"You did what?" Ruby asked, sure that she must have misheard.

"We shattered the moon," Aurora repeated. There wasn't any drama in her tone. She said it as if it were an everyday utterance.

Ruby still wasn't quite able to get her head around the concept. The moon was… well the moon. It had been broken by an asteroid. Everyone knew that. Aurora's words were nonsensical. She was insane. There wasn't any other explanation. Even today, with all the advances of modern rocketry, the moon was out of reach.

Aurora smiled. "I can see you're not convinced. I don't blame you. When I say it like that, it sounds rather farfetched doesn't it? But I'm telling you the truth. When I was a child, Luna was intact." As if on cue the roof of the temple dissolved.

It had been day when she'd entered the temple, but they were greeted by the midnight blue of a cloudless night sky. If not for the fact Ruby's travels had taken her hundreds of miles from any source of artificial light, the countless thousands of stars above would have taken her breath away. As it was, only the moon did.

It was wrong. So wrong. Its outline unbroken. A smooth disk of pale white. No chunks hanging near it. No signs of the calamity. Even the artists' renderings she'd seen before didn't prepare her for the sight. It was like gravity suddenly pulling her sideways; something entirely unnatural.

"She was beautiful, wasn't she?" Aurora looked up wistfully, her face bathed in lunar light. "We weren't the first to worship her, and we weren't even the last. If you pretend we exist in the time I was born, out there," she swept her arm around, "there are hundreds of individual tribes who all do the same. We'd driven many away from our lands, but many more fell to the Grimm. That's why we acted. Do you know what Luna is? What she's made from?"

Weiss would have known. Ruby was sure of that. But she didn't. Not really. She hazarded a guess. "Umm… rock."

"You would think so. You're right, partially at least, but not entirely. I told you before, this," she indicated the Aether, "came from the sky."

"The moon's made of Dust?" It was hard to comprehend. Dust came from underground. Even children knew that. It didn't come from space.

"Yes."

"It can't be."

"I've experienced that reaction before. I even had it when I was first told, but I could believe. The Aether had been a gift from the heavens. Surely there must have been more."

"If Dust comes from the moon, how do you explain the mines?" Ruby couldn't overcome that contradiction.

"Dust is mined that's true, but the mines a recent invention." Aurora smiled to herself. "At least for me. For thousands of years before that mankind simply didn't have the capability to dig so deep. We didn't have the technology. The knowhow. Do you have any idea how deep the mines actually are? How tricky it is to mine the resource everyone relies on? There's a reason why Faunus labour is used almost exclusively. As deplorable as it is, they are the only ones with the physicality to work them.

"For as long as Remnant has existed there has been Dust as its centre, but it simply wasn't accessible. The Grimm slaughtered us because we didn't have the ability to fight them. We changed that."

"But… but…" It was too big. In a patient tone Aurora had explained that most of what Ruby had always known, what their society was founded around, was completely misunderstood.

Aurora's eyes glittered as she watched Ruby go through yards and yards of rationalisation. "I'm sure most people would share your reaction." That fact didn't make it any easier.

"How is any of this even possible? How could you blow up the moon? Especially back then ̶ ̶ now… Whenever!" Ruby still wasn't quite sure when now actually was.

"By myself it wouldn't have been. There were seven of us. Seven people. Perhaps not remarkable individuals. Shepherds, seamstresses, beggars, priestesses, and priests, but each had a gift. In a time before Semblances were commonplace we kept them hidden, but we found each other. And as we looked out at the world, at all that we were doing in our hopeless quest to tame it, we knew we had to do more.

"It was the perfect confluence that to this day I can't believe was entirely coincidental. Missing a single one of us, we would have failed; it wouldn't have been possible. But with us united, we were able to ensure the survival of humanity."

Aurora smiled wistfully, but Ruby was becoming more and more frustrated. This rambling explanation didn't seem close to arriving at the point, nor did it explain just why she had been pulled into this imaginary place in the first place.

"But what did you do?"

"We committed treason, or heresy, or any other number of crimes. The Aether was the first and largest shard of Dust in the world but, even ignoring its size, it was unique. Unlike the other pieces of Dust that fell from the sky, it had not had its makeup stained by its descent. Instead it remained pure, white. That should be a clue."

"It should?" Ruby asked, slowly raising an eyebrow.

"It should. Dust is an energy sink, I'm sure you know that. If the Aether didn't absorb energy, then I wouldn't be able to accurately describe it as Dust. Dust takes on the colours that everyone is aware of, yet the Aether didn't. Though it still absorbed energy. Some of the rituals we practiced here involved setting it alight; it would glow a brilliant incarnadine, before fading to white. But it always faded. That was only a sign of just how very special it was.

"In our roles in this building, two of us had studied it intensely. We didn't know about Dust, not back then, but we had stories of where the Aether had come from. We knew what it had done for our home. We wanted to share that with the world.

"It was arrogance of the highest order, but we were arrogant. So arrogant. We believed ourselves special. We could do incredible things. Things that elevated ourselves above all others. We looked at Luna, we looked at a god, and we decided to take matters into our own hands.

"In the many sessions of prayer, I'd noticed my Semblance became stronger in this room. The same was true for Auras. Some people were miraculously healed if they spent a night in this room. It was magic. If we were actually here, you would be able to feel it as well. The Aether acts as a resonator. By tapping into it, we could become more. Do things that should have been impossible. We could change the world, and we did.

"We looked up at the sky. The seven of us, and we smote a god. Titania allowed us to share our thoughts, to act as one combined being. Dolos changed our bodies so we could sustain the rigours of what we were doing to them. That we still do. He infused our bodies with that which we were using. None of us had expected to survive. It was because of him we did. That we still do. Ioséphus enhanced the resonance, allowed us to infuse the Aether with pure Aura. It released a power unmatched to this very day. The power Cinder used to crack a moon. Juno provided the bridge to make it happen, and Ozpin guided our hand."

There were a lot of names that Ruby didn't recognise, but some she did. However, Aurora had missed one. "What did you do?"

Aurora raised her hand and looked at it. Her fingers twitched as if a phantom sensation brushed over them. "I was the link to the Aether."

"Ok… so let's say I believe you, and you really did blow up the moon." As she said it Ruby became aware of just how ridiculous she sounded. But then again she was talking to someone who professed to be an immortal in the middle of a long dead city. "You still haven't told me why, or why you're telling me all this?" She'd had to fight for every crumb of information about the Pantheon, and now Aurora was shoving loaf after loaf down her throat, but none of it made sense.

"I did tell you why. This city was allowed to rise, to cast its shadow over the land, because of this. The Aether. For the first time our people had noticeable Auras. Have you never wondered why they have become so much stronger over the years? Why so many people have Semblances?"

Ruby hadn't. She'd just assumed it was for the same reasons that people were taller and healthier; there was more food available, and children no longer grew up malnourished. "Not really."

"It's because of Dust. Dust, Aura, Semblances, your soul, they're all linked. Here was the first time that people were exposed to Dust, exposed to it properly. It was said to be good luck to lay a newly born child by the shrine during the first day of their life. People came here once a month or more. Pregnant women were blessed here. The Aether played a vital part all through their lives. And in response, the strength of their Auras grew, children born here developed magical abilities, Semblances, and we owed it all to the Aether.

"Of course, these days it's different. You don't worship Dust, but you are exposed to it more than we ever were. The modern world uses it in unfathomable quantities. For a child growing up in a city, there is no point where they are more than a dozen feet from Dust. These days, it is ingrained in their very lives. Even the weakest Aura today is stronger than the majority of the strongest from Ephesus. And then there are people like you who can shrug off bullets because, from the moment of your conception, you have been surrounded by Dust."

Ruby ran her tongue over her teeth as she tried to process what she'd been told. It might have been the truth. Aurora definitely seemed sincere, but Ruby just didn't know. More than anything she wished that Weiss was by her side. If anyone in the world knew everything there was to know about Dust, it was Weiss. She would have been able to ask all the right questions. To be able to tell if Aurora was correct or not. As it was, Ruby just had to guess. It sounded plausible. Dust was special, and if people could use it with their Semblances, then maybe they were linked in more ways.

"We succeeded," Aurora continued after a brief pause. "We shattered the moon. And in the weeks and months that followed, fire rained from the sky. We hadn't expected to survive, and we were still suffering in our new bodies. But as we watched what we'd unleashed, we'd thought we'd destroyed us all in our arrogance.

"It was a global event. The first global event. All over the world people looked up to see night turn to day, to see the moon flash, and then break into pieces. Of course most didn't understand. How could they when we barely did ourselves? Those events inspired hundreds of different legends. Of jealous suns and falling tears. The reality was so much simpler.

"The pieces of the moon, the pieces that contained Dust, fell over the entirety of the planet. Much like we did, those who saw the shards land, went to them, and they worshipped them. They protected them. Their latent Auras were awakened. And over the years, generations where the pieces continued to fall. People were exposed to more and more Dust. They gradually began to understand how to use it. They grew stronger. Strong enough to make a stand. Strong enough to survive. Within decades our work should have been done, but we made a mistake. A mistake that hounded us for millennia, right up until this very day."

"What was it?" Ruby asked. Even if this wasn't true, Aurora was an exemplary storyteller. Ruby hung on her every word.

"The Grimm. We thought them monsters. We were wrong. They are so much more than that. The Grimm share many of the habits that animals do, but they are not animals for they lack a soul. They shouldn't be able to exist. Without a soul a body will wither and die. Do you know what the Grimm eat?"

"People." Ruby suppressed a shudder. She'd seen it first-hand more times than she could count, and not one of the memories failed to make her hate herself for not being strong enough to stop it.

"Well yes, but that's not quite what I meant. Do you know what the Grimm need to eat? The answer is nothing. You can lock one in a cage for a decade and it won't starve. The energy we get from food, they get from another source."

That at least was true. The Grimm didn't need to eat people. They just did it because it was fun. Even though the outcome was the same, it was somehow worse. If the Grimm needed sustenance, she could have perhaps understood them. They would just have been part of the natural food chain and perhaps higher up it than people. But they weren't. They existed separately, and chose to kill anyway.

To her knowledge no one was aware of just what the Grimm needed to survive. There were plenty of theories, but they were just that, theories. No one had been able to prove anything.

"That source is one that you are intimately familiar with, and we have already discussed. Did you ever wonder why every colour of Dust exists except black? It should do, shouldn't it? And yet, you'll find no shops that sell it, nor veins of it underground, but it does exist. The Grimm are the physical manifestation of it."

With one word after another, Aurora turned Ruby's world on its head. The Grimm were the Grimm. They couldn't be made of Dust. They were vicious beasts, not crystals. And yet, Aurora was certain in her proclamation. After everything she'd already revealed, she was either entirely deluded or had a greater understanding of the world than almost anyone. At the moment, despite how farfetched it was, Ruby was leaning towards the latter. Still, Ruby would have been the first to admit she wasn't the most academic person in the world, but she could see a flaw.

"You're saying the Grimm are Dust, but you also said the whole reason you did all that with the Aether was because of the Grimm. That they existed before."

"So did Dust." Aurora crouched down and placed her hand against the flagstones. The rock blurred beneath Ruby's vision, its definition becoming indistinguishable. The very grains seemed to shift and come alive. When Aurora rose, a tiny crystal sat in her outstretched palm. "Dust exists in everything around us. In the air you breathe, in the food you eat, and in the dirt walk on. You'll have to trust me that I could do the same to anything in the real world. The particles of Dust are so insignificant that they're unusable, but they still react to our presence even if you don't realise it.

"So you were right. The Grimm did exist before, but only in small numbers. There wasn't enough Dust on the surface of the planet to sustain more than that. That didn't mean they weren't a threat though. A single Deathstalker could kill an entire tribe with no one strong or skilled enough to stop it. They were driving the world to extinction. We had to act, but afterwards, after the smoke had settled, we saw the fallacy of our actions.

"As more people began using Dust, as their Aura and Semblances began to awaken, so did the Grimm. Where before there were solitary Beowolves, now there were hordes. We had only succeeded in making things worse.

"It's the cruellest irony. Mankind needs Dust to survive, to be able to fight back, but by using it, they enable the very thing they are fighting against. Only in modern times have the advances in weaponry outweighed the harm that Dust does. It obeys the same laws as the rest of the universe. The process of using it is not one hundred percent efficient. Every time you've turned on a Dust-powered lamp, somewhere, you have fed a Grimm."

Ruby's mouth fell agape. "Why didn't you tell anybody!" All the times she had left a light on, or not bothered to turn the TV off, came back to her. Like most, though she tried, she had never really been all that concerned about wasting a little bit of power. Now Aurora was telling her that all that time, all throughout her life, she'd been aiding the Grimm? Multiplied by the planet, it was unimaginable.

"Because no one would care. We tried in the past. It didn't work. While Dust exists on the planet, people will use it. They are selfish. If the Grimm are far away they don't care about the consequences."

"Some would have." She would have.

"Yes they would. And they would have been have outnumbered by orders of magnitude." For the first time some anger, or maybe frustration, slipped through Aurora's pleasant demeanour. "You cannot change the fundamental nature of humanity. Take that from extensive experience."

Aurora blew out a breath, her shoulders slumping. Walking to the side of the hall she sat down and patted the bench next to her. After a moment of hesitation Ruby took a seat. Aurora straightened invisible creases in her dress and continued.

"We did what we thought best. I would like to pretend we were truly ignorant of the nature of the Grimm. We weren't. We knew. Or at least suspected. The Aether was linked to something. It was the only way it could remain pure. When we used it, we reinforced that link. We took the Aether into our bodies, infused it to our very souls, and connected them to the thing on the other side."

"What was it?"

"We didn't know at the time. We do now. It's a Grimm, the most terrible Grimm. One which could devour cities, and it has fed off of the last remnants of the Aether in our bodies for millennia. At least in that we kept it sated. It remained dormant. Far out of danger. Its spawn were not.

"When we saw what we had done. As the hordes of Grimm rose up all over the world. As they became stronger. As they aged. We knew we had not done enough. We conspired to save humanity from the certain doom we had created. We would guide them to a better future.

"Ruby, I want you to know that everything you found out while digging around in those ruins was completely right. There has been a group controlling directing the development of society. You're looking at one of the members. With your permission I would like to introduce you to two of my friends."

Despite the situation, despite the grim portents that Aurora had revealed, Ruby basked in the words. She had been right. All along. In those few words, Aurora had vindicated the two years Ruby had spent alone in the wilderness. It was a weight lifted off her shoulders.

After that, even the alarm bells that Aurora's offer set ringing failed to bring Ruby down. After all the time they'd spent talking, however many minutes or hours had passed, she didn't think that Aurora was out to hurt her. There would have been no reason to reveal everything. And if she was, given the power that she likely had at her command, Ruby knew that she would be helpless before her. Two more all-powerful gods didn't increase the danger overly much. Plus, she was curious. "Sure."

"Thank you." By the look on her face Aurora really meant it. She rose, and Ruby got up after her.

Two people walked through the door. Unlike Aurora they weren't wearing clothes that fit their surroundings. The tallest wore a strange dress, its skirt shredded until it was little more than a hundred ribbons. In her dark hair she wore a circlet that could be described as nothing more than a crown. It glowed as brightly as the crystal of Dust. The other was shorter, wearing a comfortable cardigan and jeans.

"This is Juno," Aurora indicated the shorted woman who nodded in Ruby's direction, "and this is my very special friend Titania. It is because of her we're all here together."

"Not quite all." Titania's voice surprised Ruby. From her dress she had expected her to have a fae-like tone. Unburdened and carefree. Instead, she sounded almost like Weiss did when she gave formal speeches. Regal. Like a Queen.

"What?" Aurora asked. For the first time off-balance. From the look of her Juno hadn't expected this either.

"There is one more who must join us."

Another figure entered. As their eyes locked, Ruby's heart stopped. She managed to breathe out a single word through the gates of her frozen lungs.

"Mum?"

A/N: Can anyone say infodump? It couldn't really be avoided, but I bet you didn't expect that ending.

As always thanks for reading and please leave your thoughts.