I am really, really, so very sorry for how long it's taken me to write this. Honestly, I just needed to sit my ass down and write it, I have absolutely no excuses for procrastinating. I'd die for the shame of leaving this so long if it weren't for the fact that then this would really never get done.

In other news, I need to cut down on how much I play Shogun 2.


Rees was finally starting to get used to the cold. That was probably her first hint right there, that she'd started referring to this place as merely 'cold'. Compared to…her old home, Mantle was fucking freezing. The hole in the wall of her "apartment" was probably contributing to that, she didn't doubt. Damn fucking landlord wouldn't do shit to fix any of the myriad problems with the building so he could gouge more cash – 'lien', whatever – out of the tenants for "heating expenses" and other bullshit. Dick. Just because most of them were kemonomimi (fond nostalgia made bittersweet; "That's not a real word, Matt.") doesn't mean he should let the building fall down around their ears.

She was finding that her opinion was in a very tiny minority.

"Sir, someone put it in the wrong spot, I was just–"

"Don't try to lie to me; I know you Faunus! You were going to steal it!" The manager roared, "Get out of here! Be thankful I'm not calling the MPs!"

Just ignore it, she told herself, taking the next box from the back of the truck, You need this job today. Experience with close-order drill made it easy to pretend like nothing was happening as the auburn-haired ani-man shrugged on a recycled coat and slunk off.

She still felt entirely justified walking away from the loading dock at the end of the day with her day's pay in lien stuffed in one pocket of her secondhand parka, and one of the tech-things headed for the entertainment section of the superstore in the other. She could feel guilty about shoplifting later.

The evening chill made the walk back seem much longer than it actually was before she turned off into an alley just before the entrance to her building and started climbing the rusting fire escape, wishing she had thicker gloves (again). The entrance worked perfectly fine, but the idiot actually liked freezing his ass off on the roof when he'd had a bad day like today. This way, she wouldn't get warm(er) going through the building, then back out into the cold to check on him, and then back inside to her place. She would insist that getting to avoid the landlord this way was just a happy side-effect from now 'til Judgment Day.

She knew he'd already heard her coming up behind him, so she wasn't surprised when he caught the thingy with barely a look over his shoulder when she lobbed it at him with a "Think fast."

The large-cat Faunus (she forgot the exact species) snorted as he got a good look at the device in his hands. "I get accused of attempted theft, so you go and shoplift," he remarked, his voice drier than the sands around Twenty-Nine Palms, "Yeah, you really showed that guy."

"Hey, might as well live down to the stereotype, right?" She fired back, dropping down next to him, very carefully not looking at how their feet dangled over open air six stories up. "Seriously, though; you know somebody who'll sell that, right?"

He ran a hand through long, auburn hair (that she told him to get cut a month ago, goddammit) with a sigh. "You don't need to worry about me, Eira," he stated acidly, "I'm not going to go belly-up just because one job fell through."

He still stuffed the gizmo in his coat pocket, because he wasn't a retard, but the vehemence in his reply caught her off-guard. Where the fuck was this coming from? she wondered with a frown. "This isn't just 'one job,' Bole; that's three times this month. A little petty crime is worth my peace of mind."

He snarled at her; actually snarled at her. "Oh, how valiant of you. What great sacrifices you make in the name of those less fortunate. Your charity knows no bounds."

She scowled. That's not what she meant, and he knew it. "Fine. If you don't want my 'charity', then have those super-secret 'friends' you won't tell anyone about bail you out next time the landlord comes collecting his 'overdue fees'."

Damn it, Rees, this is not how you de-escalate a situation.

She could practically hear him grinding his teeth to keep from shouting. "Look, Eira, I get that you're from pretty far out of town–"

You have no idea, buddy.

"–but you wouldn't understand; you're a human."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "I understand enough to recognize a bunch of terrorist groupies when I see them." Fuck. She'd done it now. She said the 'T'-word.

The look on Bole's face as he growled made her think he was genuinely going to hit her; and at this range, he couldn't miss. "I don't know what else I expected," he eventually bit out, "from someone still young enough to believe in fairy tales."

Get up. The thought crossed through her head even as she bristled, her jaw clenched and fists curled tight. It sounded like Matthew. Get up and walk away now, Eira, before you do something you'll regret.

She didn't want to, for more than just the crack at her age. She wanted to scream at Bole, curse him out, kick him, hit him, punish him for reminding her of all the loss those missing five years represented. Half a year later, the pain hadn't dulled in the slightest – she'd just gotten better at ignoring it.

She ignored it again, managing to make it back to her rundown, drafty, piece-of-shit apartment before breaking down and screaming into a pillow. She absolutely did not cry. Cliché an action as it was, she didn't want the whole building to know she was having a bad day. The metal of her old dog tags chilled her sternum as she lay facedown.

How did you do it, Matt? she asked the small velvet box she'd set on the bedside table, How did you always know exactly what to say?

Dead men don't answer questions. It never seemed to stop her from asking them.


When he didn't answer his door the next day, she slid a note under it apologizing for the way she'd acted. (But not, she felt it important to remember, anything she'd said.) A couple uneventful days passed, and no one in the building seemed to have heard from Bole since their fight when she asked. Nobody was too concerned – this wasn't the first time, and he always came back perfectly fine.

The knock on her door was unexpected, and she prayed it wasn't Mrs. Pastel. Old bat was utterly convinced there was something more between her and Bole, and seemingly made it a goal every week to chew at least one of them out for 'living in sin'.

She was a bit relieved when it turned out to be just the aforementioned big-cat Faunus. "Hey."

"Hey." He didn't say anything else for a long moment, but he seemed a little embarrassed and a lot nervous. "Someone from AI said they're looking for wait staff for some fancy shindig going on tonight, if you're interested."

She took the unspoken apology for what it was, and made sure – like always – to slip Matthew's ring box into her coat before she left.


Aurum Industries was probably the biggest name in Mantle after the Schnee Dust Company; they had so many derivatives and subsidiary companies and other business-sounding shit that it was almost easier to list what they didn't have a hand in somewhere. And at least among the people she regularly interacted with, AI was seen in a much more favorable light. To Eira's total lack of surprise, the heads of those companies (and of the families they took their names from) seemed to be the main reason for that.

Jacques Schnee...Jacques Schnee was a dick. Plain and simple. Granted, nothing she could find on him in print stated as such – 'freedom of the press' came with a really big asterisk around here – but a lot of what she did find somehow managed to convey an undercurrent of begrudging distaste for the man on a personal level. "He who dies with the most toys wins" seemed to be his MO, as far as Eira could tell, and he was stomping on anyone he needed to to win. Mostly Faunus.

Gustavus Aurum, on the other hand, looked like a fucking saint compared to the Schnee patriarch. Werdin would've called him a "Royal Who Actually Did Something", because he was a nerd who spent too much time looking up random shit on the Internet when he was supposed to be working. Eira really didn't know if the Aurums had been part of the pre-war nobility like most of Mantle claimed (and she really didn't care), but they certainly acted like it, actually making an effort to ensure everyone they and their subordinates dealt with in any sort of capacity was treated equally and fairly (as far as she could tell).

Fucking fairy-tale nobles and stereotypical big-money boogeymen. This was her fucking life now. The awareness of this was just as exasperating now as it had been the first fifty fucking times.

"Bole! Was zum Teufel machst du? Sie ist menschlich!"

The unknown voice and foreign language had Eira pulling herself out of her internal grousing to see that they'd joined about a half-dozen Faunus standing outside a really fancy building. She didn't speak a word of German – 'Atlesian', 'Mantelian', she'd long since run out of fucks to give – but she didn't need it to see they weren't exactly thrilled with her presence. She was still wishing she'd paid a bit more attention when Werdin had started jabbering away in it, though.

"Es ist alles gut, Jungs. Sie ist cool."

It sounded as angry as ever. She put on what she hoped was a friendly smile and gave a small wave. This whole song and dance wasn't anything new to her, sadly, though usually it was in English and she could answer for herself. It seemed to work, though. They didn't get all chummy, but most of the Faunus visibly relaxed and Bole glared the other two into submission.

Clearing her throat to break the silence before it got awkward, she addressed the sinking feeling in her stomach as she took in the easily-concealable nature of her temporary companions' various Faunus traits. "Judging by the way everyone looks, SDC's gonna be at this thing, aren't they?" And wow, the number of ways she could mean that was almost Umber-levels of vague. She wasn't sure if she should be proud or disturbed.

A guy who didn't look too much older than her with dark grey rabbit ears that flopped down behind his shoulders and matching hair nodded genially. "Seems so. Rumor is, Jacques Schnee himself is putting in an appearance."

She missed the triumphant little grin that Bole flashed one of the others as she scowled. "Damn it, I already met my 'bigot' quota for the month."

The lop-eared Faunus snickered. "Don't worry; I doubt he'll let any of us close enough to even qualify as in the same room."

The real funny part was he thought she was joking. She genuinely didn't know how well her bearing would hold up if the Schnee CEO was as bad as she'd heard him to be.

Any further ice-breaking was cut off by a sharply-dressed older man ushering them inside and then separating them by gender to change into provided uniforms of dark golden-yellow and black. The array of available sizes and fits was impressive, and she found herself (quietly) agreeing with an almost literally doe-eyed lady expressing her desire to keep them. They were very nice clothes.

There was just one problem: she didn't have anywhere to put Matthew's ring box. It either wouldn't fit or it'd draw too much attention. She couldn't – wouldn't – leave it in here with her other clothes. She never had before, she wasn't about to start now.

You could always just take the ring out. Rees didn't even try to hid the grimace as the obvious solution crossed her mind. One hand fiddled with her dog tags, the ring box sitting innocently in her other as she put off taking her own mental advice. She'd had it for over half a year now, but had never quite managed to make herself open it. It felt...too final.

"D'you think I should keep it?"

"The choice is entirely yours what you do with it."

"That doesn't tell me what you think, Umber."

"This is something indescribably personal, Rees. I'd prefer you make your decision untainted by my opinion."

She felt her jaw clench as the old conversation echoed through her mind, and opened the box before she could change her mind, barely glancing at the ring itself as she fished it out and strung it on the chain with her dog tags.

"Baby steps, Rees," she whispered to herself as she finished getting dressed, the dog tags – and ring – tucked back under her shirt, "Baby steps."


Again, my deepest apologies. We're not done in Mantle yet, however, so (God willing) the next chapter will come out before the beginning of the next Age... :P

PFCDontKnow, Out.