Summary: For some reason people keep getting her orientation wrong. (Danny is an Omega)
Chapter 8.0.0: Loner's Den
She was the unofficial leader of Karm Stequion. She was trained to be untraceable against all the species walking the planet. Scent repression and hiding bodily urges was the normal. She does it unconsciously, and that's why it takes them so long to find a child omega in the forest.
Before Remnant she was a normal, nothing special human even after all the torture and training. Now, in this strange version of a world from a story she once knew, she is this thing called omega. She understands some of the dynamic from stories previous to this third life, but it takes her a few years to understand what it means here.
Alpha, Beta, Omega.
Some call her typing weak, and others say the omega is precious. Whatever they shout or whisper, she is considered bottom rung. The social ladder would have her trapped and itemized. Her body would have her submitting to those who disprove or talk down to her.
Danny had power, last life. Control is hard to let go of and for many a struggle to gain. She is not the many. She didn't just lead (she ruled). She starts replacing fingers in pies around camps. Let them remember her not as the omega orphan, but the child who will not leave well alone (not bend, not submit). It takes barely a year before her adopted mother is the only holder of knowledge that Danny is omega. If asked they say the broken semblance, teleporter, simple girl is a beta. She has no scent. Her body demands nothing of following pack order. She treats all equal and fears none. A simple girl (not right in the head).
Danny smiles and hides her amusement behind the layers of simple, airhead, unfocused, easy.
Even with dynamics and enhanced sense, no one sniffs out a wolf in sheep's clothing. The woman who cares for Danny, the beta known as Emberly, thinks nothing of hiding the information. It's not really hiding if no one asks. Emberly's husband, the beta named Jet, doesn't remember Danny's scent nor does he care her orientation. The girl isn't attracting Grimm, and that's all that matters.
The world continues on, and Danny learns. Survives. Quietly picks the children of the group and teaches them a few tricks.
(It becomes a game. Make the adults guess your orientation. An alpha? No, they are aloof. Beta? No, they smell too much. Omega? No, they are determined.
What are they? What's going on? How can this be?)
Danny doesn't know she is considered the alpha of the children until Emberly points it out. They come to her, a child at age four, for answers and reassurance. Then, because she is scentless, the three true alpha kids come around to make sure she smells like alpha. The one beta sticks like glue to her for comfort when his parents fight. The month old twin omegas come for hugs and lessons on how to ignore alpha voice and scent release.
By the time Danny is six years old, outsiders see her and six other kids in the nomad's camp as weak betas because of their dull or muted scents. Inside the camp, they all muse differently. She is the alpha, because only around her do the true alphas relax enough to release their scents. She is the beta, because she does not reveal any sense of hierarchy. She is the omega, because she is caring to those older and younger to her.
She is seven when Emberly has a child. A boy. A Faunus. An omega.
"When children are born, they are thought to be one year old," Emberly says with burning eyes as she helps Danny hold the baby from bed. "To me, it feels like that number is removing a year he will have to live peacefully."
Jet is a pointed dog-eared Faunus. Toby – named after the plant Tobira – looks much like his father, with his mother's eyes and cheekbones even at birth. He is cute, asleep as he is. The little guy was even introduced as her new brother.
She sees the plea in Emberly's eyes. The boy is family now, and of course Danny will tear the world in two if he's hurt. "I won't let anyone take him."
The woman's relief is obvious in her sigh and following hug. Worry is warranted, though. The Faunus of Remnant may not be oppressed, but they are itemized and entertainment. Paramore omegas and prized alpha fighters are the norm for Faunus outside of Menagerie. Beta Faunus and beta humans are treated the same in the big wide world. They are middle in the social ladder. Alpha humans the highest, alpha Faunus between. Below are the omega Faunus, and finally omega humans.
Danny is unofficially a second-class citizen, same as her new brother and the two year old twins. Omegas cannot do much, cannot be much. Old traditions have them popping out children to keep humanity alive. Newer ones have them in caretaker roles, even if many omegas aren't actually good caretakers. Protection and caring are different. Control and rules are different.
The brunette teaches her group confidence and going to others for help. The alphas and beta are coming into teenage years – puberty on the horizon – and are old enough to know they want different things outside their stereotype. Sandra is the first, an alpha, to come into maturity, and explains to her leader she wants to fight because it makes her feel alive. She doesn't want to be a protector, but doesn't want to go lone wolf.
Danny hugs her and assures she is always welcome. She will not be kicked out, and bloodlust will be directed at their enemies. Sandra begins training with a few adult betas Danny knows were ex-hunters. In their free time, the girls create the cool mask of a higher-up for Sandra because if Sandra becomes savage in public, she disappoints the group (she won't fail them). The human alpha works hard to drip frigid words from a sweet tongue, and battle fierce.
Vent is next, and the alpha wants to be a caretaker. He has the drive to lead like the others, but it's tamed with his maturity. Danny works him as a guarder of home. He keeps an eye on the others, always knowing when to step in or let lie. She teaches him how to show comfort and to let emotions come. We are a pack, she tells him. We make sure everyone is okay. Crying doesn't make anyone weak.
Iso, the beta, hits puberty like a normal, awkward teenager. It's almost a relief. She helps him the best she can by being there are talking about things his parents won't. He's embarrassed and stammering by the end, but it makes later asking for her help setting up a job as a writer much easier. Betas aren't famous writers, and she swears to make him the first.
Attum is the final alpha to hit maturity, right around when Danny turns eight. He spends a week sulking before he's dragged in front of her and – bless his heart – explains he doesn't want any role as an alpha. He wants to live like a beta, without the pressure that he must defend and control and face rage when challenged by another alpha. Danny carefully explains that embracing or turning away is his choice, but he must learn what will happen so he can know how to be in control of himself. Body chemistry is hard, Danny explains. She then has to explain what chemistry is. Then, Attum delves into sciences. She is the only one in camp that knows a range of science and technology, and so they spend their time together tutoring and discussing theories.
Two year old Toby calls her sister and stares at her in adoration. He calls her his OBA, because he cannot smell the difference of omega, beta, or alpha on her. He still smells of omega, but he and the twins need to be at least five before she's comfortable teaching them to shut off the scents marking them. She is grass, they tell her. She smells of forest, but the grass remains strongest even under the scents of other dynamics.
No one in her group can tell she smells like a dynamic. They know her main scent, and that's just what they smell. The adults, though, say she smells of mature alpha. Emberly just chuckles when she asks and explains that family doesn't care your dynamic. There's something bright in the woman's eyes, but Danny doesn't ask.
She is eight years old when a melody she can only hear out of one ear – broken because her aura does not touch every sense and nerve on her body – draws the children of the nomad away in the middle of the night. She is eight years old and kills the infamous Pied Piper with her broken semblance. This night the adults look to her like one does a new tool. They badger Emberly and Jet about the girl who cannot teleport properly. She is dangerous. She is a weapon. She should go. She should stay.
(Emberly reminds them all that this nomad was built to help those with broken semblances, even if they are non-existent nowadays.)
Toby, her sweet little brother, gathers up the group. Sandra, Vent, Iso, and Attum take turns hugging her and reassuring they trust her. She is their leader. Jillian, Melody, and Toby hold onto some part of her at all times. Comfort through touch, an instinct for a group. Attum tells her it's okay to cry. She does with a laugh; she is not alone now.
Danny is eight when she finally starts using the proper terminology. Pack. They're all in this together.
At twelve years old, Danny teaches her pack proper fist-fighting forms when Mountain Glenn is destroyed.
Her nomad now consists of seventeen people. She hasn't even matured and she is now in charge of the Askans Nomad. The adults go through motions in their despair and the pack now has to hunt to survive. It barely lasts the year, and Danny stops them at an old, ruined town north of Vale where the trees are too thick and the river cuts like a moat. She stands in front of sixteen people and says this is it.
"I will make a home here," Danny says at high noon in a ghost town. "Your choice is to stay or go."
By night time eleven remain. Eight children, three adults. Five alphas, two betas, four omegas.
"Alright, pack," thirteen year old Danny says with a reassuring smile. She meets everyone's eyes, exudes confidence, and rolls up her sleeves to show muscles made through trials. Every child copies her actions. Every adult slowly follows her lead. She radiates warmth and safety, and for the first time in months everyone has hope. They can be a pack. "Let's build ourselves a home."
(When they are done, they convince her to name it.
She writes 'Welcome to Kansas' on the front sign.)
