea of fighting the Shadow that was spreading across Remnant, and when Mistral's Air Force saw how good she was behind a cockpit, they let her in.
Here's where things get tricky. All the machines used in the war were upgraded to resist the spread and force of the Shadow. Every soldier had a gas mask to filter potential effects of the Shadow, just in case. Maybe her equipment hadn't been checked, I don't know. The only part people know for sure is her plane went down over Evermist Woods. Some say the fog made her lose direction and the Shadow snuck up on her. Search and rescue reported the whole plane had turned black, inside and out, and they said a bunch of birds watched them as they went around the crash site looking for Pilot. They never did find her, but because of the angle of the broken wing and the way part of the woods had been sheared to splinters, they ruled she flew into a tree and the plane caught fire. Whether there's actually a spirit haunting the woods is anyone's guess.
Don't even think you can somehow use this legend for your essay, you haven't learned enough to know how to buck the system."
"That was an oddly educationally concerned finish," said Blake after Ruby read the final lines.
They all pondered Qrow's words. First Weiss said, "Well, the gas mask explains the odd breathing."
"The fire could have turned into the flamethrowers and poison gas," said Blake.
"And you said caribou shed their antlers every year, like velvet," said Weiss to Ruby, feeling her blanket as she did. "Those strips of red weren't skin. They were fuzz."
"You got close enough to see the fuzz? Whoooaaaaaaaaaaaa!" said Yang in pure amazement.
"Well," said Weiss, moving her hands into her lap. "We probably all learned something from this investigative experience."
"Yeah," said Blake. "Don't touch unfamiliar stained objects."
"And don't believe everything you hear," said Ruby, crossing her arms and leaning on one foot to beat Weiss to the punchline.
"Right," Weiss replied. "And now we can finish our essays and finally be through with this horrible assignment."
"Get this. My plan is genius." Yang put one hand around Blake and waved the other through the air. "My paper is exactly about not believing everything you hear. It's a spark of critical thinking no one else will ever think of. Separating fact from fiction about all aspects of the war—there's no doubt I'll get Oobleck's Student of the Year award."
"But the stuff in our textbooks can be proved logically without a reasonable doubt," said Weiss. "How is that going to be impressive?"
"Weiss," said Yang after a pause. "I need two more paragraphs for the page requirement. Two paragraphs about the lies of Evermist Woods. Just give me this."
"Is it really a lie if part of it is true?" said Ruby.
"It's a half-truth. Come on, guys, don't fight me on this."
As they debated the merits of Yang's essay, Weiss caught sight of a flutter outside the window. She glanced from the corner of her eye to see the final glimpse of a crow hovering behind the glass before it swung into the fog surrounding the academy. Weiss's fingers slid once more across the velvet doves on her blanket. Her attention returned to the room, where Yang had stood from her bed and started exchanging loud noises with Ruby to exemplify the lack of intelligence possessed in the other sister. Blake had gone back to her homework with her teeth together. Weiss sighed, pulled up her notebook, and continued revising her essay.