-Day 9: Monday-
[*] Coco's surname has not yet been revealed in canon. I was seriously 29K words (holy shit 48 pages!) into this fic, writing that line, the ending already written (thus this was the last or penultimate chapter to write (Edit: Nope, third to last), before I realized I did not know it and then discovered it was unknown. Instead of making something dumb up, I just left it to imagination.
Coco's eyes fluttered open, squinting under the bright light. Above her the light was off, but sunlight streamed in from the window behind her. Why am I awake? So soon, I thought they were going to make me sleep. It was night, though, wasn't it? Piece by piece control of her body returned, first her breathing, then fingers, legs, and shoulders. A soft beeping registered behind her. I suppose that means I'm not dead. Why did I wake up? What's that smell, food? She turned her head to the side, noticing that the curtain was open, pushed tightly to the wall behind her head, revealing the bottom half of a bed. A metal utensil scraped a glass dish, close, from the bed beside her?
"You woke up! Hello." a voice on her other side spoke. A smile shone down on Coco when her head turned to look. The person was fiddling with the machine, turning it off before removing the sensors from her chest. Beside the bed was a folded outfit placed in the seat of a chair, and behind the man a wall with a closed door. "Now that that is taken care of, I'll go get you something to eat."
He turned to leave, but Coco spoke, her quiet words having trouble forming but were effective to stop him. "Where are Fox and Velvet?" How are they?
"Coco! Good morning sleepy head!" a cheery voice piped up from the bed to her right. Peeking around the curtain by leaning forward, Velvet smiled at her late-rising leader.
Coco returned the smile, then looked back to the nurse when he spoke. "Fox is meeting with Headmaster Ozpin at present." His own cheeriness seemed paled by Velvet's, professional without connecting, although not false. He turned and left with a subtle bow of his head.
Velvet had scooted down her bed, now sitting cross-legged with a bowl in her lap, no longer obstructed by the cloth wall. Coco sat up, fleetingly surprised that her vision did not darken with the movement.
"I'm impressed I didn't wake you up." said Velvet, starting the conversation before putting another bite of food in her mouth.
"Why? Did something happen?"
Velvet laughed. "They said I woke up hard, that I jolted up and was freaking out. Apparently it was because they had to knock me out last night because I was being non-compliant and not letting go of the sword, so they couldn't do their jobs." Her voice seemed to lose energy, the silence marked by her taking another bite of food.
Coco did not grant her the reprieve of another topic, perfectly fine with sitting in silence, back at school, with a teammate. We made it back. Velvet continued to eat in silence, although slowly, fidgeting just enough to demonstrate that she wanted Coco to try starting the conversation this time. I did it Yatsuhashi.
A bowl appeared in front of her, held by the nurse that had left, wrapped in a dish towel. "Here you go. I put a glass of juice on the table behind you. Once you eat, you should probably wash up and change your clothes." He indicated the end table, then the chair beside her bed and the door to the bathroom. She simply nodded and took the bowl, not bothering to turn to where he gestured.
Looking now, Coco noticed that Velvet was wearing the same thin dress that had been placed on herself. Her attention fell to the bowl in her lap, unsure if she really wanted to eat it. Every fiber in her body was yearning for its nourishment, her hunger hit her as if stored from the last two days, and she did not care enough to fight against the urge. She ate quickly, perhaps too quickly, eating the last forkful of the flavored rice and vegetable mush as Velvet reached the bathroom with the clothes and towel that had been laid beside her own bed.
"I'll be fast, and then you can go when you finish your lunch." Velvet smiled, apparently unaware Coco had just done precisely that. Coco responded with a nod and a small smile of her own, impressed by Velvet's resilience.
When the door clicked, Coco fell back on her bed, stretching the arm with the bowl above her head to place it upon the table. Her eyes closed as she listened to the water from the shower.
By the time Velvet emerged, dressed with her wet hair mostly wrapped in a towel, Coco's glass had also been emptied. She looked up at Velvet, watching her pass, but did not summon the will to swing her legs off the bed and get up until Velvet had sat down.
Coco stepped out of her shower and looked at the school uniform that had been provided. My size, are they mine? From our dorm room? Or new? Weird but I suppose there is a point to the 'rooms may be searched at anytime' clause in the student code. New would explain why they picked the school uniform, or maybe it was simply the easiest outfit for just anyone to collect.
Velvet was gone when she left the bathroom, as were the bowls, although the glass had been replaced with one of water. Legs on a bed past Velvet's had appeared, Fox's? "Hey." she greeted, not really listening for a response. The two of them laid on their beds, Coco had propped her pillows against her headboard but accepted the silence without complaint.
Professor Goodwitch approached the door to their room trailed by Velvet, face tinted red, both visible through the interior windows. The professor held the door open for the student, then looked at Coco. "Your turn." she said simply, waiting patiently for the third student to follow her.
Coco was taken to the same room she had sat in the previous night. This time the headmaster was already sitting, but rose when she entered. Upon the side of the table sat a box of tissues, lacking subtlety. Professor Goodwitch stood in the doorway, having opened it for Coco, watching.
"Hello Miss -*" greeted the headmaster, offering her the seat he had occupied. "Have a seat."
"Hello."
He pushed the seat in for her and walked to the other chair. A notebook, previously unnoticed, had been moved to his side of the table as well, a pen tucked into the elastic strap. Coco swung her head around when the door closed, the professor having departed. The headmaster chuckled lightly, drawing her attention back to him, his hands opening the small book to a blank page.
"I want you to tell me everything that happened, with details, from the beginning."
"Okay. Well, it started like any other mission, we had some contact with the clients before we went there. It had been a few days without any updates, but it did not raise any concerns because the reports were of grimm attacks, not getting a message when we neared the settlement failed to engender concern as well." Coco stopped, looking up from the still pen to Headmaster Ozpin. He looked back at her, but did not say a thing. It struck her odd that he was not pushing at all, not mentioning that she had started too early, so different from last night. Surely he'd heard anything I could say twice already. She waited a breath more before continuing, but only after her attention fixed upon his notebook although glazed in recollection.
Coco mentioned the empty streets, minimal grimm damage, lack of ruts from claws, and the striking silence. The vacant administration building, the broken tower, houses that seemed untouched in their partially stocked and sparsely furnished state, all tumbled from her lips as her eyes occasionally darted around, imagining herself there again so no detail would be missed. That was barely over a week ago. Only. The cupboards bare, the restaurants cleaned out, the place preserved with only the rare window broken or shelf upturned yet sporadically barren of specific items, more missing in category than remained fully-stocked.
She was not interrupted until she began to mention the lack of garbage, tagged onto the missing smell of life and rot, and again when she offered the information that they had estimated the last shipments to arrive. In regard to both the headmaster requested that she try to maintain chronological order of her findings, with exception to anything that would not otherwise come up naturally, such as a recently realized connection.
The second day was spent on an expanded search, during which the weight of the lack of any food began to hit. Fox set up the ping and joined the search. While testing the boundary of the relay to her scroll Coco looked in trashcans, finding not a trace of anything perishable apart from print on boxes indicating that it had once been present.
Professor Goodwitch walked in quietly, and motioned for Coco to continue her sentence. She placed a glass of water on the table, then stood near the door with naught a word.
Coco continued onto the third day in the settlement, recounting their perimeter check with great care, as well as any indications she could recall about possible grimm attacks suffered by the settlement. The headmaster turned to a fresh page of his notebook and slid it to her with the pen, so she could sketch the village and try to better show the locations of the hit buildings in relation to each other. Out of scale, with thin rectangles squished between squares indicating forgotten structures, Coco marked some with an x, but only those along the edge of the village or within the segment she explored. Each step of the process to check the perimeter was relayed with particular care, I did this correctly, to procedure; the other searches might have been careless, the quiet pushing me to let our guards fall, but I was not rash, I was cautious. I did what I could with safety in mind but also expediency. See Headmaster? We checked the edge as a group, we made sure it was safe before splitting up so close to the boundary.
The door clicked again, closing as the professor departed while Coco was drawing, but this time the sound did not elicit a pause.
The next day caused Coco to hesitate. The next day was the fourth day, the third morning they woke up there. The day, as leader, Coco realized they needed a real solution to food that would not be found in the village. The day she suggested, but as leader might as well have ordered, her team to leave the settlement they had come to expecting an infestation of grimm yet not seen a threatening indication of one. Four third-year students in the best academy in the world. Armed, cautious, was it an unreasonable idea to suggest? A short-sighted situation to lead her team into? She took a sip of the water.
"We kept in mind why we were on a mission at the settlement: a large number of grimm had accumulated in the area. We stayed close, within hearing distance even if the place had not been so utterly silent. We paired off for hunting ability and mixed strengths, ready for game or grimm."
Her fingernails hit the glass in hand once each in succession.
She swallowed air, waiting for the next words to come.
She told him about about walking their half of the semi-circle back and forth, with nothing around. How it was quiet but smelled warm. How at each pass Fox and she would meet Yatsuhashi and Velvet, then start an arc farther out. She spoke about how nothing seemed to indicate anything to hunt, but that they might have missed something.
The door opened. Coco's second hand found its way around the glass, her eyes drifting from the notebook to the water held in her lap. So meek had her posture turned, uncharacteristically, but she did not notice. Someone stepped into the room. The door closed. Coco raised the glass to her lips, and took another sip before resting it on the table, her gaze on the settling liquid.
"There was a sound, it traveled easily. A roar. Fox and I looked up toward where we would have expected the other two to be, and we saw sparks. We ran."
Thorny underbrush, odd scraps suddenly taking notice, loud sounds, she filled several minutes with a description that lasted longer than it took to reach her teammates the first time. Had I missed something? I had, but would it have helped? Was there something I could have seen earlier? Can there be any value to that excursion at all?
"Yatsuhashi and Velvet had made quick work of the boarbatusks, Fox and I helped with the beowolves. More grimm arrived and sprung, I can't recall how many. I sent my team into the clearing, covering with a spray of gunfire. I ran after them; they had been halted by a nevermore's feathers. The remaining grimm, ursai, behind me I left to my team as I lined up a shot to take out the nevermores. They were bigger, not by much, than the ones from last year's breach of Vale. In the clearing I could provide a wide spray, once it was safe from the birds I once again ordered retreat."
We regrouped at the first indication of a threat. I did not underestimate the threat, I ordered a retreat to a tactical advantage. I knew we we tired and hungry, I sent us back to safety via a tactically advantageous position with cover fire. I did not hesitate to call a retreat. But it was still not good enough.
Coco took another sip of the water.
"One of the ursai got Yatsuhashi's back and threw him."
She heard the not-quite-masked intake of air from behind her. She saw the pen before her stop and be placed flat upon the page.
"I'm not sure when, I didn't notice until later. We retreated. I provided cover. The gate was already moving when I ran through, last." I was last. I accepted my duty to protect my team. I played the part of leader as assigned. I did everything I could, used what I'd learned. "I looked at the clearing, ready to cut down anything that had followed. Nothing did, they remained within the cover of the trees."
Coco told them about the barn, about getting sheets, about dressing Yatsuhashi's back as best they could. She then described what Fox and she had found in the administration building, the undamaged path, the closet, stairs, and door. She had long since broken the seal on this story that had held her back at first, now the words poured out, the events she kept replaying in her mind since they occurred, struggling to find some clue, some mistake, some reason or validation.
"The next day I had Velvet go with Fox to search the final section of the settlement for food. I thought Velvet needed a break. She seemed so refreshed after that walk she took while Fox and I re-bandaged Yatsuhashi. The sheet strips were damp, his shoulders sticky, and underneath the cuts were red. I told him they were deep and healing. They hadn't been deep enough to get an organ. They weren't healing, and now they were red. Not with blood, nor scabs, it just looked - worse. He mostly seemed okay when we spoke with him, but a few things were off. He, he didn't" remember that cardboard was all we had to eat "recall for a moment, something, oh! When we'd last eaten any food. When the others left we talked, mostly he wanted me to recount some of our adventures. His aura had not done anything, but maybe more rest would help." It didn't. I didn't bring food and it wouldn't regenerate. There wasn't anything left in him to heal, not even like a person without aura, was there? What I did, though, I don't think it could have been helped. It wasn't avoidable, right? His body was getting worse, not better, not even stable.
"I left, exploring the area again. I just wanted to do something. I would look around for a bit, then go check on Yatsu. Look around, check on him. I found a residence between a warehouse and a factory, not far from the barn." an office? Don't be too specific. I hope it burned. "I thought I might as well try my luck for a cellar, I know they are rare in settlements but the administration building had one. None of the other buildings had a hidden stairwell or door, but this one did." Lies "It was small, but there was something there. I pulled it out. It was a buck, not yet a year old, barely alive. It had likely not eaten for a week." Details are risky, stop. But I need details or else there will be questions. "It wasn't moving, just barely breathing. I went to the kitchen for a knife and a pot."
"I told Yatsuhashi I found food. It had to cook though. I told him to keep sleeping, I would meet with the other two as planned then bring some back."
Coco drank another sip of water.
"I boiled it and waited. The other two found nothing. I told them to look some more after eating, especially for any cellars, and took two portions back to the barn. I woke up Yatsuhashi and got him to eat some." They are looking for details, details only I can provide. That is why Professor Goodwitch didn't leave again. That was why they were listening to the story a third time, not just for some minor detail that the others left out. Just enough detail to avoid questions, match it to what the others would have said but use different words. "He mostly just drank the broth. Maybe with his stomach not hurting he could sleep better. Maybe the food would help his aura. He seemed tired, but we talked some more before he fell back asleep. I fell asleep soon after. When I woke up, he was dead." Why was there no more of the deer to take? Because it was small and likely ill. I took anything worth cutting off. Why did you set the barn alight? So whatever had happened to the village could not touch him any more.
Coco stopped, allowing the words to sink in, knowing that it was one of the few extra details she could add to what they had already heard. The door opened and shut.
"I set the barn alight and went to the house to wait for Fox and Velvet." she continued, her voice shaking. She drank more of the water. Coco spoke of that evening, said what she could of the basement search, some pieces still a blur. After the basement there was not much to tell.