Teams RWBY and JNPR decided to head back to their rooms after the strange incident.
"Well," Ruby said, closing the door behind her, "that was… different."
"No kidding." Yang slumped down on her bunk of her and Blake's shared bunk bed. "Who was that guy?"
"I'd like to know the same thing." Blake sat down beside her, gaze unfocused as she went into deep thought.
"Don't worry; we'll find out. After all, he did just become our new teammate!"
"Ruby, did you actually tell Ms. Goodwitch that we would accept him?" Ruby's eyes widened at Weiss' question.
"Oops…." A long silence hung in the air as the girl's mis-step sunk in. "Gah! I can't believe I didn't tell her! Back in a minute!" Rose petals floated in the air around the still-swinging door as Ruby made her exit. The petals were part of Ruby's semblance; abilities that huntsmen and huntresses can use by channeling their aura into a more visible form. Ruby's just so happened to be super speed, perfect for this little conundrum she found herself in. The sound of air rushed down the hallway as a red blur went through it, searching the corridors for one of the high-standing teachers. A small gasp could be heard as she shot down one of the corridors, colliding with a certain boy wearing a blue duster. Ruby groaned as she sat up, holding her head. Stopping was a bit harder than going. She looked down to see Cyan lying on the ground, the stars flitting through his vision practically visible.
"Cyan!" Ruby knelt down and started helping up her dazed comrade. "Sorry! I couldn't stop in time!"
"R-Ruby…?" Still a little dazed, Cyan held his head as he looked at her. "Wh-what's the r-rush?"
"I wanted to tell that we want you as part of our team, but then I forgot and now I've got to go find her before it gets dark so that you can have a room to stay in, and now I've literally bumped into you, making this whole thing take way too long and be way too exhausting." She was nearly out of breath by the time she finished her sentence.
"W-wait… y-you really want m-me on your t...team?"
"Well, duh! We just have to figure out how to fit a 'C' into RWBY, and we're good!"
"A-are you s-sure?"
"Of course I am! What kind of leader would I be if I wasn't?" Cyan didn't say anything, but his expression became one of extreme worry. Thinking that that was what he looked like pretty much all the time, Ruby continued on. "Anyway, I've got to go find . Want to come with me?"
"N-no, that's okay… A-also, you might b-be able to find P-Professor Ozpin faster; I-I was just t-talking to him…"
"Great! See you back at the room!" Ruby practically vanished in a whirlwind of rose petals, an air current the only thing to prove that she didn't teleport.
"W-wait!" Cyan called to thin air, "I-I don't know w-where the room is…" He went unheard as Ruby flew through the hallways of the school, searching for the Headmaster. Several twists and turns down Beacon's corridors later, Ruby saw the grey-haired man she was looking for. The hallway was long enough that, this time, she managed to stop just before she ran headlong into him.
"Ah, Miss Rose; you're in quite a rush." The mysterious yet kind eyes of Professor Ozpin peered at her from behind his round glasses. "Is there any special occasion?"
"Um… you see, we wanted Cyan on our team, and-"
"Good; I'd hate for you to dislike your new teammate."
"Wait… he was going to be on our team no matter what?"
"Indeed. The four of you, and your friends from team JNPR, are the only ones I am willing to trust with this… particular individual."
"Really?"
"Yes. Now, if I'm not mistaken, I believe you have something to tell your new teammate." Ruby's face scrunched up in thought, then her eyes widened.
"Gah! I forgot to tell him where our room is! Thanks, Professor!" She bolted down the hall in another flurry of rose petals. Professor Ozpin merely looked on, taking a sip from his seemingly ever-present mug.
"Ta-da! Welcome to the RWBY room!" Ruby had her arms spread wide in an attempt to display the ingenuity of the messy room.
"I-i-it looks… nice…" Cyan was surveying the room for himself, clearly not all that impressed. The other three girls were looking at him with smiles on their faces, hoping to improve the situation. "I-I like the bunk b-beds…"
"See, Weiss? I told you they were awesome!" Ruby stuck her tongue out at the white-haired girl, who rolled her eyes at the gesture.
"Wonderful. But, speaking of beds, there seems to be a bit of a problem there." All eyes looked around the room, coming to the same conclusion at the same moment.
"Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry, Cyan; we forgot about your bed!"
"Th-that's okay; I-I-I don't use beds a-anyway."
"...What?" Yang managed to voice exactly what everyone was thinking.
"T-they're just… uncomfortable. I-I've always slept i-in things like trees, s-so…" Another long silence sat in the room as the four girls looked from one to the other, all of them trying to assess exactly who they had just added to their team. "I-I can just sleep o-on the roof."
"W-well, okay, I guess…" Ruby scratched her head in total confusion. "I think that settles that…?" She shook herself then smiled broadly. "So, Cyan; tell us more!"
"W-what do you mean?"
"I mean, tell us who you are! Ooh, or even better, tell us how you did that thing with your feet! Was that your semblance?"
"Uh… n-no, it wasn't. I-in fact, I-I don't actually have a-a semblance…"
"Huh?"
"I-I was born with an i-inability to create a s-semblance."
"Then how did…?"
"Th-the tradeoff is that m-my aura is more d-durable, and I've m-managed to train the a-aura on my feet t-to be nearly indestructible."
"That's awesome! I didn't know you could do that with aura!"
"Y-yeah… I have to a-admit, it's pretty c-cool."
"That's great, but what about the other part of Ruby's question?" Cyan looked to Weiss, trying to look confused enough that she would drop it. It didn't work. "Who are you?"
"Th-that's a bit of a l-long one…" He sat down, taking out a knife and stabbing it into the floor. "You may want to sit down…" Exchanging wary glances, the four girls sat down on the bottom bunks. "I'll get to that," Cyan motioned to the knife in the floor, "a little later. First, I'll start with why I lived just outside Mistral.
"The first thing I remember was living in a small village with my mother. My father had either left us or died, I don't remember which, and everyone there was always willing to help us out, seeing as I was the only child there. It was a nice little life; we were protected from Grimm by an old huntsman that didn't want to travel anymore, the swamps were able to provide a surprising amount of food, and bandits didn't often come near because of the terrain. We were happy… until an outbreak struck the village.
"An incurable disease swept through, wiping out half of us in under a week. My mother was one of the ones taken. She… she died holding my hand. After that… after that, the huntsman took me in; raised me to be one. Then, when I was only seven years old, I was sent out into the swamp. I still don't know why, but in the end, it was for the best. I learned to survive in the harsh environment, living off the land using the skills the huntsman had taught me. Of course, I kept in contact with the village until… until they vanished. I'm not sure if the Grimm eventually overtook them, or they just moved on, but they disappeared two years after I had started living in the swamp. I really was on my own then. The next eight or so years are a bit of a dull story, considering that I was just living in the swamp and occasionally stopping bandits.
"Then, one day not too long ago, someone found me. It was Professor Ozpin; he told me he was out on an expedition to find a good place for his students to train. I stopped a few Grimm that had attacked him, and he asked me if I had ever thought about becoming a huntsman. I said that I hadn't, but that it sounded interesting. He smiled at that, then took me back here to Beacon. Then I met you guys, and I think you know the rest from there." He looked from the face of one girl to the other, noting the subtle differences in expression that still somehow all conveyed both confusion and pity.
"That's…" Blake was the first to speak up, "quite the story. But I still have a few questions, the first one being what's going on with the knives?"
"Oh. Right. Almost forgot. Well, when either of these," he tapped both the knife in the wooden planks and the one in its holster, "leaves its holster, my confidence soars. Not entirely sure why, but it does. But, if both of them are withdrawn at the same time, I go into what I've dubbed 'Focus Mode'. In this state, I'm intently focussed on whatever it is I was paying most attention to beforehand. Unfortunately, it also forces me to go completely silent. My only guess as to why it happens is because of how shy I was as a kid, and as soon as I got the first half of these, I felt much safer; then I only practiced with two, making my stoic-ness a default state."
"That's so weird!" Ruby was staring wide-eyed at the pistol-knives. "It's awesome!"
"Thank you for sharing, Cyan;" Blake was unaffected by the interruption, "but I still have one question: where did you get that duster?"
"This thing?" Cyan tugged at the blue-and-black garment. "Besides a world of troubles, it was the only thing my father left us."
"...So you don't know where it comes from?"
"No, I don't. Sorry to disappoint."
"It's fine. I was just curious." Blake gave him a small smile, and he returned the gesture.
"Welp," Yang stretched her arms as high as they would go, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm burnt out. All this new teammate stuff is pretty tiring."
"Right. I can take a hint." Cyan unstuck the knife from the floor, stood up, and went over to the window. "Blake, Ruby, Yang, Ice Queen-"
"Even he calls me that?!"
"See you all tomorrow, I guess." His arm went to the outside top of the window frame, and with a single tug on it, he vanished into the black of night.
"I like him." Ruby was standing with her hands on her hips, smiling proudly at the open window. "He's nice."
"He was lying." Blake closed the window, both her words and expression making Ruby's smile falter.
"What?"
"He was lying to us. I don't know what he was lying about, but he was lying. Trust me; I know a lie when I hear it."
"But why would he do that?"
"I don't know."
"You're just being paranoid." Weiss, without anyone in the room noticing, had already changed into her silky pyjamas and was getting into her bottom bunk. "You just aren't used to new people being so nice."
"Hey, I was nice to her!"
"Yes, but she also saw you explode the both of us in front of the school."
"Pssh… well…" Ruby fished for words, but nothing seemed to be biting.
"I admit that I may be a bit… biased… but I'm telling you, he was lying to us!"
"Can we figure this out in the morning? Even if Cyan was lying, I wasn't when I said all this stuff was tiring." Blake gave a resigned sigh, then began changing. Yang and Ruby did the same, though without the sigh. They turned the light off and climbed into their respective bunks, Yang and Ruby falling asleep almost immediately. Blake, however, was lying awake, staring at the wooden frame keeping Yang from falling on her. She searched through her memories, trying to figure out where she had seen Cyan's attire before. Coming up with nothing yet again, she rolled over and attempted to sleep, the feeling that he had lied nagging at her the entire time.
Not too far above, Cyan was staring up at the stars, lost in thought. He looked across his chest to see the blue of his duster staring back at him. He picked it up just enough so that the small white triangles entered his vision. He dropped it and rolled onto his side, hands cushioning his head.
"This m-might be tough…" He closed his eyes and fell into an uncomfortable sleep, thoughts flitting between then, now, and what could be. Above, the broken moon shone its reflected light down on the single figure on the rooftop; now part of a group, but still very much alone.
A/N: And that pretty much ends what I've got! There are a few things that I want to reveal later if I decide to continue with this, but I don't really have a plot in mind, just the character. If you think you've got a good idea that he could fit into, you can ask to use him or give me the plot so we can collaborate through PM. Otherwise, tell me what you thought, if you want me to continue, or if it's decent the way it is now. Not the best introduction, but that's what you get when you draw out the character before coming up with his personality. See you guys later!