- Goodbyes and Saltwater -
(Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name (c) Tessa Stone. RWBY (c) Rooster Teeth & Monty Oum. Text (c) L.Q. Coverdale a.k.a. Lex Q.C. Mentions of violence and minor language.
The murky darkness gave him no fear. The water was of a springtime's cold, but to his skin, it might have been a pond in the summertime. His lime-green eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, legs and arms gracefully propelling him through the water. He wove and spun about, graceful as a ribbon on the wind as the sea yielded to him. Fish darted out of his way, eels pulled back into their holes to hide, and starfish crawled away when his shadow passed over him.
They might as well have been his neighbours on dry land. They knew him so well, after all the times he'd dove from Patch - there was an ingrained need for speed he could see, even sense in those dark waters. He was the shark that silently made its way down the coastline, fluid in its movements and otherwise apathetic, springing to life only when it could smell blood. The near-invisible, coppery tang of the substance drifted across his nose, and his veered sharply to his left.
Salmon. Minor bleeding. Almost got eaten by an eel.
It wasn't hard to pick out the injured fish - despite the school that wrapped around it like a beehive, flicking back and forth in a silvery flow of activity, the Faunus went for the centre. A lazy roll and kick of the legs seamlessly became a dart forward, bubbles left in his wake as he charged his prey. The school scattered and the lone salmon tried to rejoin it, only for the Faunus to circle around and open his mouth. His sharp, jagged teeth snapped down, biting off a piece of wispy fin but otherwise missing the fish. The salmon ducked under him, frantically wiggling back and forth to propel itself away from the boy.
With a grit of his fangs, the Faunus began the move to pursue, but stopped at a familiar twinge in his lungs: air. He'd been hunting for twenty minutes already, and was considerably deep beneath the surface. He had about five minutes before his chest started to hurt - exertion would cut that down to two or three. With a lime-tinged glare as hard as sea-bottom stones, the boy watched the salmon vanish in a flicker, then kicked and began an upwards swim.
She knew she'd find him by the sea.
The night air was rippling with gentle wave-song - a false beach sprawled in either direction, glistening under the light of twin-shining moons. The tide was low, the water a thin, ebbing line out in the shadowy distance; she dared not go past the true beach pebbly and pale below her. From the limestone boulder she had chosen to perch on, the wolf-girl was content to watch and wait, uneasy to venture down to the tidal pools and get caught in some creature's hiding-hole. Such an incident had happened in her childhood, and the memory of the ocean washing over her trapped, scrambling body was as clear as the starlit sky. How Veser could be so surefooted, so confident around the slick rocks, unseen gaps and myriad crevices was beyond her; it was a talent born to the seal-folk alone.
That fact had been a message to her and their friends. When seal-Fauna felt trapped, disturbed or frightened, they fled towards the ocean and all the hiding spots within; his trail had stopping at the beach was proof enough of time needed alone. For a half-hour she had waited, crouched and patient for when he came back - she'd wait all night if she had to. Veser Hatch as a temperamental boy, but the subject of his mother brought out the worst in him.
The earlier argument had revolved around nothing but.
Lifting her nose to the wind, she sniffed, trying to catch her friend's scent. Sea, dead seaweed, old seashells, seabird carcasses - none of it Veser's, and nothing that would clue her into his whereabouts. She was considering walking down the beach when a gloomy silhouette came from the ocean, barely visible against the glittering, lapping waves that teased the rocks at low tide's edge. Lifting from her crouch, a quiet huff escaped her, and she jumped from her spot to slide down the drier rocks. The long-striding, lanky figure of Veser's was unmistakble, his mousy-grey hair dark and wet down; his face reflected eyeshine in the moonlight. He stopped when he saw the wolf-girl coming, standing on the edge of the water and the tidal beach.
"Veser!"
His back went ram-rod straight. He turned away, looking again towards the ocean - a foot went back into the water.
"Veser, come on!"
The seal-Faunus opened his mouth, bearing a bit of fang as his head turned. Its stark whiteness in the nighttime's dim lighting gave the wolf-girl pause, and she stopped. A low, rattling growl came out from his mouth, barely audible but still rising above the wave-song. His shirt was gone, and the wolf-girl hadn't seen any other traces of him - he must have left it on a rock in the tide area. Veser had a bad habit of leaving things in the water to wash away.
"Veser, enough of that. You're a Faunus, not an animal."
"Piss off," the boy grunted, taking another few steps into the sea. The girl ground her teeth together, resisting her own urge to growl at the seal-Faunus.
"And do what, leave you to disappear again? Henna - "
"Hanna. It's pronounced Hanna."
" ... Hanna is losing his mind back in town. You scare us when you're like this, Veser."
The seal-Faunus snorted harshly. A few drops of saltwater flew out of his nose. "I'm fine, Toni. I was born here, remember?"
"We still don't know where you go when you leave like this."
A pause hung in the air between them. Veser's eyes had returned to the ocean, a multitude of constellations and the line of the horizon keeping his attention away. There was nothing but their breathing, the sigh of the sea and a small breeze - the beach's cove was incredibly isolated. Rumours of Grimm in the forests mostly kept people away, and the sightings of Grimm ... Well, Toni hadn't been worried about Veser for nothing.
"So ... what are you going to do, then?" Toni finally asked. "Swim all the way to Vale?"
"I'm thinking about it."
The wolf-Faunus frowned. "You think you'll be able to keep it up that long?"
Veser shrugged. "Not sure. It's strong enough now I can stay under for almost half and hour, and I swam all the way out to the signal buoy yesterday." (He noticed, at this point, that Toni's eyebrows had risen to their highest point.) "Aura's not been right since then, though."
"Because even though you're one of the seals," said Toni, "you've got limits, Ves. Your Aura can give you the energy you need, but if the water gets rough or cold enough, you'll lose it quickly. And when you lose your Aura - "
"My Semblance won't work - I know, I know." He waved her off dismissively, putting his hands in his soaked shorts' pockets. "Did you come out here to bitch at me, then?"
"More like try to convince you that swimming across the channel is really, really fucking stupid," said Toni. "But I can't stop you if you want to. I did want to give you this, though."
She reached into a pocket of her own, and withdrew two slips of stiff paper. Veser turned his head, and cocked his head at the bold print he caught in the moonlight. Turning from the sea, he hesitated, but then stepped forward and reached, grasping them roughly from Toni's fingers. His lime-green eyes scanned the thin, black ink stamped to the orange stock, and his scowl slowly flattened out.
Toni let him process what was in front of him. He slowly looked up at her, his face one of surprise. " ... Seriously?" he murmured. "You'd actually ... ?"
"Mhm."
Veser didn't stop staring; the wolf-Faunus nodded at him, motioning at the tickets. "Cheapest flights you can get to Vale this time of year. If ... if your Mom really is there, I don't see why I have to stop you from going. You deserve answers, especially about what happened to Mr. Falun."
Veser bristled, flinching back at the name. Toni winced, internally kicking herself - it was still too soon to bring him up. Hanna and the others had not known Mr. Falun for long, but he had been a decent, kindly person in the time they'd been acquainted. To Veser, though, who was a son to Mr. Falun, even if the man never acknowledged that fact himself ...
"Then I'm going," said Veser, "and you can tell Hanna to go and suck it if he wants otherwise. No tearful goodbyes, no 'see-you-soon' parties, no pussy-ass bullshit from him or you, okay?"
Toni nodded again, face solemn. Veser inhaled harshly, running a hand through his hair.
"Okay then ... okay."
He glanced back at the ocean one more time, his lime eyes staring at something Toni couldn't see. The seal-Faunus shuffled in his spot, rocks shifting back and forth as he went from foot to foot. Toni was otherwise silent, staring up at Remnant's moons as she waited for him to say something else. She'd known the day would've come eventually - Veser had always said he'd looked for an excuse to leave Patch. To him, it was an isolated, Grimm-ridden splotch of land in the middle of nowhere, lonely and put off to the side of a bigger world; Toni couldn't help but see parallels. Veser had told her about what happened between his father and him, and how often he looked to the sea - his mother's heritage - to find peace and quiet. Toni had often found such solace in the night, in the light of the stars and the glow of its heavenly sisters.
"I'm gonna need a suitcase," Veser said suddenly. "And my games - you know the one. The GameGuy with the MonsterMon ... ?"
"Yep," said Toni. "Red cartridge, has the Level 68 Dragonscythe you talk about?"
"Yeah, that one. Key's under the mat - if you could go and get it, um ... that's gonna make this a whole lot easier."
Veser looked away, uncertain. "And ... and Hanna ... "
"I'll deal with him and the others," said Toni. "The shuttle leaves in four hours - you should get ready. You're not going to have much time to get sleep, especially if Hanna finds out. No parties, right?"
"Right."
A heaviness descended over the two. Though there were things to do, they did not move from where they stood - invisible weights held down their feet. The wind changed, carrying a rotten shark carcass's scent down towards them, and the pair scrunched their noses and lifted their heads. The hoot of an owl rang from the forest behind them, and mostly-silence fell upon them once more.
" ... Veser?"
"Yeah Toni?"
"Take care of yourself."
The wolf-Faunus ran forward and grabbed the seal-boy in a tight hug. Veser stared ahead, shocked; his upper fangs jutted slightly from a mouth that had become an "o". Very, very slowly, he wrapped his arms back around his friend.
" ... I will."