Embers of Autumn
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ruby had known Maab Renard for approximately two-point-five minutes, but had already elevated her opinion of the Witch to near divine when she set foot into her house and let her eyes adjust to the change in the light. Once she processed what she found inside her jaw dropped and a gasp drew itself slowly, reverently into her lungs.
Maab is a great many things other than a Witch and a mother; there was a time when she was a well respected huntress, mapmaker, and blacksmith in spite of her compact stature. But not only had she made a number of weapons, she is also an avid collector, and her home is decorated wall to wall with her seemingly countless acquisitions. All sorts of armaments from various eras and regions of the world; innumerable varieties of blades -swords, daggers, chakrams, even scythes in a myriad of sizes- bludgeons and shields grouped together by either type or age or their peculiar style. Ruby's attention at the moment is wholly ensnared by a dual-ended pole-arm, the blades of which look to be fashioned from bovine skulls. After that it was a longsword that is actually vertebra fused together in such away that the jutting parts of bone lined up to form the edge. Maab swore it could cut just as well as steel.
The young huntress continues through the adobe house with the rest of the pack, freezing again with the same thunderstruck look at the piece that's mounted across the entryway to what is likely the dinning area. She feels the need to cover her gaping mouth with both hands and does just that.
"I think Ruby's in love." Nora chuckles. Weiss only seems momentarily ruffled by the comment, the notion there and gone again once she realizes what her Guardian is gawking at. It's a scythe - because of course it is- with a handle made up of winding coils of wood that had become dry and dark gray with age. But, strangely, ivy still appears to twist from the thick knot of wood at the butt of the weapon to the edge, leaves as green as ever. The blade is long and sleek, the metal having a brushed finish that caught the light and little else, pristine.
"It's beautiful,"
Maab has doubled back, visibly amused and curious, her grin widening. "That's likely the oldest piece in my collection. Possibly the first of its kind, or so I heard." she says as she stands beside Ruby, her arms crossing as a look of satisfaction comes over her. "The blade is solid silver."
"No," Ruby gasps.
"Yes, and supposedly there's a crystal of raw Dust hidden inside it somewhere."
"Where did you find it?" Somehow Ruby's eyes have gotten impossibly wider.
Maab clears her throat and adjusts her glasses. "If I told you, chances are certain present company would likely be rather cross with me." And though they are related by nothing more than some loose form of marriage, Glynda and Rusty both made the exact same face in Maab's general direction. The older Witch just laughs it off. "But what I can tell you is that legend says it belonged to Zerline's eldest."
"The first Witch who died?" Jaune speaks up, his mouth working faster than his brain.
"Oh, you know that story?"
"A version of it, yeah."
"Smart boy; stories that old likely don't have a one way to tell them. And not only the scythe, but what Glynda told me has been going on made me think of that in particular. I suppose Gypsy told you she just died?"
"Killed by Zerline's darkness, the first Grimm." he nods once.
"In a way, yes, at least in the version I know."
"I don't know if we have time for this," Glynda interjects.
Maab's ears snap back. "You're as bad as your father, always in a hurry."
"There was a time when you were like that too." She counters gently.
"Yes, but now I'm old and tired and I want to tell my grandson and his friends a story. But, if it will make you happy, we can walk and talk at the same time."
"I'll put dinner on while you conduct your business." Rusty says as he lingers next to the roughly hewn stairs.
"Many thanks love."
Jaune pauses, on foot on a step and the other still on the ground floor, looking curious. "Mom said you and Maab split up,"
Rusty chuckles. "What, people our age can't reconcile? Now get along before they leave you behind."
Maab leads them upstairs, taking them two or three at a time with little bursts of aura as she recites the more commonly heard version of the first Witch's death. It's almost word for word what Jaune remembers his mother telling him.
The second floor's only room is hauntingly reminiscent of the heart of the house in Glynda's manor. Trinkets and nick-nacks hang from the walls, crowd shelves, and fill several locked chests that take up residence in the corners. Framed photos and maps take up most of the wall space, one in particular arranged in an almost shrine -the portrait of a blond, bearded man in the middle, flanked by a sword and shield that looked to be made of some incredible purple crystal with a golden crown insignia in the center. Glynda had been wondering what happened to them.
"Mother, why are you keeping all this here? It's unprotected."
"As long as I live, nothing in my house is unprotected." Maab brags a little. "Still, it's so remote, the only people that would think to look here deserve to go toe-to-toe with me anyway."
"You should have sent it to the house." Glynda grumbles as she studies her father's portrait.
"Well, if things are as unsafe in Vale as you think, maybe it's better I didn't. Now, everyone here? Everyone listening? Good."
She goes on to tell them all the supposedly true account, told to her by a Witch, who knew a Witch, who knew a Witch that had claimed to have been there when it happened. It might have been easier to believe if Maab had explained a Witch's enhanced lifespan beforehand, but she's quick to rectify that. From there she quickly delves into the story as she was told.
"You see, everyone, what you're dealing with -as far as I understand it- has indeed happened before. Zerline's eldest did die, but not in the traditional sense. She was consumed by the blood of the Mother Grimm and transformed into something else, a creature called Jabberwocky. Zerline's pain had been the force behind the magic that sealed her darkness in the mirror."
"Jabberwocky," Blake's ears prick atop her head, "that's one of the Progenitors."
"It is." Maab nods. "And it's also my understanding that it was the same Grimm that attacked Beacon. So this is not entirely unheard of -as much as I wish it was."
Jaune feels a cold shudder in his chest, his memory sparking back to the dragon-like Grimm that had all but decimated the academy. Was that going to happen to Pyrrha? Would she eventually become the creature he saw on the scroll, that awful, faceless horror of a thing? He feels a little static prickle across his skin, somehow knowing it's coming from Nora who stands just behind him. Is she thinking the same thing?
Glynda watches her mother cross the floor towards something propped against the wall and concealed with a stretch of heavy cloth. "That's a rather incredible assumption, even for you." And a part of her brain winces, realizing how contradictory she's being, especially after what Tag and Jaune told her what they had seen.
"It's not an assumption, I know what I'm talking about just as I understand the weight of it." She glares at her daughter. "What I don't understand is why you have to keep being such a damn skeptic. You, with all your experience and everything I taught you, yet these kids have more faith than you do." She knows because she can see it in their eyes, some filled with fear, others filled with a keen understanding that simply can't be explained.
"Mother,"
"Zerline is real, just as the Mother Grimm is real, and no matter how much you want to deny it, it has taken control of your sister -my child." she has to stop to breathe, her comfortable confidence suddenly shaken and her features flickering with pain. "You think I'm saying this lightly?"
"Of course not," Glynda exhales.
"You're damn right of course not; I tell you I'd rather Salem be dead than what she's been turned into. I'd sooner cut out my own heart than it be this way, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter."
The air in the room is easily twice as heavy as before. Most of them exchange anxious glances at each other as they're simply unaccustomed to Glynda being browbeaten like this. Now everyone can see where their former professor gets her expert tongue-lashing abilities from.
"Maab, please," Billy's mother speaks up gently, much to everyone's surprise, "now's not the time."
"Yes, yes, I know, I'm sorry." she composes herself by going through the automatic behavior of rubbing her eyes and adjusting her glasses. Then she clears her throat, her hands moving behind her back so they don't fuss where everyone can readily see. "Fortunately enough for us, as it stands Salem is unable to leave the realm beyond the mirror, that gives us the advantage of time. Regardless of whether or not she knows we're coming, she has nowhere else to go."
"Wait, you're suggesting we actually-" Glynda's jaw hangs slack as her mother cuts her off with a nod. "How?"
"When Witches used mirrors to travel they had to pass through the between, the realm beyond or whatever you want to call it, but were unable to actually access it unless under very specific circumstances. One of which is the nature of the mirror itself; to my knowledge only two of these types of mirrors exist, the first being Zerline's own."
"And the other?"
Maab smirks as she finally reaches up and grabs a handful of the draped fabric, pulling it down to reveal what lay underneath. "Kiriin -that is, Salem's father- left it to me when he died, supposedly it's been in his family for decades."
It's seven feet tall and flawlessly carved from a solid chunk of what looks like black, volcanic glass. But a spot of light reflecting from one of the other relics in the room reveals a rich viridian coloration. According to Maab the focus had been made for a pair of Witches, conjoined twins, and that was an integral part of what made the mirror special, made it powerful. That as well as the fact that it was crafted from a crystal of exceptionally rare Dust.
"You have your focus with you, Glynda?"
"Always."
"Then you should be able to go to and from without any trouble. And unless anyone else here has a focus, the Maidens present should be able to as well."
"What about our Guardians?" Weiss chances.
"If they're marked there shouldn't be a problem."
"They're not ready," Glynda counters resolutely, shaking her head.
"We don't have a choice." the elder Faunus replies, her tone flat yet biting. "She needs to be stopped, not just for Salem's sake but for Remnant's. This could be a chance to tear out the roots of the Grimm for good." And if noting else, that last reason should have been enough to bring everyone in the room to consensus. Ending the threat of Grimm is the primary purpose of every hunter, after all.
"But again, mother, how? If the First Grimm is involved, what do you expect us to do? All we know is that it is,"
"Yes, it is, but it also needs a host to act. Use your head, girl, if you take away its host, it's no better than any other Grimm."
Glynda bites her cheek against something vicious, something only a grown woman has the guts to say to her own mother.
"And you said you had a plan, Glynda," Maab continues, almost accusatory, "what of it?" But she knows by the way her daughter glares back at her that she's just shy of too angry to speak. Whatever she might have thought to say has just gone up in a cloud of smoke.
"S-silver," Jaune stammers, unsure of where his sudden but feeble confidence came from. He still feels like the least qualified to say a damn thing, he doesn't even feel like he has the right to be here at all, but a part of him can't stomach Glynda being badgered like that anymore. "Silver magic seems to hurt the Old Ones pretty bad."
"It's true," Tag adds as she moves from behind Billy so Maab can see her. "I couldn't sense Manticore's host until Ruby hit it with her magic."
"Is that so?" her brow furrows at her fellow Faunus before her dark jade eyes shifts until she spots the young huntress that she can only assume was Ruby. Her red cape is all but a name tag, and sure enough the Witch catches a sterling glint in the girl's curious gaze.
"Yes, and again with this most recent encounter with it. It was Billy that time and they were able to break up its armor, that seemed to weaken it considerably."
"Enough for Jaune to hold it on his own until Tag reached him." the Guardian contributes, glancing over to him with a little pride lifting the corner of their mouth when they catch him looking their way.
Maab takes a moment to think, letting notions roll around in her head until they find their proper place. So there's perhaps a chance. "Then why not take Billy with you, Glynda? They seem experienced enough,"
"I won't ask them to leave their Maiden behind and I'll be damned if I take Tag with me to Salem's front door. That's too big of a risk."
"Now wait just a minute-"
"Later," Maab stops the Otter before she can gain too much momentum. "But that doesn't leave you with many other options."
"Why don't you come with me?"
"As much as I would prefer to -hell, knowing me I would have tried to do it myself by now if I could- I can't. If something goes wrong I am the only one who can use the mirror. I would be your only way out."
"But I'm a Witch," Nora waves one hand in the air, drawing all the attention to herself, "couldn't I use it?"
Maab seems to perk up for a moment, pleased to see another of her kind in the room. "You could, but not like I can; it's one of many awful and silly rules that us poor women have to abide by to keep the universe from getting its knickers in any more of a twist." Which, if she were to guess, the wedgie of upset that the cosmos is feeling right now is likely just short of atomic.
"You might as well accept it, Glynda," Yang cocks her hip, one fist resting against it as she shifts her feet. "We're all you've got."
"But you're not ready." she can feel her jaw clenching, her teeth threatening to cut her words in half.
"It doesn't really matter at this point, we came all this way anyhow and we're going to do what we have to, ready or not. Besides, it's our job, isn't it -not just as hunters, but as Maidens and Guardians?"
"She's right." Blake is just beside her, one hand slipping into Yang's prosthetic grip.
"Agreed." Weiss couples her vote with a curt nod and a straightening of her spine.
Glynda looks at the girls one by one, a mixture of pride and frustration and dread pulsing through her at their resolve. "I suppose...you all feel this way?"
"I think we do." Ruby answers for them. "So what do we do from here? And what about Pyrrha?"
"Who...is that, the name sounds familiar?" Maab's ears, like her eyebrows, are funnily cock-eyed.
"Manticore's host," Glynda adjusts her glasses after stabilizing herself with a breath. "She was once one of my students -one of my best in fact."
"My, she must have been quite something if you're delving out such a high compliment." Maab seems genuinely shocked.
"She still is." strangely, almost unnaturally, Weiss and Jaune say the same thing at the same time, catching a glance from one another before looking away just as quickly. Yang whispers "Jinx."
"But you said you felt my magic somewhere in the jungle," Glynda continues, "that leads me to believe that Manticore may have reappeared in the area. I disabled one of Salem's seals and something...I can't really explain what happened, but the Grimm disappeared. My powers have never done that before."
"Well, I can tell you I didn't find much when I went to check it out; it's monsoon season so whatever had been there was mostly washed away. There were some tracks, a great deal of them I could pick out as Grimm that are common to these parts, but I could smell traces of blood that was -at the very least- a little human. Perhaps you're right, and if that's the case I can only imagine what it may start to do if it's given enough time to recover."
Glynda nods as she crosses her arms, taking a few steps from her place for no other reason than to move for a change. "We have to draw it out somehow."
Jaune clears his throat, almost forcing himself to speak. "N-not necessarily. She might even be on her way here already." Jaune feels the weight of eyes on him, feels the heaviness double when he sees the obvious fear in Billy's mother's gaze. He continues after a short pause, knowing the coming questions before anyone can ask. "Mom thinks she's after me, but I think it's bigger than that. I think she can track Maiden's auras too somehow. So she'll be coming soon if she's able." And part of him prays she isn't.
"Now that stands to be quite the problem, doesn't it?" the question is purely rhetorical, likely Maab's knee-jerk reaction to information of such serious nature. "And we haven't much time," she watches as her daughter just shakes her head. "Nature's grace...what to do,"
"Jaune and I can lure it here." Tag offers.
"I'll be damned if you set yourselves up as bait for that thing," Billy half growls, the response quick and biting.
"That's not up to you." the Maiden snaps back in equal measure. "Besides, you make it sound like we'd be alone, I'm not that stupid."
"Tag, I didn't-"
"We can get Matt and Elo, plus your mother is here and Maab if she's willing. And don't forget Jaune has a pack of his own; if it's the hybrid we're after, they have a right to be here."
"And what about Salem then? None of us can be in two places at once." Then they have a second thought. "...Unless...that's a Witch thing?"
"Not for any of us, I'm afraid," Maab sighs, disappointed with her ears down and out. Blake considered saying something about how her Semblance had changed, that maybe she actually could, but her sense of self preservation snatches the thought right out of her head. "But Tag and the girls make an excellent point...though splitting up isn't the route I would take under other circumstances."
And by the stern look on Glynda's face, neither would she. But, as it's been established already, they don't have much choice. "So who goes and who stays?"
"Team RWBY's with you, Glynda." Ruby announces, hoping her former professor would return the confident smile she's left with the brief misery of feeling like a lost puppy.
Maab nods subtly, beginning to scan the room. "Any objections? Anyone else wish to go that actually can?
Other eyes in the room exchange slowly, contemplatively with one another, and thoughts jump across ethereal links back and forth from their respective ends.
"Perhaps five is enough," Glynda almost hums to herself, "then again it might be too much. In any case, we'll need to move fast; the sooner we get to her, the less time she has to summon any of the Progenitors against us."
"As long as it isn't the giant spider, I don't care." Yang shakes her head, laughing unsteadily.
"How will we know where we're headed once we cross through the mirror?" Weiss asks.
"We won't, unfortunately. For the most part just the existence of this place was subject to debate, and even when the reality of it was accepted, no one thought to map it. Likely due to a lack of accessibility coupled with the indiscernible nature of the place." Glynda explains. "We're walking into this as blind as can be."
"Oh...wonderful." the heiress swallows. "Then what about Pyrrha?"
"I've been thinking; perhaps if we can subdue Salem, whatever magic she has over her will break."
"She was terribly injured," Tag intervenes, worry setting her brows tightly. "Destroying the magic could kill her if we can't reach her fast enough."
"So we would have to lure Manticore in first," Maab's chin dips with every other word, like she's measuring them. "We wouldn't be able to hold it long, it would either summon more and more Grimm until they overwhelm us, or the villagers would panic and that -I can assure you- is not something you want."
For a moment the older Witch just listens as they all murmur between themselves, half arguing at points and half reasoning at others. She's beginning to see what Glynda had been so worried about and feels herself sharing the sentiment, though quietly -most of them are just kids. How on earth do kids get caught up in these things? Most if not all of them are likely still virgins, maybe having yet to even fallen in love -she has no idea just how wrong she is- yet here they are, stepping up to something so big. They certainly had guts, she would readily grant them that, but she also knows they're going to need every last inch of them to get through what's coming. Nature's grace...
(II)
Still holed up in the dockside warehouse, the Fall Maiden manically paces the small room while her Guardian sleeps on the cot against the wall. It's been almost two days and Cinder hasn't slept, at least not deep enough to matter anyway. The lights are out but the smoldering glow of her eyes marks her patterned steps from one end of the room to the other. Steady, almost calculated breaths pass hotly through her flared nostrils, just shy of becoming steam in the wintery air that permeates the walls from outside. The steel panels occasionally shake, a reminder of the snowy storm front that's moved into the city. Once it breaks, she'll send Neo out to look for Glynda and those damnable kids. But until then she seethes, stalking through the dark with hardly a stitch on because her skin simply can't stand the feel of clothing.
Her legs no longer twinge with pain at the slightest pressure, but the cut across her back still grinds against her nerves with even the slightest too-deep breath. She doesn't want it to heal fully, not yet because she wants to remember that idiot boy's easily forgotten face. She wants to remember it so the next time she sees him she'll be instinctively ready to rip it from his skull and send it to his mother in the mail. Or, even better, she will deliver it herself and then gut the sow that pushed him out so she couldn't make another little shit that looks just like him.
Her steps pause as her jaw clenches steadily, her fingers curling into her biceps like claws as her thoughts jump from that worthless bastard to Salem. Cinder has had enough of the old bitch pushing her around and threatening her -that much she's certain of. There was a time when she would have stomached it, back when she still needed the Witch to get what she wanted, but that time has passed and with it Cinder's need to restrain herself. She means to make Salem pay, but how?
Of course Cinder could cross over and take Salem on her own turf and terms, but she immediately shakes the thought away. Foolish, to say the least, and if she took Neo with her, she would still be at a disadvantage -as talented as the sadistic thief is, she couldn't handle what Salem was likely capable of. Even as a Guardian, she's leagues behind. But she refuses -simply refuses- to just hide. She had done enough of that before Salem found her. No one threatens me. No one. She starts to pace again, her muscles loosening with a burning twinge across her back.
No. Just the two of us couldn't do it. But...
It might be a long shot, she thinks, but she's gambled big before and won. The hardest part would be...yes, but once she got that far, the rest would be easy as lying.
Cinder brings her attention to focus, carefully easing around the room in search of her clothes, sitting on the pile of garments once she's fished the small, old mirror from the pocket. Her back hits the steel panel of the wall sooner than she expects, ripping a sharp intake of breath between her teeth at the sensation of slapped sunburn. She focuses through it, bottom lip between her teeth. As she pushes a meager pulse of magic through the relic, she calls a small flame to her other hand so she'll be visible should she get an answer. Little by little she'll increase the intensity of the energy she's putting into the mirror, little by little until, after several minutes, she knows the other end should be literally burning a hole in someone's pocket. She offers up one more heated burst, making sure to put as much urgency as she can into it.
Cinder's image in the mirror shudders, rippling out of sight as the glass clouds over. For the briefest second the Fall Maiden grins in satisfaction, but quickly covers it up with a tight half-grimace and as much visible vulnerability as she can. Eventually, Emerald's face comes into the glass with in-person clarity. At first Cinder doesn't say anything, waiting as she can tell Emerald is trying to comprehend her appearance -it could make or break this conversation. As powerful and in-control as Cinder had felt for the last year or so, she wondered if she could still sell looking hurt.
"What happened, where are you?" Emerald finally asks.
Cinder feels a touch of relief but doesn't let it show. "I was worried when you didn't answer." she starts tightly, "I thought something had happened to you." and she watches as Emerald's suspicion softens. She's taking the bait.
"I'm fine, what's going on?"
"Neo and I were," she takes a breath, faking a charge of pain, "we were ambushed." Now she sees the genuine concern and a sort of reluctant fear. "We'll be all right, just...they hit us pretty hard."
"What happened?" she asks again.
"I almost had them," she laughs breathily, "I was this close...but then Salem's thing turned on us, almost took my head off." Cinder continues with a feigned wince. "We can't trust her anymore, that leaves us vastly outnumbered. We...I need you."
On the other end of the ethereal connection, Emerald feels her heart clench while her thoughts tear at each other. She feels the need to respond, to buckle to her secret feelings and go to her. She's hurting and vulnerable and she knows those are two things Cinder hated to be. And she would never admit to needing someone, not in a case like this, unless it was an absolute necessity. But something in the back of her mind is clawing, begging that she stands fast. It's demanding she destroy the mirror and never look back, leave the Fall Maiden to the bed she's made and forget her. Because if she doesn't, she'll just be drawn back in and trapped by something too big to get away from twice. It's a devil's bargain to say the least.
Still...I need you rings in her head and she can't bring herself to ignore it. "Where are you?"
"Vale."
Emerald swallows, her lips a thin line as she weighs her worries one more time. "I can be there in a few days."
"Contact me again when you're close, I'll tell you where you can meet us."
She nods. Then she shrinks a little, her image in the mirror appearing to tense, hesitate. "...Have you heard from Mercury?"
"Not since I last heard from you." she lies flawlessly. "Aren't you with him?"
"...We got separated. Haven't seen him." her answers are quick, bracing for the scolding she expects. She watches Cinder inhale and exhale slowly, but no flash of anger.
"Just get here safely, we can talk about it later."
"Alright. I'll keep in touch."
Cinder will wait until her other Guardian's likeness dissipates from the glass before she lets her hand drop to her side and finally allows the toothy smile that's been perched on her lips to show. She tries and fails not to laugh, oh so satisfied with herself and wholly amused by the gullibility of some people.
Author's Note: So, yeah, this chapter was strange, but here it is. You want to hear something funny? The next chapter is approximately where I intended this fic to actually BEGIN. That's right, story got in the way of the story and my hand slipped for thirty-six whole chapters. Isn't that something? Anyway, I honestly can't say when the next chapter as well the remainder of the first act will actually be out, because I've got a shit ton of fight scenes to write as well as last minute plot logistics to finalize. Gotta figure out who lives and who dies and all that. Please, PLEASE, if you don't mind and have the time, constructive criticism as well as suggestions are highly appreciated and encouraged. Want something in particular to happen? Want me to bump off/spare a particular character? Drop me a line and let me know, let's talk! Lots of love, and many thanks for the support!