Note: This fic is very much a case of "Hit by a bolt of inspiration." Specifically, Ruby's trailer, and Red Like Roses Part 2.
Anyway. I own nothing relating to RWBY. The title art is by HikariYui on deviantart. Please review, comment, or criticize. Most of all, enjoy.
The Vigil
Chapter 1
It wasn't the fact that a whistle was blaring in her ear that woke Weiss up. It was the lack of one.
While Ruby had more or less abandoned the practice after the first few days at Beacon, she'd occasionally break it out as something of a joke. Or maybe as a throwback to slightly simpler times. And while she tried to not make a habit of it, Weiss had thought she was discovering a pattern in Ruby's uses of the whistle. She'd been expecting a whistle this morning, so the innate surprise at the lack of one was enough to wake her up. Wondering just why, for she was fairly certain she wasn't wrong about her perceived pattern, she checked Ruby's bunk.
It was empty. In fact, it looked like it had been empty for a while. Checking around the bed, Weiss found that Ruby's outfit and Crescent Rose were both missing.
Weiss strode over to the other set of beds and gave the bunk a careful shake; just enough so the two sleeping girls could feel it, but not so much that the precarious balance of books holding one bed above the other would not be disrupted.
"What?" Yang moaned groggily, rubbing away at her eyes to try and get herself fully up.
"Ruby's gone." Weiss said urgently. "Her clothes and her weapon are missing too."
"What?!" The speed with Yang went from sleepily half-aware to utterly alert was startling, but gazing at the still slightly disheveled top bunk her sister used, she quickly calmed down. Blake's own inspection had similar results. Yang took her watch off the bedside table and surreptitiously checked the date.
"Maybe she was just trying to get an early start." Blake offered.
"I'm not sure," Weiss continued. "Has she ever got up well before any of us?" Weiss let her teammates think and nod before she further explained herself "And furthermore, we've got a scheduled training session for the Vytal Festival today. What if whatever she's done, or wherever she is-"
"Weiss, seriously. You're overreacting." Blake said, dropping from her hold on Ruby's bunk. Neither of them noticed the slightly knowing, guilty look on Yang's face.
Ruby leaned back against the ship's railing. An airship probably would have been faster, she supposed, but commercial airships were about three times as expensive as regular boats. Looking at her watch, she experienced a pang of regret. She wouldn't be able to get there and back till well before the day was up. Looking back up, at the cliffs in the distance, she realized that, regardless, she still needed to do this. She sighed and resigned herself to a good scolding whenever she finally got back.
Oobleck took another sip of coffee before he zipped back in front of the board.
"So, I believe that covers all the basic history behind the Festival. We'll be going into greater detail next time, and in the time in-between." He paused to take another sip. "Pages 79 to 94, make sure you've all read them before Thursday." He stopped talking as the class collectively groaned, then shifted his gaze. "Miss Schnee, Miss Xiao Lin, Miss Belladona; I expect you to inform your… absentee of the assignment. And perhaps instruct her to not make a habit of skipping classes in the future."
Weiss groaned in exasperation. They'd heard much the same from almost every teacher in the school that day.
Her hood pulled up around her head, Ruby made her way through the forest to the edge of the cliff face. To the one place she'd come to be.
A small stone, emblazoned with the image of a rose, sat in the ground. Beneath the rose there was an inscription: "Summer Rose - Thus, I kindly scatter."
She slowly kneeled down in before it. She promised herself that she wouldn't cry this time, that she wouldn't spend too long here, even though she wanted to, yet also wanted to run as far and as fast from the stone as she could.
She felt tears leak out from between her clenched eyelids and slowly drip down her cheeks. She gazed at the stone, remembering.
She'd promised herself she wouldn't cry this time, that she wouldn't spend the entire day here. Summer had promised her, every time she left, that she would always make it back. By the time Ruby got herself under control and looked up from the stone, the sun was setting.
So much for promises.
Weiss angrily stabbed her fork into the small cube of meat she'd cut. Ruby still hadn't shown up, and her absence had continued to cost them, especially in the training session Professor Goodwitch had planned. Weiss was still sore from the impact of several of Nora's heart-emblazoned grenades, and she shot a quick, meaningless glare in the girl's direction from across the table. Despite Team RWBY being short a member and leader both, Goodwitch had put them in anyway, and they'd quickly learned that being one leading huntress short put them at a distinct disadvantage.
"I think it's already dead, Weiss." Yang put in, smirking, as Weiss made another angry stab at her food.
"Oh, quiet. If your sister could be bothered to show up, maybe we wouldn't be the laughing stock of the school." Weiss snapped.
"I'm not sure it's quite that bad." Blake suggested.
"Hey, back up a second," Yang said angrily. "Don't put this all on Ruby."
"Who else can we put it on, Yang?" Weiss asked. "She's our leader. She should be here. She should have been here all day, and we don't even know where she is."
Ruby walked back through the forest, brushing a hand across her face to catch an errant tear. As she entered a large clearing, she stopped briefly at an odd feeling. A subtle tingle down her spine, as though trouble was coming.
When several packs' worth of Beowolves burst out of the trees, she knew what that feeling was.
She reached behind her back and let Crescent Rose unfold. A harsh smile grew across her lips. She swung her scythe around and fired, blasting herself into the thick of the nearest pack, her scythe whirling around, leaving bisected chunks trailing petals of roses in its wake. She turned to the next pack, the smile still on her face. She was glad that these Grimm had got the drop on her.
She had needed something evil to kill.
So, yeah. This is me tapping into a bit of the seriousness, angst and tragedy of RWBY that is clearly lurking just beneath the surface, and we will hopefully see a bit more of next season. I'll be continuing this for another chapter or so, but this isn't going to be a really long-term story (I already have one of those that I am sort of neglecting to work on this, simply because I knew that if I didn't get this out, I wouldn't be able to focus on said other story. And I just really wanted to get this story out there, too).