Yang had been prowling, shoving bundles of leaves and branches out of the way as she tried to locate the travel writer whose pace was much more stealthy and swift than her own. The blonde considered turning back, believing that her hopeless sense of directions wouldn't help with her chances of finding the girl, if she truly wanted to be alone. That is until she caught onto some fuzzy noises in the distance.
Freezing on the spot, she listened in closely. The mountain air was stationary, allowing neighboring sounds to ring into her eardrums. Raised shouts were coming from behind a hedge approximately a meter away from her earth-coated shoes.
The voice, unmistakably, belonged to Blake. She was yelling out phrases, still quite indistinct and muffled.
Ducking down low, Yang pressed her body onto the nearby bushes, and allowed her senses to comprehend words. Blake appeared to be talking to herself...which didn't make much sense. Why would Blake walk away from the campsite in order to hold a conversation with her own tongue? What puzzled Yang even further was that the girl didn't seem to be just chattering away. She was asking questions.
"Are you real?" Her hearing finally registered a fully phrased sentence.
No answer was spoken. Yang shook her head, trying to focus harder since she must have obviously missed a link in between as Blake carried on as if she had received a response.
"What does that mean? Are you a ghost? Just a...a figment of my imagination? Am I going insane?"
Carefully, Yang advanced forward, resolving not to make any noise until she could conclude what was going on. Lifting her head slightly, she looked through an opening in a clump of shrubs and saw a scene that made her stomach lurch.
Blake was distraught. This was obvious. But to whom she was frustrated at, that still remained unknown.
"What is it, Adam? Answer me!"
There it was again. That cursed name.
The way she was crying out to him almost made Yang believe that Jaune had been lying to her all along. Adam couldn't possibly be dead; he was standing right there in front of Blake, engaging in some sort of a one-sided argument. But no matter how hard Yang scrutinized the landscape, squinting hard among the shadows around the spot Blake's face was turned to, she couldn't identify any signs of life.
"No! Don't!" Blake suddenly shouted, almost stumbling forward. Her hands reached out, as if trying to grab something...or someone.
"Don't go..." She whispered, her arms falling back limply to her sides.
Yang couldn't stand it anymore. This had gone on long enough. The blonde emerged from her hiding place, trying to keep her voice steady and even as she addressed the young woman with black hair. "Blake?"
"Y-Yang?" Blake swung around so violently, with a loud thud that ricocheted into the wilderness, that the blonde was worried she injured herself in the process. "What do you want?"
Yang couldn't quite control the fear and worry inside of her, as the two emotions were audibly etched into her following inquiry. "Who were you talking to?"
Even with the sky growing darker, Yang could still make out the girl's physical features. Blake was deathly pale. Fear turned her cheeks livid. She looked stunned, dazed to the point where she was unable to think or move, merely capable of breathing in and out heavily.
"No one. I was talking to myself," reacted Blake quietly, her shifty attitude betraying the pitiful fib.
"You said Adam. You were talking to a guy named Adam."
"He... No, no. I wasn't," Blake mumbled, avoiding the unblinking gaze of a concerned blonde. "You must have heard wrong."
"That's the name you shouted out in your tent. That's the name you were saying." Yang tried to connect the dots as she spoke. "Blake... Is... Is he here right now?"
Amber eyes gaped up at her in bewilderment. At the lack of a proper reply, she repeated herself. "Adam. Is he here?"
"How do you know about him?" Although she looked mightily weak and feeble, it didn't stop the girl from becoming angrily suspicious. A fierce accusation spat out at the blonde's knowledge regarding the matter. "Did Jaune tell you?"
"That's not important right now." This was the wrong way to go, which Yang realized too late. Clearly this part was essential for Blake to find out about. The blonde fretted over the idea of the girl marching back up to the tents and throttling Jaune for an explanation as to why he would so blatantly reveal such private details to a stranger. Fortunately – or unfortunately – the girl turned on her heel, storming out even further off the road.
"Wait!" Yang cried out, dodging the flinging branches in her way as she tried hard not to lose sight of the writer. "Come back!"
The level of non-response she was receiving was almost aggravating to a certain degree. Punching Mother Nature out of the way, the blonde added harshly, "Hey! If you walk off any farther, we're going to get lost!"
Yang wasn't sure which aspect prickled the girl the most: the astounding amount of meddling she was accomplishing in less than a day or the fact that she was shouting loud enough for the rest of the mountain to hear. Either way, it caused the girl to abruptly halt, swirling around and confronting the blonde with a frustrated stance. "What do you want from me?"
"I want to talk!"
"About what?"
"About you, Blake!" Yang retorted. "I think you need help."
"I'm not crazy!" The girl sputtered, ostensibly bothered by the doubt in her own words.
"No!" The blonde rebuked herself, ruefully thinking that she could have phrased it a lot better. "I didn't mean it like that!"
"This is none of your business." Blake pressed rather defiantly, her face screwed up in anger and vexation. "You don't even know anything about me!"
"Okay, fine! We've established that already!" Yang put up her hands defensively. "And you're absolutely right. I don't know squat about you. Definitely not enough for me to try and get you to talk. It sucks that I can't though, all right?"
Rage flickered very slightly for a moment. Blake looked conflicted between wanting to continue the blazing row and trying to figure out what the blonde was implying.
"So you're a travel writer. So you read a lot and you like to be alone. Even I'll have to admit, those are some pretty shitty pieces of information I have to go on. But I still like you Blake." Earnest lilac eyes gazed at the silent writer. "I like you a lot. And I really, really just want to help."
"...Thank you, Yang," the girl muttered as she brushed past her. "But I think you're wasting your time."
Jaune shivered, the uncomfortable chill of the morning creeping into his sleeping bag. For some strange reason, the interior of the tent was colder and emptier than it had been when he fell asleep last night.
Lying down on his side, he refused to open his tired eyes. His body felt too heavy to greet another day due to the strenuous amount of hiking he had forced himself to take. Even after a proper eight hour rest, his legs felt as numb as jelly. The back of his neck was sore from the weight of the camera that had been dragging him down yesterday.
Feeling stiff from his current fetal position, he carefully stretched out his legs and turned to lie on his back. He expected to be met with a soft grunt from his companion, a well-known light sleeper. Yet only the sounds of nylon fabric rubbing against each other were heard.
With a low moan, he squirmed and tilted his head towards his left. Blinking sluggishly, he noticed that the spot beside him was vacant.
Suddenly very conscious, Jaune jerked forward, sitting up and scanning the inner arrangement of the shelter. The other pair of sleeping bag was missing and all other traces of belongings from his friend were gone.
Wiggling himself out from the line of paddings, Jaune crawled on all fours, reaching up and opening the top flap zipper in a hazy daze. To his relief, he found a familiar female figure sitting near the stone cliff, staring out at the near canyon. However, it provided him with a very small amount of consolation as his fears were confirmed when he saw that she was already packed and dressed, wearing her favorite black shirt and ankle cropped pants. A lightweight wind jacket was tied around her waist and hiking boots were strapped on over her feet.
At the sound of the photographer's movements, two glowing amber eyes moved to anchor onto him. Blake certainly did not appear to be having her best morning. Her dark hair, attracting much attention from the sun, was wrapped up into a loose ponytail by an inky ribbon. Dark circles have notably deepened . Lack of sleep and rest played a major role to this, though the most significant reason was apprehension above anything else.
"So what?" Jaune asked dryly. "You were just going to take off like that?"
"No," she whispered. "I was going to wait until you woke up."
"Oh yeah?" He retaliated, badly concealing his reproachful tone. "To say what?"
Realizing she could no longer delay the task, Blake resolved to be quick and blunt. "I have to go."
Despite the radical declaration, Jaune's facial expression didn't change. It was as if he was expecting this from the start.
"I have to do this on my own."
His eyes hardened some more.
"...Please understand that."
He shuffled out of the tent while shoving on his runners. Straightening his back as he approached, it took a moment before the photographer opted to speak in a despondent manner. "No, I don't think I will ever be able to understand that."
She listened to him continue in a resigned voice.
"After Adam died, you shut us out for weeks." The girl flinched at the unexpected candidness. "And after months of pretending to be fine and avoiding the issue, you finally came to me last week and said you were going back to Remnant Valley... I'll be honest here Blake... None of what you're doing makes any sense to me."
A short pause, then he resumed in a pacifying voice. "But maybe it's because I never had to experience a loss like you did. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be for you right now. But I am your friend...and I can try... So if letting you go down there by yourself will really help you, then I'll do it."
Caring azure eyes gazed into her and Blake felt gratitude fill her insides. "Promise me you'll be safe though, okay?"
Feeling immensely warmer inside, the girl gave him a reassuring nod. "I promise."
"And before I forget..." The boy rushed back to the hanging door of the tent. Rummaging around his hiking pack, he reached down and emptied out its bulging lower compartment. Upon returning to her side, he revealed two metallic devices in both of his hands. They were small, conveniently sized radio transceivers. "I have something for you."
"A...walkie-talkie?"
"Stays connected over a range of thirty kilometers." Jaune smiled as he turned the gadgets on, fidgeting with the dials to make sure they were on the same channel.
"You remembered to pack these but not the map?"
"Are we really going to start this again?"
Smiling ever-so-slightly, Blake reached up and pulled the man around the neck into an unexpected hug.
He heard her murmur a "thank you" into his shirt. Then she broke the embrace, as quickly as she had started it. Now, Blake had never been the first one to initiate physical contact. Ever. Confounded blue eyes blinked down at the girl who pocketed the contraption in the back pocket of her pants.
"Don't worry about me," Blake told him gently, and before he could recover from his shock and wave a goodbye, she ran off to her own course, not looking back for even a short second.
If Jaune wasn't entirely sure about his decision, he certainly didn't feel better about himself thirty minutes later when his fellow travelers began to stir.
During the duration of being woken early, he had munched on a few dry crackers with Blake's leftover sardines and taken down the tent as silently as possible. The fire was lit and he had been boiling the kettle when a drowsy blonde and a refreshed redhead emerged out of their tent.
"Anyone want some coco?" Jaune offered. At the eager mumbles of consent from the duo, he handed each of them a cup of hot chocolate; they gladly took the drinks into their hands as they squatted down next to the flame.
As sleep slowly left the blonde, she surveyed around them, frowning at the fact that they were one member short. "Hey, Jaune?"
"Hmm?"
"Where's Blake?"
"Um... She's...uh...she's not here right now." He answered indeterminately, sipping slowly, careful not to accidentally burn his tongue on the scorching fluid.
"I can see that." Yang quirked an eyebrow at him. "I mean where has she gone?"
Jaune fidgeted with the front of his shirt, appearing to suddenly show great interest in the pattern on the ground. "Oh, she was getting restless so she wanted to get a head start on the hike."
The blonde's mouth had dropped open at his words. "She what?"
"It's no big deal," he said in an unconvincingly casual tone. "We'll meet her when we get there."
This, of course, had been a masterful lie. The photographer gave only vague replies to an undeceived Yang's subsequent questions as they had packed up the campsite and prepared to finish the last kilometer down Mountain Glenn.
It was staggeringly hot at the ground level of the Vale Canyon. Rays of sunlight rained down upon the stony surfaces. Heat resonated off the dirt and rocks.
Yet, these weren't the only factors attributing to the uncomfortable atmosphere.
A toned woman with vibrant scarlet hair leaned on a large boulder, basking in its cool shade. She wore a high ponytail, with a beige visor resting over her forehead. Standing parallel to her, in an orange sleeveless shirt, was a full-figured blonde. The extensive length of her bright yellow hair must have been quite a weight to carry around; nevertheless Yang wouldn't allow the redhead to even consider trapping her precious curls with a hair tie. They were waiting for their traveling companion to return. Jaune had left a few moments ago, stating that he was going to go visit a nearby park station and contact Blake.
Not being able to take a second more of her partner's uncharacteristic silence, Pyrrha turned a half-worried, half-accusatory gaze towards the blonde. "You barely ate breakfast. You didn't say anything coherent for the past hour. And you didn't pass out snoring the minute you laid down to sleep last night. I think it's about time you tell me what's going on."
Sighing, Yang faced the pair of green eyes staring into her. Pyrrha was crossing her arms, waiting patiently for an explanation. At the glum expression on her friend's face, the red-haired athlete added tentatively, "I'm assuming the talk yesterday didn't go so well?"
The blonde didn't have to think hard about that question.
"No, it went swell!" Yang responded in a sarcastically jolly tone.
The blonde glared up at the blue sky, listening to the windy breeze howling across the open valleys. "It's like...it's like playing tennis. You're standing there, waiting to rally, but the other person refuses to serve the ball!"
Pyrrha almost laughed. "What kind of analogy is that?"
"I was only trying to speak your language," said Yang tartly.
Pyrrha hummed gently, her left forefinger twirling around the ends of the golden locks flowing next to her. After a period of quietude, she asked in a purposely offhand manner: "Are you falling in love with her?"
"Yes." Yang paused, having been caught off-guard as confused panic spread across her face. "What? No! No, no, no, no, no...? Yeah, okay, we'll file that under the maybe column."
"Oh good." The redhead smirked. "I was hoping you would be clear about this."
"Is it weird...? Is it weird to be feeling this way about someone I met two days ago?" Yellow hair flew in the air as the girl shook her head in denial. "People can't fall in love that quickly, can they?"
"It's not impossible." Pyrrha smiled softly. "So what exactly are you feeling towards this girl?"
"I don't know... There's something about her that makes me want to be there for her, all the time..." Yang groaned; she rubbed the back of her neck and attempted to sort out her thoughts. "And maybe I'm being too pushy about this, but I want to help her out somehow. She just won't let me."
Pyrrha merely bobbed her head, a jocular grin not leaving her lips. "But that's never stopped you before."
Before Yang could reply, her film of thought was abruptly interrupted as Jaune arrived back, muttering to himself with his face hidden behind a large opened brochure.
According to the handout he had picked up from the station, Vale Canyon had three folds of trails to choose from. The first one, Beacon Road, was elementary, described as non-challenging, tranquil, and recording the least amount of accidents so far.
The level of difficulty grew higher by the number, as the second course – Haven – was reported as harder, but not too demanding.
And the last pathway, Atlas track, was leagues apart from the others, publicly advertised as incredibly taxing. He didn't need to finish reading the paragraph for the third trail as he was already dreadfully well-informed. Jaune thought it would have been better fitting for the commentary to state: "A grueling, dangerous hike with unexpected rock falls and flash floods!"
"Considering Pyrrha's injury and my stamina, I think we should take Beacon Road to be safe. It says here that-"
"Jaune. Where is Blake?" An irritated blonde cut him off, emphasizing each of her words when he had returned without the black-haired girl by his side.
"I told you. She got a head start," the photographer replied curtly.
"Didn't you say we were meeting her here?" Yang countered, searching around the boy as if Blake was being obscured by his hiking gear.
"No, I didn't!" Jaune pointed out in a strangely triumphant manner. "I said we would meet her when we get there. I didn't specify where 'there' was. So technically I wasn't lying. You see what I mean?"
Greatly annoyed lilac eyes narrowed at him, with the merest trace of a growl being heard by Pyrrha. Sighing in defeat, he marched forward towards the picket sign that read Beacon.
"She's taking the Atlas track," said Jaune brusquely. "We'll meet back here in the end."
"What do you mean she's taking the Atlas track?" Yang approached him rather abrasively. "Why are we going separately?"
"She wants to be alone and I'm respecting her decision." He shrugged, not cowering under the tall girl's incredulous stares. "Coming to this canyon was her idea of grieving. If this is how she needs to do it, I can't stop her."
"So you let her go?" The blonde stood, dumbfounded at the photographer. Jaune didn't wait to hear another complaint from the blonde as he turned away to walk down the stony trail. Pyrrha remained in the middle, panning left to right, completely uninformed of the whole situation.
Yang tried to process his line of reasoning, as rationally and logically as she possibly could.
Out of the trio here, he definitely knew Blake the longest; meaning he probably understood her the most. He must have thought about it thoroughly before choosing to let his friend take a treacherous path by herself. Yes, if Blake had made up her mind to travel inside this canyon, alone, to mourn the loss of a loved one, then why shouldn't she regard the girl's decision as final?
But Yang was familiar with one crucial fact that perhaps the boy hadn't come to realize yet. She knew that solitude could never be a luxury, because deep down, nobody ever wants to be alone.
With that in mind, she took all prepossessed thoughts...
And threw it out the window.
"It says here that it'll take us about two hours to get to half point, so if we start heading out now, we'll make it back here in less than five hours." Jaune notified the rest of the party as he finished reading the brochure and was folding it back into a rectangle.
"Uh...Jaune...?"
"Yes, Pyrrha?" He grunted as his eyes were fixated on the flyer crinkled in a strange way, having been creased in the opposite direction.
A skittish redhead laughed slightly from behind him. "I think now's a good time to mention something about my friend."
"What?"
"She never listens."
One step. One step was all it took for Blake to fall back onto the ground again. Her limbs shook as she crouched down slowly, both her hands grabbing onto the side railing, sticking so physically close to the stone wall that her cheeks were being steadily burned by the heated rocks. At the left side of her body was a steep cliff, dropping into the floor of a canyon, only about four stories high for now, but growing deeper and deeper into the craggy grounds for the next two hundred meters.
Blake forced her wobbly legs to straighten while breathing in and out loudly. Her shoes moved from their rooted positions, taking a medium-sized step forward. A strong warm breeze whizzed past her ears, causing her bangs to fly around, the end frays poking at her forehead.
At the last second of the passing wind, she peeked through carefully opened lids and caught a glimpse of the other side. And as if possessed by an insane spirit, Blake found her body being dragged closer to the cliff; her half-lid amber eyes peered down at the vast bottom of the canyon. The floor appeared rough and cold, despite the scorching sun sweltering down upon it. Her head swirled as she caught the color of yellowish brown stone being set ablaze by the sphere of fire, heated and heated, until the surface of it turned red, dark red...
No.
Blake jumped backwards, leaning against the wall, panting heavily with both hands slammed over her face for good measure.
There was no pool of blood. No body, she reminded herself.
She tried to fix her mind on carefree and fluffy subjects.
Cats. Books. Jaune.
Tuna. Writing. Jaune.
Yet her body failed to calm down; her heart beating so rapidly, thumping so hard that she felt her arteries could burst at any moment.
"Blake."
Uncomfortable warmth prickled at her knuckles instead of a human touch. But she had heard his voice for sure, and for the first time in weeks, she was truly glad to know that the man was there.
"Look at me."
She obeyed. Compliantly removing her hands, she gaped up at the man who was stooping adjacent to her, leveling a soothing maroon stare.
"Keep your eyes on me."
Blake did not bother to nod; she knew she would do this regardless of him asking. He held out his gloved hand, and though they both realized she couldn't take it, she reciprocated the gesture, her right gripping on the side rail and her left reaching out towards him. Her fingers hovered in the air as they tried to stick closely to his open palm as possible. Focusing on this task, she willed her legs to advance forward.
"You're doing great."
...
"You're doing great...right on par with my grandmother." A man teased as he waited at the top of a rocky hill.
"Shut up." A girl retorted as she climbed up next to him. "You have longer legs."
"I do? Why thank you for noticing. I suppose I am quite flattering to look at."
"And you wonder why you're single," she commented wryly.
...
"One step at a time."
...
"Wow." The man remarked, finishing the last bit of the steep path in a sprint. "The view's amazing up here."
"It really is." The girl smirked. "The one time Jaune's not around."
"It's fine. I brought my camera."
...
"Stay with me, Blake."
...
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"It sounds like...rocks."
"I'm sure it's nothing."
"Adam...?" She noticed pebbles shaking from distant vibrations. The noises grew louder and louder, approaching like a wild storm.
He didn't answer. His eyes were fixed upwards, widened in unforgettable horror.
...
"Don't think about that. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
...
"No!" She shouted as she saw the man throw her aside to safety before toppling over the cliffs as the ground beneath his feet crumbled.
"No! Adam! No! No!" She collapsed onto her stomach, crawling towards the edge, half of her body dangling down, searching, desperately searching, only to find nothing but his broken body lying on top of shattered stones, thousands of feet down below.
Even in the distance, she could see the blood. Red, sticky, hot...
Sick. She felt sick.
...
She stared up at him, breaths coming in searing gasps, tears streaking from the corners of her eyes.
"You made it, Blake. You made it."
He retracted his hand, miming at her to examine her surroundings. The two hundred meters of cliff trail was left behind her. The place that haunted her dreams, no longer in plain view. Swallowing and wiping her face clean, Blake felt the energy and adrenaline empty out of her. Her knees buckled and she collapsed down onto the graveled dirt floor.
She stayed, motionless on the path.
Seconds turned to minutes, minutes to half an hour. When she heard ceaseless, even breathing from beside her, she finally titled her head, breaking out of the statuesque form.
"...What do I do now?" She asked faintly.
"Now you can go home and get some rest," he grunted.
"I'm serious."
"You're always serious."
"You told me this would help me somehow." Words came out in a meek whisper. "But I don't feel any better. I don't feel any different. Actually, I feel even worse than before...and I didn't think that was possible until today."
"What? You thought doing this was going to fix everything?" He motioned towards the trail behind them. "That going through this path would make everything better?"
"I...I don't know what I think anymore."
"It doesn't work that way," Adam admonished in an unreasonably harsh tone. "Nothing works that way."
"Then why did you make me come back here?" She snapped bitterly. "How was this trip supposed to help me?"
"I wanted you to take your goddamn mind off of me for just five seconds and think about somebody else for a change!" The man exploded. Frustrated red eyes burned in their sockets as he bounded up from the ground in a raging fit. "You are single-handedly screwing over all the people who care about you! Why can't you see that? Why do you only see me?"
"Because you're dead! Am I supposed to forget about you and act like you never existed?" Blake yelled with equal force, declining to surrender.
"Yes! Do that! That's much better than what you're doing now!" He shouted, baring his teeth pointedly at her direction, like a rabid animal. "How do you think watching you throw your life away makes me feel? You think...you think I like showing up in front of you all the time?"
He let out a humorless, derisive laugh. "You think I like watching you held up in your bedroom, believing that you're growing more and more insane whenever you see me?"
"No, you don't know how that feels, Blake! You don't!" Adam refused to stop, his finger pointing accusingly down at the wide-eyed woman. Face contorted in fury, he bellowed, "You watched me die once, but I have to watch you die every fucking day. You think you can't move on? I'm the one who can't move on!"
"Adam...I'm so sorry if-"
"Don't say that! Stop apologizing! It wasn't your fault! It was my fault!" Arms shot up and fingers gripped tightly onto the sides of his ruffled hair, making him look more or less deranged. "I fucked up, okay? I fucked up bad! We should have never came here in the first place but I just had to drag you here! I'm sorry. I'm sorry I left you, I'm sorry that I had to go! But it was my choice to push you aside! My fucking choice, not yours! Why can't you understand that? Why?"
"So stop this!" He meant it to be an appeal, though it came out as an exhausted demand. "Stop killing yourself over what happened. If not for yourself, then for me, because I...I can't stand it anymore."
His barks, if only audible to the whole world, would have echoed off the canyon walls, through the mountains, to the desert. The fire in his eyes had died out, buried resentment having been poured out in one solid diatribe. Perhaps too tired to raise his voice again, Adam allowed the silence of the canyons to engulf them once more.
Blake was left shell-shocked. Her amber irises could have sewn themselves onto the collar of his shirt, the spot where she had chosen to look in order to avoid the direct emotions of hurt and suffering in his gaze. She would have forgotten how to breathe if the tense moment hadn't been rudely intervened by a buzzing noise coming from her pocket.
"Blake? Blake, are you there? Over."
Maintaining her frail gaze fixated on the man, she grabbed the transceiver with her left hand and drew it nearer to her face.
"Go ahead, over," said Blake, hoarsely as she clicked on the transmission button.
"...Are you okay? You don't sound too good. Over."
"I'm fine, over."
"Well... Listen... I don't know how to tell you this but..." She heard an exasperated exhale fuzz through the second-rate connection. "Yang went after you...about half an hour ago."
Massaging the throbbing vein in her forehead, she broke away from Adam, whose penetrating red orbs were gleaming down at her rather calmly now.
"I couldn't exactly stop her. She was...she was really worried about you because... Don't get mad but...I may have told her about Adam. I'm sorry." He added in a nervous manner. "...Over."
"...It's all right." Blake had expected this, judging from the touchy conversation she had with the blonde yesterday evening. What she had not predicted was the former part, that the blonde would be concerned enough to venture onto Atlas track.
The persistence of the blonde baffled her. How could an individual be so selfless and trusting to follow a complete stranger onto a dangerous path, just to make sure she was okay? She wasn't worth the trouble, Blake believed. Yet, the boisterous girl must have disagreed since she acted almost as troubled as Jaune, someone who she had known for years beforehand.
Jaune, whom she was fortunate enough to befriend, usually went out of his way to make sure she was always enjoying herself. Dragging her out to parties and social gatherings, the photographer once told her that he wouldn't allow her to waste her youth being alone, reading dodgy old books. For someone who had been insistent and determined throughout the lengthy period they've been friends, he had been oddly reserved the past few weeks. Blake thought that this was his way of allowing her to cope freely. Now she realized. He didn't have a choice. He could do nothing, because that is all she ever let him do: she had burned the bridge between them.
One more look into Adam's attentive eyes and she finally understood what the man had meant all along.
With a shaky intake of air, Blake brought the transceiver above her chin. "Jaune. I'm sorry I lied. I'm not fine... I haven't been fine for a while."
There was silence on the other line, and Blake was thankful that this was a radio connection and not a phone call. Taking as much time as she needed, she continued. "Is that...okay? ...Over."
"Of course that's okay, Blake. You know you can tell me anything. Over."
"...I know... Thank you..." Blake breathed gently. "Enjoy the view, Jaune. Over and out."
"You know...it was nice having another screaming match." Adam faked an insouciant shrug, almost as if he was feeling slightly sheepish for his uncalled outburst. "Almost felt alive for a second there."
Blake ignored the cynical joke as she put away the walkie-talkie into her pocket.
"You were right," she said, lifting herself up from the ground. He observed her, heedful of her every movement, as they exchanged a purging glance. "This trip wasn't supposed to be about coming back here."
He smiled fondly at her words. "Let's go meet your new friend."
Jaune ended the talk in a dazed trance.
He had expected the yelling of his lifetime from Blake, who was already piled up to the max in the stress compartment. Throwing in the fact that he spilled the beans about her past to a complete stranger and that this complete stranger was on her way there to confront her again really didn't seem like two ideas that would do fine on Blake's court.
Despite all odds, Jaune had received not a scolding but an apology – an apology for having lied to him about her state of mind. It was crystal clear to see that Blake was indeed not "fine." Nonetheless, the girl never liked to accept help from others nor did she like to seem vulnerable, inviting in unwanted pity. She was stubbornly strong that way. Therefore, a verbal admission from Blake, telling somebody else that she was, by all means, not "okay" was an unprecedented feat.
He finally had news to bring home that wouldn't end up with a smack over the head by a frustrated Nora and a mute glare from Ren.
Maybe, just maybe, things would return back to normal again.
He looked up to see the enormity of planet earth greet him. The wonders of the world always astounded him, ensuring that his line of work would never come to an end. And he would most definitely enjoy the view, as his friend advised, when he caught the sight of a familiar redhead walking ahead of him, a couple of meters away.
Pyrrha had sped up her pace to distance herself from him, ensuring that she wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on his conversation. Granted, he hadn't asked her to do this, but the professional athlete appeared to have habituated manners.
Smiling dreamily, Jaune hoisted his camera back to his nose, the combined beauty of the canyon and the girl tempting him to an overwhelming degree. It was a quick picture, and as soon as the shutter sound was emitted, Pyrrha turned around, lashes sweeping up as she blinked at him curiously.
He raced forward to her side and she welcomed him with a warm smile. "Did your talk go well?"
"It went great." He grinned from ear-to-ear. Holding his camera up to his chest, believing that the polite action to take would be to show her his work. "And here!"
Pyrrha studied the screen carefully and shamrock eyes widened slightly as she recognized her own figure in the shot. He laughed nervously and checked for any signs of distaste. "Do you like it?"
"Well, you certainly know how to take a good photo," she said appreciatively. "The canyon looks beautiful."
"Yeah...the canyon looks beautiful..." Jaune rolled his eyes at the humble nature of the redhead. Under normal circumstances, the canyon would be the attention grabbing aspect of the picture. However, the way the camera lens caught onto the young woman's modest steps - simple yet refined - and the way her long mane of scarlet hair dazzled brighter under the sun...
Cheeks turned warm and the photographer tried to shake the woolly daydream out of his mind.
"Jaune?"
"J-Just thinking about camera lenses, don't mind me!" He rambled on, jolted by the sudden addressing of his name.
"No, Jaune." Pyrrha frowned. "Do you hear that?"
"Huh?" He paused, trying to discern the meaning behind her words. His hearing picked up on an inexplicable noise coming from a distance, reverberating sounds of large objects tumbling down at a rapid speed. The loud roaring ballooned in volume, bouncing off clearly in the still valleys. And at the climax of the uproar...there was a crash, followed by a mild quiver of vibrations reaching his shoes, and then utter silence.
His uplifted mood fading right away, Jaune snatched up the transceiver into his hands and called into it. "Blake? Can you hear me? Over."
The tennis player gave him an anxious look when no response was emitted.
"Blake. I'm not kidding, answer me. Over."
Still nothing.
His heart dropped into an endless chasm as dread seized him instantaneously, and he had never been so relieved in his life to hear the sound of static extending out towards him.
"Thisshig...rrreeerrrk...kssstchhh...fell...ksssk...hurt...kurchhhh...help!...kurchhhhhkk" and the rest of the message were drowned by a sandstorm of electronic din.
Two pairs of petrified eyes stared into each other.
"That wasn't Blake," mumbled Jaune.
"No." Pyrrha was washed over in a chill of fear. "That sounded like...Yang."