Today was… eventful.

That is the only word I can use to describe it. I think I'm still in shock from parts of it, but maybe writing about it will help.

Father was… less than happy that I'd planned to take a break today. He'd originally planned for me to meet with a suitor from another prominent dust chain. He was furious when he found out that I'd gone around him and cancelled. I think it was the fact that I wasn't letting him puppet me as he often does. We had a shouting match over breakfast when his schedule was updated. It ended when he called me an idiot for going to Beacon instead of Atlas Academy. He said he'd be signing me up to start there next week.

Personally, I don't want to think about next week right now, but I'll write about the plan so I can get it out of my head and move on to more important things.

Father said I'd be leading a team at the academy. Of course, I wouldn't be required to go on actual missions because I'd be in an officer position. This would let me tend to the company instead. With the way he's constantly going on about the company, you'd think it would put itself out of business if left alone for an hour.

I… didn't let him see me cry. Vale fell a few months ago, but I can't write Beacon off. The memories are still far too fresh. My team was my family. No, they are my family. I can't write them off like that, even if we're separated now. I just have this feeling that if I do, nothing will be the same. Plus, I'm not meant to lead a team. Ozpin knew that, and looking back I can't deny that he was right. It showed after Ruby… fought that dragon. I couldn't keep Blake from leaving, or Yang from closing in on herself. I couldn't even stop myself from leaving. How am I supposed to lead a team if I can't even lead myself?

So I've decided that I will not set foot within Atlas Academy. Not unless it's as part of a team I want to be part of. And that means I won't be a leader.

I'm sure father won't be happy with that decision, but I need to start doing some things for myself. The first of which I did earlier today after father left for his meetings.

I took my grandfather to the city today while my father was out on business. It's surprising how my rapier and a stern frown makes the guards move out of my way despite what their instructions might have been.

I used my glyphs to help my grandfather move to the car and a second time into the shop I had taken him to. He seemed shocked at the sudden impulsiveness to the outing, but I could tell he was just happy to get out of the house, or rather, out of the fancy prison in his words. Not that he appreciated having to rely on me to do it. In the beginning he flat out refused to come until I told him that I'd freeze him into a block of ice with dust if he refused, and take him anyway. I think that he wasn't too impressed with me but he was much happier once he realized where I instructed our driver Tom to stop.

It turns out that my grandfather knows the man who runs the medical supply shop I took him to. And not just as an acquaintance. The two spent almost two hours telling me about the crazy stuff they went through together during the faunus war before they realized I'd brought my grandfather for more than just a visit. Once he was in a powered wheelchair (which I paid for with my personal savings to avoid my father's detection), we went for a walk around the city.

I always knew that there was a lot that I didn't know about Atlas, but I had no idea how much I'd learn from just walking with my grandfather. Underground tunnels, bunkers, and strongholds all hidden in plain sight beneath the simple architecture of stores, malls, and mass housing. The city, it seemed was a veritable fortress against every imaginable threat, and that didn't even take into account the much more modern military installations that bordered the perimeter wall.

It scared me how quickly I devised a plan to run away from here, but I knew that it would be impossible to outrun my father's influence before he would catch up with me. Proof of that was the guards that followed us around, never letting us out of their sight. But at least I have something new to research as the tunnels seem even more extensive than even grandfather knows.

But the main highlight of the afternoon had to be when we passed my father who was walking from his car into a store. The look on his face was definitely worth every trouble I had endured to get my grandfather out of the house. The only thing more I could have asked for was that he would have chosen to ignore us. Unfortunately, he seemed to be with the suitor he'd wanted me to meet and in no uncertain terms forced both of us to accompany them for lunch.

Afterwards, I think my grandfather was in a worse mood than I was, and that is saying something, seeing as I was debating how much trouble I'd get into for slitting that suitor's throat with Myrtenaster. Luckily, grandfather saved me the trouble. He actually threatened the suitor when he attempted to lay his filthy lips on me before leaving. It was both colourful and more creative than Yang's best puns. Father, of course, was livid.

I on the other hand, was overjoyed. It took so long, but finally I have someone other than Winter on my side. I felt as if… no… I feel as if I can do anything now. I know it seems silly, but I always feel as if I'm constantly making mistakes in everything I do, but now I see that my father is asking for perfection. Something that has never been possible. I'm not a political mastermind, I'm not a heartless business tycoon. I'm a teenage girl, a huntress. Someone who cares for people and just wants to be accepted for her abilities and talents. For her resolve to do what's right. And my grandfather seems to understand that. He knows who I am and to an extent, what I want.

He actually shouted at my father for letting the suitor within ten yards of me. He called him a "sleazy slime-ball" among other things I'd prefer not to repeat here. That memory won't be going anywhere soon. And he did that in the middle of the restaurant with all eyes on the loud exchange. It was as if social decorum meant nothing to the man, and I couldn't help but feel satisfied that my father had been put in his place publicly. But in the end, I was the one who suffered because of it.

The two of us continued going around the city after lunch, but something was different. It was as if grandfather had deflated into a mere shell of the man I'd been starting to know. I tried asking him what was wrong but he wouldn't say anything, instead focusing on my life and what I wanted to do with my future. We talked for a long time until it was getting dark and then we headed back to White Castle. I helped him to his room, using my glyphs as an escalator on the staircase, and he left me at the door when the nurse came along to bring him his pills. He said goodbye to me then.

Not the goodbye that means you'll see that person on the morrow, the type of goodbye that fills you with a sense of dread and loss. He told me how proud he was of me, and to never give up my dreams. He told me to be careful around my father and to remember what was really important in life as it seemed the rest of the family had forgotten. He said he was happy that I'd spent the last few days with him, but told me that I shouldn't have wasted my time with him. But he still thanked me as if I'd given him the best gift in the world.

I didn't have much time to consider what he meant by all that though, as my father summoned me to the training grounds almost immediately afterwards. I had expected something like that, but I wasn't prepared for what happened.

He wanted to duel me.

He saw that the simulator wasn't achieving his goal, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

I felt like he wanted to kill me. But at least he gave me time to prepare, because that's when something I wasn't expecting happened.

I could tell from the anger on his face he meant business, so I tried to summon that knight. For whatever reason, I must have been concentrating properly because for the first time ever, it worked. Not that it lasted long, it took him less than three hits to destroy it before he summoned his own creatures.

He summoned creatures I recognized and those I didn't with his glyphs, giving them various elements with his dust. I attempted to counter them, but in the middle of battle, I could only summon the arm of that knight again. It didn't last long either. I think the whole fight lasted five minutes, as his creatures and their inherent elements were only too simple for me to counter with Myrtenaster. The problem was, that once his summons were defeated, and I was already weakened from the fight, he joined in with his own rapier.

I originally thought fighting at Beacon was difficult, that fighting in the Vytal festival was hard. But fighting my father is like fighting a wall. I didn't land a single hit on him and he ended up breaking five of my ribs, tearing a deep cut into my left arm and an equally deep hole in the same shoulder. And then, even after all the damage he'd done, he threw me across the room and through the wall that separated that training room from the next.

I'm not entirely sure what happened after that as everything seems to have blurred together, but I woke in my bed with my chest and my right arm in a cast. My left has been bandaged and moving my head too quickly makes me feel sick. One of my legs feels like it's been badly bruised as well. And my father had the audacity, after causing all these injuries, to come by and ask me if I still wanted to be a huntress. I told him I'd have to think more about it in order to buy time. If I say that I still want to become a huntress, I'm sure he'll pull me back into a sparring room whether I'm injured or not. But I am going to become a huntress, whether he likes it or not. All I need to do is recover my aura enough to repair my leg and arm, and possibly a few ribs before I do what I know I need to. Grandfather was right in telling me that I need to be careful around my father. I'm not safe with him, and unless I bend to his every whim, I never will be.

And that leads me to the last thing that happened right when I was about to start writing here. The one thing that made everything balance out, and left me in a decidedly good mood. I check my Beacon scroll to find out what I should write about before I ever start writing. Not that I always follow the prompts, but at least it sometimes helps me focus. Today wasn't one of those days, as I never got to open the app. I was completely distracted by the reading on my team roster which had up until recently been greyed out with warnings about proximity.

With the CCT in Vale down, all communications are simply local to the kingdoms. So it was a big surprise when I saw that Ruby's aura gauge was green, even if it still had a proximity warning. It meant Ruby was close, not necessarily in the kingdom, but close. I couldn't resist the urge to call her.

The conversation was exceedingly short since Ruby's reception was terrible, but I was able to instruct her to meet me in the city tomorrow. I know it seems selfish of me to take her away from whatever she was doing, but I really need a friend right now. With Winter on deployment, and grandfather being even more powerless than myself in terms of my father, I need someone who looks at me as a person and who was never afraid of doing the right thing. Ruby's always been special that way. She was my friend because she wanted to know me, not because of my money or my status. And at Beacon she was always going on about becoming heroes and saving the people. And right now, I really need that. Not the actual saving, but the optimism.

I sent a text with details to a hotel that wasn't overly luxurious as I knew she had always been averse to the "fanciness" that I've had forced down my throat while growing up. I instructed the hotel to give her whatever she wanted and to charge my private savings. It would have been stupid of Ruby to journey across Remnant alone, so I assumed she at least had her father or uncle with her. Yang's gauge was still grey, after all.

I think I'm still in shock at seeing Ruby's green aura readout on my scroll. I don't think I truly realized how desperate I was to find out if she was okay. I think I was actually crying when the static of her voice came through the speaker. And it didn't help that at that very moment, I realized something that my grandfather had told me about my grandmother was happening to me.

He'd told me that no matter how bad a day he might have had, as soon as he heard my grandmother say his name he knew everything would be okay. That his bad day was almost immediately forgotten in the happiness of hearing her sweet voice. I never knew my grandmother, and I'd thought he'd been exaggerating. But what happened when Ruby answered, even with her voice marred by the static of a bad connection, made me realize exactly how much she might just mean to me.

I'm not exactly sure if I feel safe in saying anything right now, but I can say I've never felt like this toward anyone in my entire life. It's… terrifying. Ruby's voice washed away all the negative feelings from today and left me with a feeling of excitement as I anticipate our meeting tomorrow. It's been so long since I heard her voice and saw her face that I'm almost afraid of what I'll find. But even so, I feel as if tomorrow will be one of the best days I'll have since before everything happened.