"Oi, Thend, run up ahead and let the healers know we're coming! We should be close now." came a shout, breaking through the surrounding woodlands.
Jaune stopped right in front of the path leading to Angort, his hand coming to an easy rest on his sword. Slowly easing backwards into the treeline, he cast a sharp eye through the underbrush to see if he could catch the source of the noise.
Soon enough he saw a young boy sprint right past him, breathing heavily and carrying a rattling quiver of arrows on his back.
The boy clearly knew where the village was, so odds are it was one of the groups they sent out every day. Forcibly relaxing the tension in his shoulders, Jaune stepped out from his spot and on to the road. His hand didn't leave his sword, though. After all, it never hurt to be ready for trouble, especially in these times.
Even then, he removed it a second later when the owner of the voice came around a bend in the woods, accompanied with a wagon and a couple hunters dragging it. Game hung on their pelts and off the wagon, though three of them carried a makeshift pallet made from bows to carry a comrade of theirs.
"How are things over there?." Jaune said calmly, though not quietly. The party stopped for a second to look up at who had spoken, before one of the men bearing the pallet recognized him. "Ah, Jaune! Give us a hand, will you lad?" cried Ivar, the hunter looking surprised yet relieved to see him.
Jaune nodded and jogged towards the group, shifting some of the weight from the front of the pallet into his hands. He probably could have carried the front half on his own to give Ivar a break, but knew not to cross that line. People looked after their own out here.
"What happened?" Jaune asked, glancing over his shoulder to the groaning man they carried.
"The fool, got gored by one of the stags out here. Was a city boy when he came here, and some people just never get used to how aggressive these animals can be." Ivar looked dour for a moment before laughing, "At least ya' got em' though, didn't ya' boy!"
The man, clearly not a young boy, moaned in pain again, clutching his stomach. Ivar snorted before flicking his head at the cart.
"Stabbed the bastard right in the eye."
Jaune gave a grunt of approval. Civilians had a hard time keeping their eyes on the prize in tough situations. That he'd managed to finish the thing was to be commended, even if he'd nearly gotten himself killed in the process.
The man didn't have his aura unlocked, or Jaune could have healed him then and there. Though, that was probably for the best. Projecting your soul outwards with Aura was a surefire way to attract Grimm to you. A whole town full of such souls would be shaking the wasps nest.
Adjusting his grip, they plodded down the road towards the village. The game in these parts was clearly plentiful, as they seemed laden down with plenty. It almost seemed like too much for one day, in his opinion. If they hunted too much too quickly, then the game would all be scared off.
He thought to mention it, but one look at the worried faces of the party was all it took for him to keep his mouth shut. Maybe he'd ask about it the next time he was in town, or once this was all sorted.
Conversation stayed quiet as they trotted towards the gates, the guard seeing the state of the men and waving them through without a second thought. Though Jaune didn't know where to go, Ivar guided them well enough through the town, passing by whispered concerns and going to the far side to where a large longhouse sat. Standing in the entrance was a middle-aged woman with greying hair.
"Come on then, I've been waiting for him!" the woman barked, stepping inside and beckoning them in and up the steps. Carefully, they maneuvered the hastily built contraption through the doorway and into the hut.
Jaune had been inside more than a few makeshift hospitals since he started to wander, but he had never seen one so organized. Most of the time, it was just midwives doing what they could. This place was clearly run by a professional, despite the clear lack of proper medical technology. The place was big, but tightly packed with clean beds. That only a few were empty was a good sign.
"Over here." The woman said curtly, her narrow features focused on the wound even as they lowered him on to the bed. Two young girls, probably assistants, ran up to him and began to slowly pull the bows out from under him, handing them off to the hunters.
Soon, they were all standing around quietly as the healer began to cut away at the layers around his wound, tossing scraps of clothing to the ground as the two girls scurried around her.
It only took one sharp glare at them from the healer to let them know they were no longer needed, leaving them to shuffle awkwardly out of the longhouse. The men jogged off towards the entrance of the village to help their comrades unpack the hunt, though Ivar stayed behind.
"Didn't expect to still see you around, lad," the man said, not sounding at all displeased with the idea.
"Me neither," Jaune said, giving him an easy smile. It was rare he had recurring conversations with people, and Jaune was surprised how much he missed it.
"Ha! Women do that do us, eh?" And just like that, he wasn't so sure he did.
"Hey, that's not exactly-" he began, but Ivar had already started to run off, but not without calling back.
"Looked to me that ya' memorized the way to her house pretty fast!" Ivar called, laughing as he turned a corner and slipped away.
Jaune felt an uncharacteristic blush creep up his neck at the insinuation. Gods, what was with this town? Admittedly, he felt the temptation to run after the man but decided against it. Ivar would probably just laugh at him even harder for it.
Rolling his eyes, Jaune began retracing his steps through the town. While not a large town as some he'd seen, it was clear it had grown rapidly in a short amount of time. Buildings were squeezed tightly together, with only small and narrow alleys rarely breaking up the wall of houses. The street wasn't that much better, as Jaune weaved his way down the cramped street, dodging around groups of townsfolk chatting away.
Soon, he found himself back in the marketplace, eyebrows raising at the clamour as an unexpectedly large amount of people haggled and bartered in the square. It seemed like the number of shoppers had nearly doubled since the last time he had been in here.
Sighing, he drew out the small notepad Cinder had given him, with a small list of errands scribbled into them. It took him a few seconds to squint at the items as he tried to make heads or tails of the words.
Cinder had atrocious handwriting. Huh. Who knew?
Slowly, he worked his way from one end of the market to the other, slowly gathering what she ordered while he checked out the stalls around him. New stalls had sprung up, some with rather interesting products he hadn't seen in ages. Someone had clearly gotten their hands on a large supply of toothpaste, and the stuff was selling like hotcakes as people swarmed the stand. A man so fat that it looked like he didn't have a neck sat in a lawn chair by his stand, which was essentially just a rack filled with a motley assortment of weapons, though most looked to be of decent quality. A few even looked to be huntsmen-grade.
The arms-dealer saw him looking and waved him over, not saying anything as he gestured for Jaune to take a closer look. He raised an eyebrow as the man tiredly waved a fan in his face, despite sitting under shade. That, was provided by two heavily customized Atlesian Knights holding umbrellas over him, though their eyes were locked permanently on the weapons rack.
Jaune hadn't seen those in ages, and if he was honest, it was far more interesting to him than any of the weapons.
When he asked the man about it, he laughed heartily, "Good sir, you have a keen eye indeed. These bodyguards of mine were assembled from none other than the remains of those present at the Fall of Beacon!"
The reminder of that brutal event was all it took to make Jaune frown deeply, which the other man noticed.
"I-I found them, and decided to rebuild them!" The man stammered under Jaune's withering look, "I rerouted their command systems to run on old AK-130 code, making them independent of that foolish 'hive-mind' Atlas was so fond of!"
Jaune leaned forward and inspected the vivid paintjobs completely covering the once pristine white armour. The logic was sound, in a way. Why leave valuable technology sitting around when you could make it work for you?
"Not a horrible idea, though I have no idea how you power them. The Dust for that just isn't around anymore."
"Ah, I'm working on that. So far, I just use them as displays and toss them in the wagon when I'm not. Been looking into some way to harvest a substitute form of energy, but I've had no luck so far."
The man had such a determined look on his face, that Jaune had to smile. It was surprising how quickly he paced and waved his hands as he spoke. It was rare to find a man eager to move forwards nowadays, even though greed was probably his motivation.
Some other customers were looking keenly over his shoulders though, and Jaune could tell it was his time to move on.
"Well, I hope you solve it for all our sakes." Jaune called as he walked off. The thought of a world no longer dependent on Dust was one to aspire to, even if it was nearly impossible. At the very least, the SDC was no longer around to stonewall research funds.
Digging himself back into the small crowd, Jaune took to touring tables until he came across a familiar face.
"Temptation! You're looking slightly less grumpy than last time!" came a cheerful call as he neared the stand, bright eyes drawing him forwards. It came from a busty woman with long brown curls and two emerald eyes looking at him with mirth.
Putting on an easy and practiced smile as he walked towards her, Jaune desperately wracked his brain for her name. He'd really tried to improve his memory over the years, but he was still a trainwreck when it came to names.
The woman, thankfully, spared him the torture, "It's Bella, we met a ways back. Remember? You hit on me and I almost called my husband?" She leaned forwards, letting her locks drop onto her ample cleavage.
Jaune, however, had grown up around Yang and so his eyes firmly locked on hers. "You must be mistaken, I only remember the quality of your wares and service," he said, tone polite as he glanced around the stall, bearing a small range of poor to actually decent quality fabrics. The latter part surprised him, however. A lot of classical weaving and loom techniques had been lost when the kingdoms industrialized, so being set back so hard led to most villages struggling to create the basic necessities.
Bella merely snorted, "You're damn right I got quality goods…" she muttered before crouching behind her stall. Jaune raised a hand to the side of his head as he looked towards the sky, praying for something to save him from strong women he didn't understand.
Predictably, the Gods kept their hands clean of the trainwreck that was Remnant, and Bella popped back out with a large bundle held in her two hands. It was neatly folded and covered in a thin, slightly waxy paper held together with a string tied into the shape of a bow.
"Okidokes," Bella said, dusting the "Here we are. Most of this stuff was still with the caravan's until yesterday, so it's good you stopped by when you did," she commented, quickly sifting through order forms in a small ledger.
"Thank you," Jaune said with a nod, reaching over to take the package out of Bella's hands. She, however, danced it out of his reach without even looking up from her task.
"Ah ah ah! Not so fast." she tutted, "first I have a question for you. Or, a few actually."
Jaune lifted an eyebrow. "And why exactly should I answer them?"
"Eh. Consider it a downpayment on her next order."
"I have a feeling I'm not going to get a choice in this matter, am I?" he sighed.
"Tragically, you don't. Besides, I figured you would love the chance to talk with me for a bit longer." Bella smiled lazily, finally looking up from the ledger to flutter her eyes at him.
Jaune just snorted.
"Sure, I'm sure you have a lot of stories about your time with your husband you'd like to share."
Bella pouted, "Hmph. You're no fun. Can't take a little teasing?"
"Not when you tried to make me eat your wedding ring last time."
She laughed, waving him off with what was her ring bearing hand, ironically. "Fair enough. But yeah, how exactly do you know Autumn?" The question was asked innocently enough, but Jaune still felt his muscles tense up.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked cautiously, mostly to get a feel for how she was going to keep probing for information. Most likely, it was for some inane reason like feeding a rumour mill, but he couldn't help himself from choosing his words carefully.
The curse of experience.
"Well, I never see her with anyone in town, except for when she comes in to town to buy things. She's pretty secluded, though she got sick once and stayed with the healer for a few days. Just figured there was probably an interesting story behind how you two met."
Jaune closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Yes, it really was an interesting story. One full of murder, love, heart-break, plots, monsters and a cutting hopelessness slowly eating away at everyone in the world until a final battle for the fate of the world.
"We ran into each other a few times in the past, even studied together for a while. She's… been there for almost every important event in my life, though not always when I wanted her to be. I thought she was dead until I found her here."
"So you've just been here, catching up all this time?" Bella asked, apparently having bought his hilariously vague story. Though, murky backstories were common enough. People didn't like to remember life before the fall.
"Sort of. I do housework and heavy lifting for her, and in exchange she's painting a picture for me."
She made a noise of understanding before suddenly leaning forwards and leering. "Heavy lifting, huh? So you two are a thing then?"
Jaune spluttered in indignation, "Wh- No we are not! Why does everyone keep saying that?!"
Bella rolled her eyes. "Because you aren't staying in town, and you're with her in the woods?"
Jaune stared at her blankly.
"Alone?" she continued, looking at him in confusion.
"We are not sleeping together, thank you very much. I camp in the woods."
"Oh…" Bella said, deflating somewhat with a small frown.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, now if that's everything…?" Jaune prodded, sticking one hand out for the package.
Bella pulled it a bit further away, causing his eyebrow to twitch.
"Then what exactly are you?"
The question made Jaune stop in his tracks. And it was a good one indeed. The two of them had made-up of a sorts, agreeing to leave their hatred for the other in the past. It wasn't easy, and sometimes he would feel his anger spike when he looked at her.
...And other times she would make him laugh, and he'd be happy to be around her. She wasn't how she had been in the past, her murderous and conniving self becoming diluted with time to snark and a temper. Jaune couldn't say he hated being around her now, and he felt himself less and less jumpy with each day he spent near her. She was an acquaintance? A business partner? He wasn't sure what to call their relationship.
"She's a friend," he said quickly, as though the word would bite him for his treachery.
It was weird. It didn't really feel like wrong once it was out there.
"Shame. But at least someone's talking to her. It's a wonder she hasn't lost it out there with only her paintings for company."
She probably had, if Jaune were being honest. Was it possible to drive a crazy person sane?
"Thanks for being a good sport," Bella said, interrupting his thoughts by placing the package into his waiting hands.
"No problem." Jaune replied, feeling more than a bit drained with all the socializing he had done. "Have a good day Bella, I'll see you around."
"For sure! See you at the festival!"
Jaune stopped in his tracks, turning back to look at the vendor. "Festival?"
She looked back up at him, surprised. "Yeah? Didn't you know? It's nearly time for the harvest festival."
"No, sorry. I arrived in Vale in the Spring, so I haven't been in any of the towns for it so far."
"Ah, don't worry about it then. For the most part, it was something only the most backwater or fringe towns did. But hey, Angort used to be a backwater! I don't know if it's the same in other villages, but now's the time when the last harvests are being pulled in. People from all around the woods come to town for a big festival and feast. Helps people make connections and remember the sense of community that makes us strong… or something like that."
So, that explained the sharp increase in population around here, as well as the abundance of game being brought in. It was probably to trade and use in the feast.
"When is it?" Jaune asked, surprised to find himself slightly excited by the idea. It had been a long time since he'd seen a real party or festival. Atlas couldn't afford to have them, neither could Vacuo.
He'd only been to one in Mistral and that was… pagan, to say the least.
"It's in two days! With the Grimm starting to fade out in this area, more and more people can make it into the town! This may be the biggest one yet, so bring an appetite." The woman beamed, before her eyes flashed with an idea, "Oh! And Autumn! She never comes, not even once! You're our best shot of seeing her have fun."
Jaune smiled and nodded at the girl before stepping away, off in search of the next item on his list.
"I'll try!" he said.
And to his surprise, he realized he meant it.