Unwelcome early morning light beat ceaselessly against his eyelids, and the only thing his groggy mind could think of was why on Remnant they got the only hotel room in Mistral that didn't have blackout curtains.
"Jaune," a gentle voice rang from beside him; a voice that was much more welcome than the sunlight, but not as welcome as sleep. He grunted in reply, rolling over to bury his head in the silky surface to his right.
A soft hand began running through his messy, early-morning hair, stroking his scalp with a delicate touch. He moaned contentedly in sleepy pleasure; he could stay like this forever. "It's time to wake up," the voice rang again, closer this time, but still just as gentle. He buried his head deeper in the velvety surface, willing it to hide his eyes from the sunlight and make it night again. A soft chuckle came from above him, and upon hearing it his heart soared with glee. His groggy mind however, still longed for sleep.
"Jaune, if you don't wake up soon I'll have to sick Nora on you," spoke the voice from above him, its smooth tones masking the deviousness of which it spoke. A cold feeling gripped his heart at the prospect of the pint-sized, redheaded, ballistic missile of energy solely focused on rousing his helpless and sleeping form.
"You wouldn't," he spoke, his voice muffled and distorted by the creamy skin it was pressed against and the haze of sleep still clouding his mind. A mischievous chuckle escaped the lips above him and he heard her take a deep breath.
"Oooooh Nooooraa~," his mind panicked and his eyes shot open as the dreaded sound emerged from the heavenly lips above him. His body snapped up in response, his arm gently and firmly clamping down on the source of the sound. He could feel laughter emanating from the mouth underneath his hand, but that was not his main concern. No, his main concern was the ever closer pounding of feet on wood as the demon approached the door to their room. With all the subtlety and grace of a bomb the door was thrown open, the tousled orange mane and manic grin of the energetic warrior in full view as she leaned in through the door.
"Whaddya need, Ruby?" Her words promised help, assistance, with whatever you asked, but her tone and grin promised mischief and chaos. He knew it all too well.
"Nothing, Nora, nothing at all. Ruby just- I mean, we just- we're fine." His smile was taxed and slightly desperate, his arm shaking from the barely contained mirth of the silver-eyed brunette below him. Nora's eyes flicked between the two, scanning for an opening, an opportunity, anything to inflict good-natured chaos upon. His smile grew ever more strained as the ruthless sky-blue eyes of the ginger in the door scanned over the scene before her; he was certain he was going to have a various array of bruises, mental and physical, come the next few minutes before a calm voice resounded from the kitchen and rescued him. "Nora, come help me with the pancakes," Oh thank Dust for Ren.
At the mention of the p-word Nora's eyes went as wide as her favorite dish, her body twitched and her face exploded in a smile that seemed to be as big as her arm. "Coming Ren," she shouted, her voice laced with barely contained excitement as she launched herself out of the doorway and back into the delectably smelling suite kitchen.
Jaune let all his pent up fear from the five second encounter escape in a long breath before he turned slowly to the silver eyes that stared oh-so-innocently up at him. He carefully removed the hand covering Ruby's mouth before placing it on the pillow beside her head. Leaning into it, and down to her as he spoke. "You're cruel," he stated, his voice full of faux-pain as he took his time taking in the sight of the gorgeous woman beneath him. Her red-tipped brown hair was messy and tangled from an especially active night, there was sleep in the corners of her eyes and on the edges of her eyelashes, dried saliva traced a line down her chin from the corner of her mouth from where she drooled, zig-zagging red indentations from the pillow lined the left side of her face, and her breath was a little stale from a night of sleep. He'd never seen anything more beautiful.
The white pillows and sheets around her head bounced the early morning sun off her beautifully pale complexion, so much so that it seemed she shined, radiating light and happiness into his world. Her entrancingly silver eyes were dramatically wide with fake begging, and her mouth was drawn together, her bottom lip jutting out so perfectly that it must've taken years to master. She was giving him the puppy-dog-face, mustering all her cuteness in one resounding, and adorable, attack. He didn't stand a chance.
His face broke out in a wide grin as he leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose ever so softly. Her pout vanished as she emitted a small squeak at the contact, before she pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him passionately. All thoughts of sleep vanished from his mind as the contact consumed him. The kiss lasted half a minute before they were forced to separate for breath; it was times like this where he felt that breathing was incredibly inconvenient.
Their faces were scant centimeters apart, foreheads resting against each other, eyes closed as each relished in the feeling of intimacy the other's presence, physical and emotional, provided.
"Ren's making pancakes, you know, in case you didn't hear," he spoke. His eyes still closed and his body unmoved, he didn't want this to end.
"How could I have not heard that, Jaune?" He could hear the smile in her voice, and that in turn crafted his own. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
"Well, there was that one time when you were cleaning Crescent Rose that you tuned out everything else on Remnant." His smile morphed into a smirk as he made renewed eye contact with the silver orbs below him. "And by 'that one time' I mean 'whenever you clean Crescent Rose.'"
The most minute of blushes spread across her face. "I regret nothing!" She shouted, her voice rising in pitch as her arms rocketed taut and straight over her head.
A small chuckle found its way out his mouth as he observed her triumphant form. He sighed as he rolled over onto his back next to her. But not a sigh of resignation or sadness, this was a sigh of happiness, a sigh of joy, a sigh of a man who, at this moment, could not think of a better place to be.
"Whatever you say, oh Leader Mine," he said, the smile on his lips and happiness in his tone indicative of his mirth.
"Exactly," she exclaimed, rolling over on her side so she was now looking him in the eyes again, "and as your leader I command you to cuddle me!"
A fake gasp of horror. "No, anything but that!"
Tiny arms with muscles like steel cable wrapped around him at the speed of sound, without his aura he'd almost certainly have a bruise. "Too late," she responded as rose petals drifted softly onto his chest, "it's an order, soldier!" He could feel her face nestle against his chest, before it suddenly shifted and he found himself looking into those captivating silver eyes again.
"And do you want to know what happens to soldiers who don't follow my orders?" She asked, her voice suddenly husky and low. He blushed a deep scarlet like the tips of her hair. "I punish them," she answered, fingers dancing along his chest, twirling the rose petals that lay there. "Do you want to be punished, Private Arc?" His whole face was beet red, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he struggled to find his voice.
Mount Ruby erupted in a torrent of unrestrained giggling below him at the sight of his predicament. Despite his best efforts his face still remained red, his throat locked in a losing battle trying to remember how to speak. In a last ditch effort he wrapped his arms around the shaking brunette beneath him and pulled her closer to him, trying to press her face into his chest unsuccessfully.
Eventually the giggles faded and his blush receded, and the two let the comfortable silence that only partners share reign as they each held the other. Minutes ticked by and the smell from the kitchen grew ever more enticing, but the breaths from Ruby grew ever more slow and steady. He wasn't exactly sure when, but at some point the brunette had fallen asleep, her face buried between his chest and the wrinkled sheets. She kicked softly in her sleep, drool running down the edges of her mouth and onto his chest. He stared at her, just taking in the sight of the breathtaking woman for the second time this morning.
Delicate footfalls and a soft knock tore him away from the sight of his sleeping lover and to the still open doorway of their room. There stood Ren, in his hands were two plates of pancakes, one each. The ones on the left were plain, while the ones on the right were speckled with melted chocolate chips and topped with sliced strawberries. Ever so gently Jaune raised a single finger to his mouth before pointing down at Ruby's slumbering form. Ren nodded once in understanding before placing the two plates on the top of the dresser closest to the door, and, just as quietly, left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
With a soft sigh Ren made his way back to his and Nora's room. She insisted on eating in there this morning, though why he wasn't exactly sure. He knew it would be ridiculous though, it was Nora after all. Still, he couldn't help but let a small smile grow on his face at the prospect of breakfast in bed with his partner, or anything with his partner really.
With a perfectly calculated amount of force, Ren twisted the knob and opened the door to his and Nora's room. He stopped dead in his tracks.
There, on their bed, was Nora. She lay on her side facing the door, head propped up by her left arm while the right draped seductively across her hips. She wore a smirk and nothing else; her body completely bare save for one thing. There, perfectly covering the spot between her thighs, was a plate piled high with pancakes coated in syrup.
"Hello there, Renny," she practically purred, her eyebrows wiggling so much as to almost leap off her face. "Welcome to breakfast."
"Hcccccceeellooch." A frustrated sigh. That hardly sounded like "hello" at all. She took a deep breath, her vocal chords itching in agitation as she did so. "Hccccceeeeeechllloks." A roar begging to be released tugged at the back of her throat, but she would not loose it. She would get this. She would speak.
Another deep breath.
"Hcccc-,"she doubled over as her the agitation in her vocal cords grew to an unbearable scratch. She could do nothing but hack and cough as the roughness of her throat occupied her body and mind. Her eyes were wrenched shut, yet still excess water dripped down her mask from their corners. By the end of the coughing fit she found herself on all fours on the ground, spittle slowly drifting down from her lips.
Dust dammit, it just wasn't fair. She slammed her fist hard into the ground, leaving dented earth and a somewhat placated psyche behind. She didn't know exactly how much the change had affected her vocal chords, only that they seemed to itch and scratch incredibly whenever she attempted to speak coherently. She could roar and rage all she wanted, but the second she tried to speak like a human her vocal chords called it quits.
That wasn't to say she hadn't made any progress, as minute as it was. Her voice listened to her, and she had managed to somewhat bridge the divide between her brain's commands, the sound her chords made, and the way her mouth shaped them. Still a long way from being able to hold a conversation, but progress nonetheless.
Two weeks had passed since she departed Vale and stepped into the shadow of a true monstrosity. At first the pack had consisted of many an ancient Grimm: Nevermore, Ursa, Deathstalker, Taijitu, Goliaths, all immensely old and powerful. And incredibly numerous given how rare ancient Grimm were. That pack had dwindled in power but grown in number since her departure. One by one, the Elder Grimm split off, going their own ways and leading massive war parties of their own species, and, as they left, weaker Grimm would fill in the ranks. Currently she travelled with the Ancient Goliath, an Ancient Deathstalker where originally there had been six, two Elder Alpha Beowulfs, an Ancient Ursa Major, and about fifty or so young Grimm, mostly Beowulfs and Ursa with a few creeps here and there.
Yet, even among that ancient and hateful pack, the Goliath she had spoken with remained supreme; the undisputed leader in every way. She'd be lying if she said it wasn't intriguing, the potential to talk to Grimm. She had an opportunity that no human being had ever had, or may ever have again. The opportunity to learn about the creatures, understand them, and then, ideally, use that information for their total annihilation.
But, at the same time, the human part of her found it abhorrent in every way: to make any effort of communication or understanding on her part was traitorous, yet it was more than that. The part that still clung to the truth of her being Pyrrha Nikos felt threatened by any effort to become more like them than she already was, and doing something as simultaneously taboo and unheard of as holding a conversation with one seemed like it only drove her further away from who she was, and down an ever darkening path. At what point did the ends cease to outweigh the means? Would she gain vital information to save humanity, or merely lose herself in the darkness and become the monster her physical form already said she was?
The choice should've been obvious, instantaneous, the lives of the many outweighed that of her own. And yet she still found herself hesitating. Why? Because you're a coward. She grit her teeth and clenched her fists at the sound of the hated voice in her head. She wasn't a coward. Was she?
The sudden ceasing of the constant shaking of the earth that had been her marching tune for the past two weeks roused her from her thoughts. She looked up to find the Goliath, along with the rest of the pack, had stopped dead in its black tracks. She was on the cusp of asking what exactly caused them all to stop when she heard it: a dull and familiar roar on the edge of her hearing. Her head shot up to the cloudy sky, eyes scanning the puffy white monstrosities for the source of the sound, mimicking the fifty other blood red pairs in her motions.
There. A single glimmering dot burst from the clouds, followed by the instinctual growls of the mindless younger Grimm. The ancient ones remained stock still, the only indication that they were alive being the steady rising and falling of their chests. Their eyes remained locked on the cloud, ignoring the bullhead that had emerged. She soon understood why.
Like bees bursting from a hive the cloud exploded with glistening silver dots and the air filled with the deep vibrations of roaring dust engines.
She was shocked. She didn't think she'd seen this many small ships before, there had to be at least fifty, all flying in formation. They flew west, straight over the angry horde below them and back towards Vale.
Her head tracked them as they flew above, hands clutching her ears in an effort to protect them from the vicious vibrations. Of the fifty or so ships, about fifteen seemed to be escorts, their massive rotary cannons and missiles glinting menacingly in the sunlight; the rest were all transport Bullheads. The young Grimm around her were berserk, gauging the ground with their claws, the Beowulves attempting to leap up and somehow claw the transports far above them in a vain effort to cause damage. They growled and howled, claws and teeth gnashing at the wind as the roars of the engines drowned them out. But the elders were different. Not one of them made a move; they all stood still save for the rotation of their heads that tracked the airships' progress with unblinking resolve until they vanished again into the clouds.
The Goliath snorted, the grass beneath its trunk flattened for a second as so much air pressed so suddenly against it. They send reinforcements to the Forest City. A small flicker of relief sparked in her mind before a brief trumpeting coupled with a voice drew her attention. Take the surrounding Minds and Mindless and go back. The Goliath spoke, black skin rippling as the enormous muscles in its neck shifted its head towards the larger of the two Ancient Deathstalkers. She does not wish them to reclaim it yet. I will stay with the New One.
The Deathstalker's mouth foamed, it's pincers snapping together excitedly as it turned and scuttled back down the path from whence they had come. All the ancient Grimm followed immediately, followed by the "Mindless" younger ones, defaulting to the command of their more powerful leaders. The roiling and almost solid mass of black fur and muscle that was the pack tore back through the trees before disappearing into the foliage.
It was just her and the Goliath now.
She forced her eyes away from the trail of uprooted trees and destroyed dirt and back to the Goliath above her.
Where are we going?
The Goliath trudged onwards, not turning to face her as it spoke. You are going to the Mountain Island to the East, I am escorting you to the ocean.
The Mountain Island? Her mind mulled over the Goliath's "words" before it registered and she stopped.
The Mountain Island to the East. Mistral. She was going home.
A/N: Surprise Lancaster! For those wondering, yes this was always going to happen, and no Ruby and Jaune have not done the do. You can sleep in the same bed as someone without banging, calm down. What does this mean for Pyrrha? Well, honestly not much has changed from her original plan. The only difference is that now he's actually with someone (which really isn't a new thing to her in all honesty). She never planned on "getting back" with him as she is now, so that part remains unchanged, maybe if she finds a cure or something, who knows? I do.
Anyway, about the evolution of Jaune and Ruby's relationship: I felt this was honestly quite natural, shared grief like this leads to the development of very close bonds that, over the course of a year, could grow romantic. It may seem sudden, but one of the main themes of Pyrrha's character and subsequent demise was that you should go out there and do it right now because tomorrow, especially as a Hunter, is never ever guaranteed. Act while you're alive and craft happy memories for your death and all that.
Anyway, the latter part of this chapter is probably pretty crap in all honesty; I've been incredibly busy so I haven't had time to proofread it carefully, let alone revise it and stuff. I'll try and get around to that later this week, apologies to all of you that have to read through my word vomit, but I really wanted to get this chapter out today and I simply wouldn't have been able to if I'd held onto it for any longer.
Those of you who read 'A Lazy Morning' might've noticed that this is the same text, and that is not by accident. That entry was always meant to be a brief part of Chapter 10, and really I just wanted to enter something and I had that lying around so I was like 'what the hell, why not.'
Once again a big thanks to MrWizard70 for brainstorming/beta-ing/some mix of the two!
Have a good one, guys!