AN: One shot crossposted from Ao3! Written pre-season 4, so does not take any information revealed there into account, nor does it take anything from the more recent words of remnant into account.
There was no body to burn, but a pyre was still lit. Almost everyone wore all red, and those who did not had red somewhere in their clothes.
It was strange for Ruby to realize that the clothes she always wore were now the perfect color for mourning.
The priestess, an Oumnian of uncountable years, spoke in Old High Valor about the fragility of the human body against chaos, and how once a person's aura leaves her body it blows on the wind through the changing seasons. The priestess spoke of dust, and she spoke of Grimm, in the old words written down in the books read from during the services.
It was all very holy, it was all very funerary. Pyrrha was a hero, after all, dead in the line of duty. It was the least what remained of the faculty of Beacon could do to give her a proper sending off.
The pyre was lit at sundown, after the words were read and the weapons placed next to where the body should have been. Her mother should have been there to light it, but she was not, unreachable, her location unknown. Even if she knew her daughter was dead, no one knew if she would care. Instead, the pyre was lit by Jaune, pale and quiet and grim. By his sides stood Ren and Nora, both just as silent.
The three stood closest to the fire. They were her family, after all. The fire was hot, this close, almost to hot to bare. The night was far too warm.
Ruby stood back by Qrow, who was worryingly sober, and her father, who was frowning. Yang was standing on the other side of them, face blank, hiding her missing arm under a jacket that was too large for her. It was black, not red. Blake's color.
The inside of Ruby's head echoed strangely in the quiet. She could not count the sound of the pyre crackling as noise. This was the first funeral she could remember. She had been to her mother's, but that whole span of time was empty. Everyone would have been dressed in white then.
Like they would be, Ruby thought, if Weiss were dead.
But Weiss wasn't dead. She was just gone, just like Blake. Except she knew where Weiss was, unsafe in Atlas. Blake was just somewhere else.
Everyone was just somewhere else, she felt.
But Pyrrha wasn't. That was the whole point. Pyrrha was gone. Qrow was sneering at the priestess and the words she spoke from the holy texts in Old High Valor. Her father only sighed.
It was only the seven of them at the funeral, Sun having left to go somewhere else with the other refugees.
The priestess left, her duty's done, and the seven of them watched the pyre until it flickered down to nothing, which took what felt like a very long time.
"You should go to sleep," Qrow said with odd gentleness, "it's very late, and you're still recovering from whatever you did, back in Vale."
Ruby nodded, feeling sleepy and about eight years old. "I will- I just need to talk to Jaune." She hadn't really talked to the remains of JNPR since she woke up. They had seem stuck in their own bubble of dealing with awful, Jaune always half-crying, Ren talking too much and Nora too little. It was strange, like an ugly argument but quieter, and she had never quite wanted to look at it.
Now she mostly just wanted to say sorry. Whatever the weird light had been had frozen the dragon and made Cinder, that evil lady in red, disappear, but she hadn't done it fast enough. She'd only done the weird light thing after she saw Pyrrha blow away, too late to fix anything. It was her fault, entirely her fault.
With that in mind, Ruby broke away from Qrow, who was grabbing a flask from a pocket, and her father, who was still frowning, and walking over to Jaune, who was still quiet and grim. "I'm sorry," she said, hands in her pockets. She felt awkward wearing her usual clothes, but they were the right colors. "I should have done something."
"It's all right," Ren said, which was still strange. He looked tired, the three of them looked tired, and Nora had none of the near-manic energy Ruby remembered. "It's not your fault, none of it's your fault."
Jaune face hardened, but unseen by Ruby, Ren squeezed his hand, and some of the hardness smoothed again.
"Sorry," Ruby said again awkwardly, and she fled back to Qrow and her dad. "I'm going to bed," she said. Yang was already gone back to her room.
The walk to the house was short, as the pyre had been lit far enough from the forest so that nothing that wasn't meant to catch would. She made her careful way to her room, staring at herself in the mirror over her dresser.
"I have silver eyes," she said to herself, "Ozpin pointed that out." What had her mother been? What had been lost, on that day that led to white funeral clothes. What was Ruby now, her mother's child? And was it any worth, if she couldn't save the people who mattered? "I have silver eyes, I have to be able to do something." The last part was whispered instead of shouted, as Ruby fell face first onto her bed, fully clothed.
That night, she dreamed of a strange, white light, and laughter and Cinder smiling. She dreamed a girl blowing away into dust. There was no body to burn, but a pyre was still lit.