Scarlet Night, White Moon
Summer
When she woke up that morning, her whole body felt off. Her eyes hurt, her nose was burning and she felt as if her head was going to burst. The sheets that once covered her laid in shreds all around her. Her fingers hurt, just as much as her knuckles, forearm and chest. The pain in her belly grew slowly numb while the aching of her legs grew by the minute.
She knew what happened. She didn't want to.
Slowly she raised her head feeling the dull gray light touching her skin. Cold, despite the summer raging outside. Cicidas, dragonflies and all those other multi-legged creatures were singing and dancing as if the past two months never happened. She threw the pillow beneath her head through the already broken window, the silky yarn adoring her skin tattered and falling of her shoulders.
Dust from outside drifted inside, forming a path little fairies would follow to sing their songs of joy and sorrow.
Tiredly she lifted her aching arm, wiping away at her dry eyelids. She needed to get ready and make breakfast for everyone.
Dragging her feet off the mattress her body slowly made way to her closet door, to get dressed into her huntress gear. Lately, she thought, that she wore this dress every day. Though just like in her student days she slowly dressed herself without ushering a thought, nor without a sound.
After putting on her boots, she tied the laces tightly and made her way out of the broken door. She didn't register the sound and feel of brisk wood beneath her feet or crunching of broken glass as she walked past queer pictures.
Slowly after each painful step, she walked down the creaking staircase. Ignoring the blond mess lying on the couch, she made her way to the kitchen.
She took a carton of long overdue milk and poured it into a frying pan, mixed honey and a drop of salt into it and slowly started to stir the mixture over a medium flame. After a minute she grabbed her …s cereals and mixed them into her mess with strong and careful stirs of her spatula.
Leaving her creation simmer in the pan she took four slightly broken plates out of the cupboard. Her fingers ached from the weight and ignored the feeling of sharp edges digging into her skin as she sat the tableware atop the kitchen counter and took the two plastic cups with …'s and …'s names written on and placed them next to the smaller, less damaged plates.
While the pan began to burn, she mustered every ounce of air in her lungs to stay where it was.
" …! …! Breakfast is ready!" she called, she breathed, but her throat tightened and her heart beat agonizingly slow.
"Summer?" came a voice, rough and husky with a tint of alcohol wafting around his mouth "What are you doing, Summer?!" the owner of the voice screamed rushing to the frying pan and throwing its flaming content out of the broken wall from whence he came. She saw the familiar red cape, tattered, burned and soaked in black oozing blood and a face she once saw filled with life.
"Qrow."
He turned to face her with wide open eyes, yet she couldn't fathom just what he was thinking. "So now you remember what my name is." he spat taking out a silver flask from his back pocket. She didn't need to know what he drank, just that it lost any effect on her weeks ago.
Slow heavy steps followed by the fluttering of his cape paced around the broken living room. "Last week you forgot our names" Qrow spat gulping down his beverage "the week before Tai lost any sense of himself" he kicked a chair to her direction, which she took to steady herself.
Her silver eyes wandered over to the blond on the couch, eyes blank and mouth held tight. She remembered the once strong and emotion filled man She remembered the bright and cheerful blue eyes looking over their little family, his smiles and the way he took …'s and …'s hands when they first started to walk. She remembered … getting angry at him and that he should let the girls try it on their own.
The distant memory of his tear stricken face as he watched the toddlers who fell on the ground due to his "helpful" hands.
She remembered her and tears welled -she had prayed that they had dried up- falling from her eyelids.
Now that blond lovable oaf laid with vacant eyes on the couch.
"Damn it all" Qrow said not even raising his voice as he pat the dormant laying blond, the sword in his hand quivering while his eyes remained unfocused on the picture frame laying to his feet. Tears slowly welled and fell onto the unbroken glass.
"I…I don't really want to remember them. Heck it'd been better had it been me that…Summer" he turned to her, his eyes looking even more lost "they haunt me, like so many others, Summer." He let go of his friends hair and leaned down to grab the frame. Carefully as if holding onto the weight of the world, he lifted it and caressed its surface longingly, while she still struggled to comprehend her own feelings.
She approached him, the pain growing in her brain worsening the longer he held, the longer he stared onto that frame. She approached him, the frame and extended her hand to take it off his'.
Yet he saw her and looked at her directly in the eyes.
Ruby irises.
Ru…b…y…
Her eyes widened, her hands grabbed her face while a cry of agony and sorrow burst out of her throat.
"Summer?"
She ignored it.
She ignored the pain, the embrace of strong arms around her frame or soothing words whispered into her ears.
It grew.
The pain it grew in her throat.
It grew so much, so hard, it became unbearable. The screams returned, the darkness surrounding her, her loved ones, her…And yet despite the growing uncertainties and the horrors she wasn't ready to face yet…
Then she saw, not with her eyes -even if she couldn't understand why- a sliver of silver.
A weapon.
A sword.
She trashed around in the hold around her, threw her arms and body until Qrow released her and she grabbed the sword.
"Summer! Get a hold dammit!" Qrow screamed holding up his hands "They're gone! Everything's gone! Ruby! Yang! Rav-"
"Don't say their names!" she cried, she whimpered, repeating over and over the same four/five words like a mantra, slowly, slowly lowering the blade but not releasing it.
She knew what Qrow was doing, she wasn't ready to face it yet.
"You have to face it Sum…you're our leader."
"Shut up!"
"No I won't. Sum, we lost. The war is over. Did you look outside lately? The mist" his eyes lowered and searched the ground "That red mist…it's proof, we failed. Remember what Oz said. Looks like our Remnant just…" he gritted his teeth, growling like the beasts they used to hunt until they…
Qrow held his own face, holding on to the shreds of his frame of what he used to be "-just didn't cut it. Those who hunt monster, beware they don't become them I always hated how he said that…" Qrow remained still, looking at her with a single black tear dropping from his right eye. "Face it Summer, we can't go back to how it used to be."
"No…" she whispered over and over while her friend leaned against the couch.
"It's gone, and the only thing left to do is going out with a blaze."
"You want to die"
"No, I just don't want to turn into a monster."
"No, no nononononononono NO; No not you too! Don't Do It Qrow!" She couldn't bear the pain, the suffocating atmosphere. Screaming she left out of the hole Qrow made, not hearing his last whisper. Whether it was because the shreds of humanity left in her chest or the numbing pain while looking at her friend … Qrow wouldn't know. Despite that he smiled, eyes growing vacant.
"Only one can leave Sum. Better it's you than any of us." he whispered looking into the distance.
There he saw it.
At first he didn't know what he was looking. A speck of red, the ruins at Emerald Forest. He felt like he floated in the air, hovering above the ground yet unable to free himself from the ice that encased his tail.
The speck approached him with speed he'd only seen once before. His eyes widened as he saw the figure approaching his head with a scythe he'd loved to wield. A girl, so young yet so full of energy, black hair with red tips adoring her head and silver eyes so full of life that Qrow didn't care any longer if he'd stay alive.
The last thing he felt was the sweltering pride in his chest when he knew who it was that took him off to a better place.
A kinder world.
She ran.
Sword in hand and chest bursting in pain, yet she didn't allow the fatigue to catch up to the rest of her body.
She ran.
Not caring as the world around her was turning red and the mist slowly took away the ground beneath her feet.
She ran.
Until everything was white and she felt a soft tap on her right shoulder!
She spun around, ready to slash at whoever it was that approached her, yet her eyes widened when the only thing she saw was her own face. Paler, yet more alive than she herself felt. The one in front of her smiled and moved her lips, yet the sound of her words disappeared within the static noise the world -the white- was bombarding her with.
Her double's gentle hands guided her towards where the noise wasn't as bad. In fact it slowly started to disappear and she watched with scared eyes how the mirror of herself was slowly starting to dissolve into white rose petals.
"I can't take you farther than this…" the double's voice whispered to her and for the first time she truly believed that it was real.
"I-I don't un-" the soft hand caressing her cheek told her to stop thinking and the smile on her mirror's face told her the truth she didn't want to understand.
"Go, they need you" she whispered to herself just as the form she held slowly wilted away, but she knew that…
The mist slowly lifted, leaving her standing in the middle of a forest. The ground was moist, the sword heavy yet reminded her that she lived. The pain was still there but she pushed onward. Nothing made sense anyway so why should she think about it.
Through her red hair, which fell over her eyes tinted the view of her surrounding in a mix of red and black.
The sound of the forest however was silent and stilted. She knew not to fear or else they would find her but aside from the eery silence only the faint sound of clacking could be heard.
She knew that sound. Her eyes widened and she dragged the sword behind here while running towards it. That sound wasn't good.
It was the sound of fighting.
Somebody was fighting in the distance and she couldn't bear the thought that either … or … were in the middle of that!
She watched with impassive eyes how the villagers tried to defend themselves from them. It was so easy to find their provisions and even easier to find the Dust they tried to hog off the SDC. A mild hum escaped her lips, not that anybody could see it with her helmet covering her head.
When has I become so easy to take from others?
Then again the strong live and the weak…
Of course she had to think about them now. Not like she hadn't left them behind and disappeared like the phantom she tried to be. She was the only one who was clever enough to leave before Ozpin could get a hold of them more than he already did.
"..."
She cannot deny though that she missed something. Something that was weak and unnecessary. There was no need for it.
Out of habit she looked up, focusing on the ever distant and shattered moo- for but a second. For just the tiniest of moments. For a single blink of an eye she saw a full moon. Not shattered but whole. And just like that the illusion disappeared.
"Maybe I'm not so far from madness as I've thought." she whispered holding her head in her left palm until she heard something familiar carried through the wind.
It was approaching her. Timid legs. Timid steps. Timid huffs of air. And she felt her entire body reacting to it as if it had already gone through the motions before.
Then just for a single second she looked back and never wanted to turn around ever again.
Heavy. Her steps, her heart. Everything felt heavy but she couldn't stop her feet from moving. Couldn't stop out of reasons that were already beyond her tired mind.
She felt numb, yet didn't break down and finally saw a clearing in front of her. A clearing with a single Grimm standing in front of her.
A Grimm with surprisingly human features.
Black feathers on its back like a nevermore, resembling hair, a bone mask hiding instead of the face and … a skirt?
Her steps faltered.
Her eyes widened.
Her heart stopped.
A single name leaving her lips.
"R-Raven…"
She couldn't be here. No it was impossible. There was no way she was standing in front of her. No way that after all those years she would be alive. Yet everything inside of her conflicted over the appearance of the woman in front of her.
"R-Raven…" the woman spoke, the tone hollow, disbelieving, but to hear the voice she never thought she had missed, once again mutter her name.
Whether it was out of instinct or something else she did not know, but just as the woman in front of her collapsed she rushed at her and held onto that tiny frame.
Whatever possessed her to do such an action, even going as far as holding onto the warm body of this weak and honestly speaking pathetic creature, she did not know.
She did not care.
Something fell into the abyss she tried to create -the hole in her heart- something that woke up what laid dormant within her heart. A tiny ember of fire lighting up what she desired to let go.
"Dammit Summer…every damn time…" she whispered as something warm fell from her eyelids.
A/N: Honestly speaking this story existed since August of Last year and I originally intended to do a co-written story with (Insert name here) but I haven't heard from them in months except that they got married. Congrats once again in case you're reading this, But damn was I itching to write this story. Hope you don't hold it out against me and if you wanna join hands on this project again you know how to approach me!
Once again I'm sorry for the low-key uninspired story. Hope you all find it in yourself to give it a shot and if you're interest in my writing or drawings give my or Pixiv a visit. I'll try to update regularly XP
Yours dear,
Sha Yurigami
P.s. This story basically takes place in a better world in which Volume 5 didn't play out like an exposition hub and with characters actually doing something! Also fuck Taiyang for assuming his daughter losing her arm is the same as a fucking tantrum! Fuck Ozpin for dragging Oscar into affairs that are beyond the poor boy's understanding! Fuck Hazel for being such a stereotype despite being the most interesting idiot before his backstory reveal! And fuck you Writers for obstructing the animation crew and telling them not to go wild on the action scenes!