Tabula Rasa

Sky wanted to die.

Well, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but he was definitely as close as he'd ever been to wanting to die. His throat and his tongue seemed to be competing to see which one could feel more like sandpaper, he was fairly sure both his stomach and his brain were stuffed with cotton balls and tissue paper, and they were all still walking. Nikos didn't even look tired, and despite all his complaining Jaune had still been supporting most of Dove's weight for hours. Though, to be fair to himself and Russel, none of them had drank toxic water.

"Just a little further," Ruby chirped from somewhere ahead of him. Sky didn't bother lifting his head to look at her, though he was fairly sure he'd caught Russ flipping her off out of the corner of his eye. Hopefully no one else had noticed.

"Why?" he croaked.

"Because," the Schnee said slowly, as if she were talking to an infant, "if we don't keep moving, we're never going to get out of here."

Russel moaned theatrically. "You're not the one who drank poison," he whined. "Or broke their ankle—"

"It's only sprained," Dove insisted.

"—or got a great hairy leg shoved through their arm," Russ continued, ignoring Dove entirely. Blake winced at his gruesome description.

"I'm not," Schnee replied, tone clipped, "But we're all tired, Russel."

"Very," Jaune agreed. "Dove's heavy." He paused, then blushed. "Um, not that you're—I mean, it's all muscle, really!"

Dove gave him a flat look. "I'm wearing armor. Of course I'm heavy."

"Look, we agreed to keep going until nine. It's eight forty-nine, so—"

"Wait, when did we decide this?" asked Russ. "Because I do not agree to that. I prefer the plan where we stop and sleep."

"Nine what?" Nikos asked. "A.M. or P.M.?"

"Uh... lemme see... P.M."

"Who cares?" demanded Russel. "We're underground, it all looks the same anyway!"

"Going to bed when it's actually nighttime should keep us on a more normal sleep cycle," Lie explained. "Otherwise we'd have bad jet lag."

"So?! If I'm jet lagged in three days rather than getting my insides liquefied by a giant spider, I'll be overjoyed!"

Ruby sighed. It was a violent sigh, as if the sheer pressure of the annoyance building up inside her had forced the air out of her lungs. "It's not important when we decide to stop walking, we just need to stick to it when we do! Otherwise we'll keep wanting to lay around and sleep instead of getting out of this stupid cave!"

"Screw this," Russel decided, and flopped down into a sitting position on the ground. "I'm done. I can't feel my feet and I think I'm going to throw up again, I'm not moving."

Sky looked around nervously, waiting to see what the others would do. The Schnee, rather predictably, looked furious, but he could tell that Jaune and Dove were eying the ground longingly. Ruby, on the other hand, stamped her foot and pointed down the cavern.

"The exit could be right there," she shouted. "And you just want to sit here in the dark instead of trying to find it! Do you even care if we get out of here?!"

Russel ignored her, choosing instead to flop down on his back and shut his eyes.

"Hey! Get up!" Sky cringed. He'd never actually seen her look that furious, and it was more intimidating than he'd expected.

"Ruby," Jaune began, "Maybe we should—"

"Ten minutes!" she insisted. "That's how much time is left. It's not going to kill you to keep moving for ten more minutes!"

"We should try to keep our voices down," Blake interjected. She tried to step forward, then flinched as she jarred her shoulder. Ruby opened her mouth to argue, then took a deep breath and nodded. Then she glared at Russel. The effect made Sky wince—she'd probably been learning from her partner. It was totally lost on Russ, since he couldn't see her.

"Unbelievable," the Schnee said, from beside her. She folded her arms and looked down her nose at him. "Do you want to be stuck down here?" Russ didn't so much as twitch. He lay still on his back, face totally relaxed. Sky felt his throat tighten.

"Guys," he said, but Ruby was already talking over him.

"Fine. You've had your break. Now we can add another five minutes, and then stop to sleep. Now get—"

"Guys!" Sky shouted. He winced as his own voice echoed off the walls around them, but he was starting to panic. "I don't think he's conscious." Everyone turned to stare at him, then rushed to check on Russel. Cardin got there first—he'd been right next to him when he sat down. He checked his partner's pulse and peeled back an eyelid.

For a moment, the tunnel was silent and still. Then Russel batted weakly at his partner's hand. "What are you doing," he slurred. "Get off."

"Are you okay?!" Ruby, who had flipped from angry to concerned so fast that Sky wondered if it had given her whiplash, rushed over to kneel beside him. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you were that sick—"

"Not sick," he groaned. "Hungry."

"We can't help that," Dove replied. He eased himself slowly to the floor, stretching out his injured leg with a wince. "But I suppose we could afford to rest a little early tonight." He smiled apologetically at Ruby. "It is only ten minutes."

"We won't feel any better in the morning," Blake warned. "The hunger will only get worse, and..." she made a face as she looked at Dove. "That ankle might swell up overnight. You should keep it cold and elevated."

He opened his mouth to protest, then stopped. "Right. No aura."

"Unless you still have some left?"

"I wouldn't have been hurt, if I had."

"I didn't mean to be a tyrant or anything," Ruby said, "I just..."

"You don't need to apologize." Schnee folded her arms and scowled. "We do need to get above ground as soon as possible. We're running out of time before our bodies stop functioning well enough to walk."

"Ray of sunshine," Russ muttered under his breath. Sky and Cardin both caught it, since they were sitting next to him. Blake, too, glanced at him distastefully.

"We should get up after about six hours," Lie suggested. "I believe the lack of sleep will be less of a hindrance than hunger or thirst. After that, we can go as long as possible before we stop for another rest."

Relieved, Sky plopped down on the cave floor and splayed his aching legs out in front of him. The sensation of sitting after all this time was pure bliss. But then, of course, conversation turned to night watches. And Sky, as one of the few who hadn't had any yet, ended up taking the first three hours. Russel was out for the count already, and Dove was encouraged to rest as much as possible to help with his injury. That left Cardin for the second half of the night.

Dove tossed his bedroll at Blake's feet, to protests from her, Sky, and Russel, before grumpily colonizing the smoothest patch of rock he could. When pressed, he claimed it was because she was injured. Russel reminded him of his sprained ankle. Dove ignored him.

Yang's scroll was left in the middle of their 'camp.' It was face-up, with the screen casting a pale light over the pile of sleeping bodies. In an attempt to conserve battery, the flashlight was left off, but none of them had really wanted to go without it. Sky smirked to himself. They were twelve hunters-in-training. Twelve of the most dangerous teenaged warriors Vale had to offer. Twelve badasses who had unanimously agreed to sleep with a night-light.

Before, there had been at least an hour between the time they'd chosen to stop and rest and when they finally fell asleep. Now, when the intense discomfort that came from sleeping on the rough stone floor of the cave was overridden by exhaustion, Sky was soon the only one still awake. He listened to them all breathe for a while, leaning against the wall and struggling to keep his eyes open. His scroll, lit up and resting in his lap, illuminated one end of the tunnel. A peek at the battery revealed that it was at thirteen percent. All of team JNPR's, plus Dove's, had run out entirely.

In a rather feeble attempt to ignore the churning in his stomach—caused by equal parts anxiety and bad water—Sky glanced around the cave, then nearly jumped out of his skin. Cardin's eyes were wide open. He was curled up against the far wall of the tunnel, staring into space. After a moment he seemed to notice he was being watched, and turned to look at Sky.

A suffocating silence followed. Sky had expected... well, maybe he didn't think his leader would start a fight in the middle of the night, but he'd assumed the other boy would say something. Instead he just brooded.

One, Sky thought. Four, nine, sixteen, twenty-five... and Cardin sat in silence.

Sky got all the way up to seven eighty-four before Cardin muttered, "I hate this place."

By that time, Sky was so used to the quiet that he jumped at the sound of another person's voice. Then he stared at Cardin. He wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that. "Me too?" he tried. There was another long pause.

When Cardin spoke again, his voice was oddly quiet, almost hoarse. "I hate this cave," he repeated. "I hate..." he trailed off.

You hate a lot of things, Sky would have pointed out, except he wasn't an idiot. Instead he said more diplomatically, "It's dark. And creepy."

And again, the silence stretched on. Sky squirmed where he sat, wondering why this kept happening to him. He started trying to figure out the square of twenty-nine, and had gotten as far as subtracting fifty-nine from nine-hundred when Cardin interrupted him.

"What are we going to do?" Sky looked up, trying to read the other boy's expression, but it was lost in shadow.

"What?" he blurted. Then he paused, rallied. "I guess we get the hell out of here. Then we eat our way through Beacon's cafeteria, and maybe go into hibernation for a week or two."

"I don't mean getting back to Beacon," Cardin grumbled. "I mean... everything."

"...Would you mind clarifying that a bit?"

"The Grimm, okay?" his leader snapped. "I meant the Grimm. Obviously."

Sky cringed back against the wall, and nodded. "Oh. That."

"Yeah, that."

"I don't know if you should be asking me." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Maybe Dove. Or Jau—" he stopped mid-word and swallowed nervously.

"Right," Cardin snorted. "Then they'll treat me to a big speech about hope that isn't worth shit outside whatever fantasy world they cooked up in their heads."

"That's not—" Sky started to say, but Cardin's glower cut him off. He groaned. "I don't know, okay? It's not like a speech about how we're all fucked is going to be more helpful." He would have suggested talking to Blake, because commiserating with her had been surprisingly therapeutic, but... well, that could only end in blood. Probably Cardin's.

"I already got their spiel, alright? I can't see how yours could be any worse."

Why me?! Sky wanted to scream. He didn't, but only because he didn't want to wake everyone up. Instead, he put his face in his hands and made a vague, muffled noise that didn't mean much of anything. "Fine," he said eventually. "The way I see it, the Grimm are probably going to overwhelm Vale. I don't know when it'll happen, but since some idiot decided it would be a good idea to build an entire kingdom fifty miles away from the Grimm spawn point—"

"The what?"

"Spawn point?" Sky's fingers drummed anxiously against his boot. "It's a video game thing."

"You are such a nerd." Sky flushed.

Cardin was silent again for a while, long enough for Sky to finish his subtraction and come up with eight hundred forty-one. Then, "You were right. That was worse than Dove." Sky shrugged helplessly.

Another pause. Sky already knew thirty squared was nine hundred, so he started trying to figure out thirty-one. Nine hundred plus sixty-two minus one... Nine hundred sixty-one.

"You know what the worst thing is?"

"What?"

"It's like they don't even care." Cardin glanced at their sleeping classmates. "Like all the other idiots aren't even losing sleep."

"Blake is," Sky replied instantly, without even thinking about it. Then he froze, watching Cardin cautiously.

"So?" Cardin scoffed. "So what? Just because some filthy—"

"Don't, okay?" Sky squeaked. It was supposed to sound more defiant than that, but he'd lost his nerve halfway through. "I mean, um... look, she's obviously the same brand of heroic lunatic as everyone else at this school, if she was on that train at the Breach. So it means something, if she's scared."

"Whatever," Cardin grunted, after a moment. "But... I mean, look at Ren and Nora! It didn't take more than half an hour for her to be acting like an overgrown toddler again, and I'm not even sure he even noticed. And Jaune..." he spat the last word, with more heat and venom in his tone than Sky had been expecting. He flinched, wishing Dove were awake. This was dangerous territory, now.

"It seems like Nora is just trying to cheer us up," he said carefully. "And Jaune... he can be kind of naive."

"Kind of?!" Cardin demanded. His hands clenched into fists as he trembled with rage. "He's weak," he hissed, spraying spittle all over the cave floor. His voice was low, so as not to wake the others—especially Nikos, of course—but pitch rose when volume could not. "He's been a complete waste of space all year, and the one time he decides to grow a pair..." he trailed off. "I'm strong! He's just pathetic."

Sky was staring at him. He knew it would only make Cardin angrier, but he couldn't help himself. Pathetic? He remembered the fight with the Ursa—or, to be more accurate, he remembered running like hell and leaving Cardin behind. He'd felt like throwing up afterward, he'd been so disgusted with himself, and when he'd finally screwed up his courage to apologize it had all come spilling out—what a coward he was, how he couldn't promise he wouldn't do it again because that was who he was, that the whole point of coming to Beacon was to get braver.

Cardin had laughed and called him a crazy idiot, but his tone had been more amused and admiring than angry. He'd punched him on the shoulder, too, which had kind of hurt, but Sky had spent the whole next day feeling like he was walking on air. Cardin had forgiven them, or at least that's what he'd said. But if Jaune is pathetic, what the hell are we?

"How do you mean, strong?" Sky asked, after a moment. It was the only part of what Cardin had just said that he felt even remotely capable of dealing with.

"I'm a fighter," he said casually, as though it were obvious. "I'm bigger, I'm better... I was always... and then Pyrrha..." He scowled, his expression curdling into something downright murderous—and Sky understood. Nikos had beaten all four of them by herself. Russ had been livid and champing at the bit for a rematch, while Dove and Sky were both quietly unsurprised, but Cardin... he'd fallen into a foul mood that had lasted months.

Even before that, everyone had accepted that Nikos was the best fighter in their class. Everyone, that was, except Cardin, who would often loudly boast that he could take her with one hand tied behind his back. He'd never volunteered to fight her, though, until he'd been dragged into it by the randomizer and been crushed. And that, Sky realized with a sick feeling in his stomach, was when he'd started taking a special interest in Jaune.

The boy belonged to Nikos, in a sense. Cardin couldn't get at her directly, not when she was stronger than him. So he'd gone after her partner. Like the playground bully taking away the other children's toys, he thought. Except, you know, with people. His mind made the obvious connection—was that what he was, too? A proxy to hit, in order to get at Dove?

He could feel his expression souring but he couldn't really help it. Instead he turned to Cardin, anger rising until he felt... sort of numb. One finger tapped an irregular rhythm against his boot, and part of his mind was already frothing at the mouth, spitting horrible curses at the boy in front of him... but he was afraid. So he sat, seething, as he watched Cardin contort his face into a sneer.

Sky had been feeling like such an asshole for days now, he'd spent his whole life feeling like he wasn't brave enough or that he was too much of a nerd. It was who he was, he couldn't help it—but Cardin, the boy who'd actively caused all the bullying to stroke his ego, the one who'd blackmailed Jaune just to hurt Pyrrha because he was too pathetic to confront her, he was still convinced he was the gods' gift to humanity.

It had been funny, when they'd first arrived at Beacon. He'd been charmed by Cardin's swaggering walk, the way he acted however he damn well pleased without, it seemed at the time, a single thought to what anyone else might think of him. Sky had craved that kind of confidence... but it had turned out to be nothing more than a flimsy shell painted over a quagmire of insecurity, and now he felt for the first time in his life like he might want to punch another human being.

Cardin was still smirking. Now that Sky was looking at it with a fresh eye, it seemed... brittle. Like a thin layer of ice across a frozen lake, just as it was starting to make threatening creaking noises.

"Don't, Cardin," Sky managed, as soon as his anger had ebbed to the point where he could speak civilly. "Just... don't."

"What?" Cardin folded his arms over his chest and posed, chin pointed arrogantly.

"Don't lie to yourself." Sky paused for a moment, horrified by what he'd just said and how much trouble it was going to get him into.

"I'm not!" Cardin shot back, voice rising. They both froze, looking around at their sleeping classmates. Blake stirred, one feline ear flicking in her sleep... but either she was as heavy a sleeper as the rest of them, or she was just that exhausted.

Sky bit back the first retort that popped into his head—Why are you near the bottom of the rankings, then?—and said instead, "What makes you the strongest?" He cringed. That still wasn't a good way to phrase it, but he'd never been good at placating angry people, not even his brother.

Yet, still, Cardin didn't hit him. It seemed that he was too preoccupied by whatever was going on in his head to notice that Sky was, as he'd put it, giving him lip. Russel did it all the time, but between the two of them vicious insults were more like small talk.

It took a while for Cardin to speak. Then, finally, "I don't know. I was the best fighter in my whole town, even the teachers couldn't beat me, but... the matches haven't been fair, here, they always... they..." he trailed off, fists clenching. "It's bullshit," he burst out, clearly struggling to keep his voice low. "All she knows is tournaments, I bet she'd get her ass handed to her in a real fight!"

Sky was having a bit of trouble following all this, but he could guess who Cardin was referring to easily enough. "Cardin..." he said carefully, like he was approaching a wounded rhinoceros and didn't want to get gored to death. "It's Nikos. I don't think anyone in our year could beat her. A whole world full of tournament fighters have been trying to win against her for something like four years, now, and none of them have managed it."

"That's tournaments," Cardin insisted. "In a real fight you don't have rules like that."

"Yeah," Sky allowed, "But... I doubt it would make that much of a difference. She's still one of, if not the best fighter in our generation. Comparing yourself to her isn't healthy."

"You think she's better than me!" Cardin hissed. "Look, just because you idiots were holding me back during our fight—"

"You knocked Dove out!" Sky blurted, incredulous.

"He got in my way!" Cardin hissed. He got to his feet, face morphing into a scowl, and Sky found himself backpedaling frantically. He'd done it, he'd pushed too far, and now—

"Okay!" he found himself whispering. "Okay, you're right, I'm sorry!" Cardin glared at him, grabbed his ear, and twisted. Sky bit back a yelp and tried to pull away, but that only made it hurt worse. His leader held on to him for a moment, then let go. He was free to rub at the side of his head, whimpering.

"You don't get to talk to me," Cardin growled into his ear. "When was the last time you won a match in sparring?!"

Sky ducked his head, heart hammering as he blinked back tears. It had been, if he remembered right, the first time he'd fought Jaune. This was back when the school year first started, when the other boy had barely known which end of the sword to hold. Their most recent fight had been completely one-sided, and not at all in Sky's favor.

"You're just like Jaune," he went on. Sky glanced desperately towards Dove, but he didn't stir. Should he shout, wake him up? Cardin would be furious... "Some sniveling little weakling who never should have been here in the first place. What gives you the right to run your mouth?!"

To his horror, Sky felt the start of tears and a burning in his throat. The only reason he'd even gotten in to Beacon was his academic results, he was certain. He'd gotten a message telling him he was one of the top five scorers, though it didn't say how well he'd placed apart from that. It had made him flush with pride, but once he'd actually shown up... he'd realized just how badly he matched up to the rest of his class in combat. Book smarts were virtually useless in the ring, as he'd learned over and over for the past few months.

"What, are you gonna cry?" Cardin grabbed a fistful of his shirt, his gauntlet scraping against Sky's breastplate. "Useless."

This time, there was a flash of anger alongside the terror and humiliation. He was shit at combat—that was just a fact. But at least he had academics to balance it out. What was Ozpin smoking when he let in Cardin?!

Unfortunately, Sky had never had a very good poker face. "The hell are you looking at?" his leader jeered, lifting him an inch off the ground. "Finally ready to grow a spine, Lark?"

His entire body was trembling, his eyes had squeezed themselves shut and there were tears running down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. And then, he remembered forever fall. How Jaune had looked, hanging from Cardin's arm in just the same way, with that strangely peaceful look on his face.

This is it, he thought at himself. You shook on it.

"So this makes you strong?" he asked, voice cracking. "Beating on the ones who won't fight back, like me and Velvet? Hurting Jaune, because you're scared of Nikos?" He shut his eyes, face screwing up as he prepared for the punch.

It never came. Instead, he felt the hand on his shirt loosen its grip, and nearly fell over when his feet hit the ground again. When he looked up, he realized that Cardin had stumbled back, eyes huge.

"That's not..." he began, then trailed off. Then he scowled. "He needed to know his place, she had nothing to do with it. Fucking Jaune, who does he think he is?!"

Sky stared, mouth gaping open, as Cardin unraveled before his eyes.

"He's just some wannabe, didn't even apply like we did! He wouldn't still be here if Pyrrha didn't feel sorry for him, he's nothing!" Cardin started to pace as he ranted, though he kept his voice low. The others, exhausted as they were, slept on.

"Look, Cardin—" Sky started to say, but Cardin cut him off. There was a wild look in his eyes, now.

"Then, the fucking world turns out to be ending," he spat, fists clenching, "and he just gives a big speech about hope like it doesn't... like he isn't..."

Sky wished his mouth hadn't fallen open, earlier. It left him with nowhere to go—his jaw was starting to ache from the sheer force of his own shock, like it had taken physical form and lodged itself between his teeth. Cardin... Cardin was crying.

"Uh..." He had no idea what to say. He had no idea what to say!

"Oh, shut up," Cardin tried to snarl, but it came out as more of a hiccup. He wiped furiously at his face, hand drifting toward his mace as if he were already considering silencing the only witness.

"He probably is," Sky said quietly, after a moment. "Scared, I mean."

"Doesn't fucking look like it."

"Blake definitely is. I talked to her, before."

"I noticed. The fuck was that, anyway?"

"She wanted to ask me something." He briefly considered telling Cardin about her theory, before deciding that his leader's pride probably couldn't take another blow right now. He wouldn't like the idea of the Grimm keeping them alive on purpose, not at all. "It's private."

Cardin slumped bonelessly against the cave wall. "Great. Real helpful."

"I don't know what you want me to do, Cardin. If I knew how not to be afraid... I wouldn't be."

"Fuck."

Sky realized his hands were shaking, and his blood was pulsing in his ears. Thirty-two squared, he thought. That was nine hundred plus thirty-two times four, so one twenty-eight... minus four. One thousand twenty-four. That made sense, it was one of those powers of two he kept seeing—

He was cut off abruptly when he heard a quiet hiccup from across the tunnel. Cardin was biting down on his own sleeve, tears and snot and probably some saliva soaking into his shirt. Pathetic, huh? There's a lot of that going around lately.

"Cardin..." he said gently.

"Shut up." It was more desperate than threatening, and for once in his life Sky didn't think he was scared at all. Cardin would've been livid if he knew that.

"It's okay to be afraid. At least, something like this... the only reason the others aren't terrified out of their minds is that... well, they're Beacon students. I still think being batshit crazy is some kind of requirement, and we just slipped through the cracks."

"I'm not!" Cardin choked out. "I... I..."

Oh, just stop being such a stubborn—

Sky's train of thought was jerked to a sudden halt as Cardin moaned, "I don't know anymore! I'm supposed to be strong."

All the fight seemed to have gone out of him. He slumped against the cave wall, and he was starting to sniffle again. "I don't know what to do," he admitted. "What am I, now?"

"Tabula Rasa."

"What?" Cardin tried to glare at him, but it looked more pleading than anything else.

"It means blank slate," Sky explained. "It's like... if you don't want to be who you are, you think about who you do want to be, and... move towards that. Do whatever you can to be better. Like your self is a blank piece of paper, and you can write whatever you want on it."

"Like what?" Cardin spat. "No matter what I do, Pyrrha doesn't even have to try to beat me."

Sky sighed, letting a little of his exasperation show. "Not like that. I mean... things like being braver, or a better person. Not fighting." Though training once and a while wouldn't hurt, Cardin.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You could have value, even if it isn't all based on combat. You could be... a good friend, maybe? Or the kind of huntsman who would defend a village, even if he might die?"

Now, Cardin's brows were knitted together, as if in thought. "I don't know what I'd want to be. I'm the strong one. That's how it is."

Not anymore. "Well, if you could be anyone—I mean, a real person, someone we know, or someone on television, who would you be?"

His leader's eyes narrowed as though he suspected a trap, but he seemed to actually consider the question. "There's something..."

"Yes?"

Cardin made a face. "It's not... I mean, it's not a person."

"Anything works."

"Jaune told me something, after Dove..." he stopped, shoulders slumping. Then he rallied. "He said that I was responsible for my team, whether I liked it or not, and I should be the best leader I could. I wasn't allowed to be a failure."

Sky blinked, startled. "Well, yeah. That's pretty much what I was talking about."

"I don't know how," he groaned, wiping at his nose with one sleeve.

"Get help?" Sky shrugged. "If I knew how to be a great leader, I'd have been picked at the beginning of the year." Although, he secretly thought Dove would have been better at the job than Cardin. And... well, Ozpin had picked the youngest girl in their grade and the least competent student possibly in the history of the school to lead the other two teams. Dove had suggested on multiple occasions that the simplest explanation might just be that the headmaster had been drunk at the time. Sure, that mug of his looked and smelled like coffee, but you never knew what he'd added to it.

Cardin shook his head. "I can't—" he started, then rubbed a hand through his hair. "I'm not going to Jaune." There was a stubborn cast to his jaw. It made him seem a bit less like a wreck of himself, but it was also incredibly annoying.

"Then ask Ruby," Sky suggested, exasperated. "Or a teacher, or one of the older students." Just not Adel, she might break something important.

Cardin looked as though he were about to argue again, but seemed to give up halfway through. Instead, he flopped into a sitting position. "It's been three hours, right?" he asked suddenly. Sky blinked at the change of subject.

"A little less than one, actually," Sky corrected, as he fiddled with his scroll. "Why?"

"I can't sleep," he grumbled.

"Try counting sheep," Sky said helpfully. Cardin glowered.

"Just because you helped me, doesn't mean you can go around being a smartass all the time."

"You want to be a good leader, right?" Sky asked, grinning. "That means you have to listen to your subordinates." He held his breath, hardly daring to hope. It had taken him a while, but he'd started to suspect that something had broken in Cardin, during the mess in Forever Fall. Something like this would've gotten him a laugh and a punch on the shoulder their first week of school, and a hard backhand in the days since the Breach.

This new Cardin, if that was what he was, did neither. Instead he just waved his hand in an irritated sort of way and leaned back against the wall. The tension of their conversation drained from Sky all at once, and something that had been coiled up deep in his guts for weeks now unraveled at the same time, leaving him feeling a bit like a puddle of goo. He knew it wouldn't last—in fact he fully expected to be an anxious mess again by tomorrow.

Fuck it, he thought. Good enough.

Sky was so relaxed, in fact, that he dozed off during his watch. The only reason he even noticed, since his grasp on time had been tenuous at best for the past few days, was that he had another nightmare. The memory was nearly gone by the time he woke, leaving him with a cloying sense of dread that he couldn't quite place. He shuddered, collected himself, and stood. Cardin was staring down one end of the tunnel, scroll in hand. He didn't notice Sky until he turned to survey the other side.

"How long was I asleep?" Sky asked, wiping cold sweat off his brow. His hair was sticking to his face, and if he weren't so distracted by his hunger and thirst he might have found the grunginess of his own body unbearable.

"I was just about to wake everyone up," Cardin grunted. His eyes were still mostly focused, though Sky realized all of a sudden that the bags under them were almost as pronounced as Blake's. He lurched to his full and rather impressive height, stretched, and groaned. Then he took a deep breath and called, "Hey! It's morning!"

Blake awoke with a jerk, wild-eyed and panting. The rest were sluggish, and Russ unloaded half a thesaurus' worth of unspeakable curses in Cardin's general direction. Sky was fairly sure some of them were in other languages, though that might just have been his slurred speech.

"Ren..." Nora croaked, pushing herself into a sitting position. "Why?" Her hair was sticking up in every conceivable direction, and her arms were stretched straight out in front of her like a zombie.

"What did I do?" he asked mildly, rubbing his eyes.

"We should only sleep six hours," Yang mimicked, still flat on her back and giving no indication that she might move any time soon. "Sound familiar?"

"Look, let's just start walking so we can—" Blake began, moving as though to get to her feet. But, the moment her shoulder shifted, she let out a pained hiss and froze.

"Let me see," Weiss murmured, leaning over to inspect the wound. "Oh..." Sky craned his neck to see, and winced at the sight of the bite mark. It had turned an angry red during the night.

Blake winced at the look on her friend's face. "It's infected, isn't it?"

"What do we do?" Ruby blurted, suddenly wide awake and hovering over her teammate. "Why did they never teach us about infections?!"

"We learn that next year," Weiss said.

Russel snorted. "Real fucking helpful. Remind me why we have Pete's class instead of first-aid, again?"

"The only reason this came up in the first place is that we ran out of aura and provisions," Dove pointed out. "And there's no use arguing about it now."

"But what do we do?" repeated Ruby, chewing anxiously on her lip.

Blake, who looked a bit put off by all her teammates fussing over her, sighed. "It'll be fine. We just need to get out of here so we can eat and replenish our auras. If that doesn't get rid of it, I can get antibiotics from the infirmary."

"For now, we can redress it." Weiss took the roll of bandages from Dove and set about winding fresh sling around her injured arm. Yang, meanwhile, grabbed her free hand. Sky initially thought it was for moral support, until he noticed that Blake's knuckles had gone white. She was probably squeezing it to alleviate the pain.

"We should go," Dove said, as soon as they were done. "This could get serious without treatment." He hauled himself to his feet, swore, and stumbled. Sky leapt forward to try and catch him, and nearly fell over when all of his partner's weight came down on his shoulder.

"I told you so," Russel repeated from the floor. Sky and Dove both turned to glare at him.

"Yes, you did." Dove limped forward a few steps, then cursed again.

"Come on," Cardin grunted. He ducked under Dove's other arm and started walking. Sky glanced nervously at his partner, but he only made a face and said nothing.

"Well, we're a mess." Yang hopped to her feet, stretched, then smiled apologetically at Blake as she offered her a hand.

Soon enough they were hobbling along, with Dove holding onto Sky and Cardin—Sky suspected he was carrying most of the weight, because his partner kept trying to lean away from their leader—and Blake gritting her teeth and grimacing with every step.

It wasn't exactly one of the heroic charges he'd read about in stories. Even when heroes were injured, they usually ended up persevering against staggering odds or battling through the pain. Great sagas never really mentioned slogging through the pain. Every single step was grueling, but eventually it became a dull habit. Sky lost track of just what was making his whole body ache, whether it was thirst or hunger or tiredness, and became utterly hypnotized by Weiss' ponytail as it swayed back and forth in front of him like a sinister silver pocket watch. Dove's shoulderguard was digging into the side of his neck.

No one even noticed the light, at first. Sky's eyes were fixed firmly on the ground, and had been since Weiss had turned around and glared at him, so all he saw was rough stone passing slowly between his feet. Then, just as he was lifting his foot to take another wretched step, Blake gasped.

She'd been doing that a lot, whenever a patch of rough ground made her stumble and jar her shoulder, but something about the pitch or tone made Sky look up. He didn't notice anything different, but he could see that her ears had stood straight and were straining towards the tunnel ahead. Dread settled in his gut, and his free hand strayed toward his halberd. Dove grunted, fingers twitching as though he wanted to draw his sword, before he slumped back into a pained daze. But, just as Sky was tensing for a fight, Blake laughed.

"It's the sun," she whispered, awed.

"What?" several voices blurted at once. The second Sky processed what she'd said he turned his head towards her feet. He might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw the ghost of a shadow stretching out behind her, while Russ held the light somewhere in the back of the group.

Then, finally, they came to a sharp turn in the cave. The passage narrowed as it went, to the point where Sky and Cardin couldn't stand to either side of Dove. He had to crawl, in the end—they all did, Blake with barely any complaint except a few sharp intakes of breath.

All their walking earlier had passed in a dull torpor, but now every inch was charged with anticipation. Sky watched as the oppressive darkness began to thin. Finally, it fell away entirely as he emerged, blinking, into a quiet clearing.

He looked up, rapturous, taking in the birdsong and the rustling of the trees, the smell of earth and sun and fresh air. The leaves were a lush, verdant green, speaking of water and life and clean growing things. Sky blinked hard, then belatedly shuffled out of the way and helped Dove up and into the light. His partner squinted even more than he usually did, putting up a hand to shade his eyes as he sat sprawled in the dirt. The smile started slowly, teasing at the corners of his mouth as he craned his neck to stare at the branches above them, at the nettle-strewn ground, at the great fluffy white clouds. And then, softly, Dove began to laugh.