I'll go back and make the floating-city change to Atlas some time over the next few months. It's not exactly urgent because-like I said-it won't matter until we get back to Atlas, which is a long way off, but I'll do it before I get there.
"Was that burn dust?"
"Was what burn dust?"
"Out on the tundra with Hodrick." Winter leaned against the wall of the longhouse, hands tucked into the pockets of her coat. The fires were burning low, and the sun was going down. "I didn't think you'd been supplied with incendiary ammunition."
Gilderoy shook his head. "Shock rounds can get explosive when you push a little aura through them."
"You don't have aura."
"No, but Hodrick's was going crazy. Just needed to catch a spark."
"Hm. Neat trick."
Eleum Loyce was quiet. The town had gathered in the longhouse to prepare for the equinox while Winter and Gilderoy waited outside. It'd been a few hours now. They ought to finish soon.
Sirris had said she'd keep her word, though she hadn't said much else. It didn't bode well. She was grieving, and not likely in any state to argue to an entire town that they should include an outsider in one of their rituals.
Winter had never liked being discussed without being present. It reminded her of when she'd wait outside the door to Jacques' study as a child. All that had changed was that she now had the patience to not listen through the keyhole.
And, to some extent, the ability not to dwell on it. Though Gilderoy had acquitted himself well with Hodrick, not for the first time she found herself annoyed that she wasn't alone. Were she by herself she'd have been able to distract herself for a few hours, even if only by enjoying the silence rather than stewing in its awkwardness.
"What do you think that Grimm was?" Gilderoy asked, and that wasn't for the first time either. Apparently he found the silence awkward too.
"Unclear. I've done a little research, though with the reception out here being what it is, it's been slow." It was a vague answer, and he was free to draw whatever conclusions from it he wished. Yes, she'd skimmed the military's database of recorded Grimm varieties, but most of what she'd been looking through had been information on Sulyvahn. The military had kept tabs on him for years, though no more so than on any other political figure. She'd scoured scroll records, news articles, briefings and debriefings from special operatives assigned him—whether as security or occasionally to spy—and found precious little.
Some things were odd. He'd made a few anonymous donations to a charity that 'fixed' faunus by 'surgically correcting' their animal traits. He'd been visiting Mountain Glenn the night it had fallen, and though he'd escaped his entire security detail had died. Around half of the specialists assigned to him reported feeling headaches, migraines, or nausea around him in their debriefings.
And when Winter thought about it, she'd always had a headache around him as well. It'd been at its worst when they'd found him out in Forever Fall. She'd felt it again out on the tundra.
"I have a hunch," she said, "but that's all it is."
"Care to share it?"
"Not particularly."
"Do you think it could be an Erlkönig?"
She gave him a sharp look. "If you know what that is you should know it would have killed us."
"Professor Port didn't make them sound that dangerous."
"I doubt he's encountered one outside of his own fantasies."
"Well, if it isn't an Erlkönig, then what do you think it is?"
"I don't know for sure."
Gilderoy waited for her to elaborate. When she didn't, he turned towards her. "I know you don't like me, but if you have a theory I think I should hear it. This whole 'putting the mission first' thing goes for you too."
Winter raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I don't like you?"
"Oh, come on. You barely tolerate me."
"Barely or not, I do still tolerate you. I have nothing against you personally. I just prefer working alone."
"Do you? You and Artorias worked together plenty and you got along just fine."
"As far as you know," she corrected. "You weren't privy to every detail of our professional relationship… or whatever passes as professional for him."
"Are you going to tell me you and I get along better than you and he did?"
"Does it matter?" It seemed like a strange thing to get hung up on. He had so much more to worry about.
"Yes."
Winter didn't have to think about it—for all his faults, Artorias was still a dear friend—but she took a moment for Gilderoy's sake. "No."
He glanced away. "Sometimes I wonder if all I have are professional relationships. I told Artorias once that I'd give up our friendship. For what, I don't know, but it just… Don't get me wrong, I liked them—my team—fine, but none of them actually meant all that much to me. I was always wondering if the only reason we were together was because we just happened to end up on the same team. But I found Smough, and I loved him and I know he loved me, but he's gone now. And Penny was… I guess she was my first best friend. Well, 'best' is a relevant term, but you know what I mean, don't you? What kind of person goes twenty years before finding someone they can call their best friend?"
"The kind of person who enjoys their own company," Winter said.
"That's the problem. I'm not that kind of person. And now I have this second chance, but I don't know how to be… myself. Or how to be the person I want to be."
"Well, I'm afraid I can't help you with that," she said. Because she was the kind of person to enjoy her own company, and as understandable as his insecurity was it didn't do much to endear him to her nor was it her responsibility to overcome it for him. But she supposed she'd been a little... stand-offish. She sighed. "My theory—such as it is—is that the Grimm is Aisling Sulyvahn, or that it used to be him."
"How—"
"How can a human being become a Grimm? Good question, and one I don't have an answer to. But I've seen somebody like Hodrick before, and it was Sulyvahn's doing then. Maybe Sulyvahn did it to himself as well. I don't know."
Gilderoy nodded slowly. "Well… thank you for telling me your thoughts."
"You're welcome."
The doors to the longhouse opened shortly afterwards. The town filed out. Some tended to the firepits, coaxing them back to a warm, gentle glow. Others returned to their homes, or to the inn for a meal.
McDuff spotted them and made his way over.
"It is done," he said. "I spoke for you. The girl and her grandmother spoke for you, Ornstein. They spoke well."
"Where is she?" Gilderoy asked.
"She would have told you herself, but they are still in grief. Let them rest."
Gilderoy nodded slowly. "To be clear, when you say 'it is done' and 'they spoke well'—?"
"He means we're in," Winter said.
McDuff nodded. "You may pass into the city. But it would not be good manners to conduct your business there until the ceremony is complete."
"Of course."
"Your weapons must remain behind."
Winter narrowed her eyes. "That's unacceptable."
"I named your weapons—the little Ash too—before Loyce that they too might witness the ceremony, but to no avail. Once they would have been as welcome as we of body and soul, but there are few now who remember those days," McDuff said. "I can watch over them until you return… whenever that may be."
"You know where we're going, don't you?" Winter asked. "You know we'll need them."
"It is out of my hands, and out of yours too. Those who are unnamed cannot enter the city."
Winter and Gilderoy shared a look. "Fine," Winter said, scowling. She drew her sabre, slipping the parrying dagger out of its hilt as she did so and hiding it in her sleeve. "Here. Before I change my mind."
"Hmm." McDuff ran his finger along the flat of the blade. "She says you're hiding her partner up your—"
Winter handed the weapon over.
"They are loyal to each other before they are loyal to their mother."
How awfully sweet of them, she mused sarcastically, but bit back the words before they slipped out. It actually was kind of sweet, though very strange.
"And the little Ash?" McDuff asked, returning the parrying dagger to its place in the sabre's hilt.
Gilderoy nodded and passed the bident over. McDuff pushed a little aura through, and the dust-edge sparked.
"Good." He breathed in deeply and hung the weapons from his belt. "They understand you must leave them behind. Return for them when you can. The ceremony begins at nightfall tomorrow; do not be late."
/-/
"Will Roman be joining us?" Quelana asked.
Neo shook her head.
"I don't suppose he needs me to tell him to look after himself," Artorias muttered. "Tell him anyway."
"I'm sure he'll be terribly offended at the suggestion," Quelana said.
Neo grinned.
Artorias busied himself squinting at the hangar up ahead. It was part of a block of them, backed right up against the cliffs themselves overlooking the ocean. The metal roof was corroded in places, the wind carrying salt all the way up from the sea far below.
Quelana pursed her lips. So much for pretending that nothing had happened: he'd barely acknowledged a word she'd said all morning.
"How long are you staying in Wind Path, Neo?" Ana asked.
She shrugged, then tapped her side gently.
"I don't—"
"At least until Roman heals, but not sure after that," Artorias translated, then fell silent again.
Neo nodded.
"Oh. As long as you're here, could you do a favour for me?"
Neo gave her a cautious look, but otherwise didn't respond.
"My sister's staying here a while too. I just want you to keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't get in too much trouble. Her name's Lara." Neo frowned, uncertain. Quelana continued, "You'd be able to find her at same inn we stayed at, but it might not be long until she finds her own place. I don't really know how you'd find her aside from that—we don't look much alike. She's got blonde hair, silver eyes, scales…" Ana trailed off. Neo still didn't seem convinced.
"She and Ana have the same nose," Artorias said quietly. It wasn't something Quelana had ever really thought about. "You'll recognise her."
Neo huffed, then nodded.
"You'll do it?" Quelana asked, not quite sure whether Neo was just acknowledging the request or agreeing to it.
Neo rolled her eyes and nodded again.
She led them through a small entrance around the side. The floor within was comprised of packed dirt and rock. An airship of Mistrali design rested by the great shutter doors that opened onto the ocean, its engines glowing softly. The pilot was loading cargo onto it. Small things, mostly. She glanced up when she heard them enter.
"You're early," she called. She had dark eyes and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail that was just starting to come loose. She adjusted it as they approached.
Quelana checked her scroll. They were only two minutes ahead of schedule.
"You two look like huntsmen," the pilot said, reaching into her back pocket for a rag to wipe her hands.
Neo shrugged.
"There'd be a reason for it," Quelana said.
"Wasn't told about any huntsmen. I guess Roman conveniently left that part out," the pilot said with a pointed look to Neo. "Probably for the best, really. Boss would have flipped. I'm Chloanne."
Ana introduced herself, then introduced Artorias too when he didn't take the initiative.
"Do you need a hand with any of this?" Artorias asked, gesturing vaguely towards the cargo. There were maybe a dozen boxes left, and though they weren't large they'd each looked quite heavy before; Chloanne had been taking them one at a time.
"Sure," she said. "None of them are fragile, so as long as you keep it vaguely neat in there you can just dump them inside. Should probably get out of here quickly anyway in case you were followed."
"Followed?"
Chloanne hefted a box onto her shoulder. "You know there's a bounty out on huntsmen, right?"
Quelana shook her head. Artorias shot Neo—who wasn't helping with the cargo at all—a dirty look.
"Nobody mentioned it to us," he said.
Neo threw her hands in the air and huffed.
"Fifteen thousand for a licensed huntsman alive, half for students and corpses and fifty-thousand for— well, I don't even remember rightly. Something silly. Don't worry about me, though. I don't mess with huntsmen unless I don't have a choice: it's not worth picking a fight I'll lose. But that kind of lien's enough to make plenty of people overestimate their abilities."
"Who'd hate huntsmen enough to put a bounty out on us?" Quelana asked.
"I don't ask questions. Huntsmen go 'mysteriously' missing here sometimes, and we get the odd paid hit on an individual—or sometimes a team—but this? I could name plenty of people with bones to pick, but none stupid enough to risk bringing Haven down on our heads. I guess everyone's been a little bolder since Beacon fell."
"Not everyone," Quelana said. The criminal underworld, sure. Not civilians.
"You know what I mean."
They finished loading the cargo. Quelana asked what it was, but Chloanne just laughed and said, "They're rocks. Nothing more."
Seemed like a lie—not much reason to individually pack rocks like that—but she supposed it was probably for some mob boss or other and they were better off not knowing.
Before they departed, Artorias had a quick, quiet conversation with Neo. Watching from the boarding ramp it didn't seem like he was communicating through gesture almost as much as she was. Idly she wondered if his semblance worked on humans and faunus without him even realising it; he'd always been good at reading people.
Once they'd finished talking, Neo reached up to the top of his head. He pulled away briefly before rolling his eyes and letting her pat his ears.
Quelana felt a short pang and looked away. She wasn't sure if it was jealousy or nostalgia or a mix of the two. She pushed it down. What they'd had before was gone now, and she'd dashed any chance of going back. She didn't particularly want to… but it'd always been a comforting thought that she could.
/-/
An aurora filled the sky, and all of Eleum Loyce was watching.
"It's the soul of the world, the river that flows in all directions. It's come to take our offerings to the seasons," Sirris explained, staring up at the threads of green and purple tinged with pale gold. "It's bright tonight. It watches closely."
Her grandmother scoffed. "Hod never believed that nonsense." She moved to the edge of the wall. "But he always knew when they were coming. He'd meet them here when we were young, before we left for the tundra. He's always been a dreamer, my Hod, climbing this heap of rubble to listen to the sky."
"It's beautiful," Winter agreed. It wasn't uncommon to see the lights in Atlas, but only in the colder months. She imagined this far north they came even in the summer. Standing high atop the outer wall overlooking the tundra, the lights seemed brighter than Winter had every seen them.
"What do you mean by 'offerings'?" Gilderoy asked.
"When we pass on—"
"When we pass on we go no where, child. We simply cease to be."
"You didn't have to come, Gran."
"There's no where else I'd rather be. The dead are gone. The living must grieve. I'm not fool enough to think that this little ritual is for anyone but the living, and I remain among you yet." She sighed. "It does help. In its own way."
Sirris turned away from the vista towards the gates, still flung outwards but now unguarded. They were among the last out on the wall now. The rest had entered the city.
"It's time, Gran."
The old woman seemed startled. "Yes. I suppose it is," she said, then she too turned away and departed through the gates, Sirris by her side.
Winter and Gilderoy followed.
Beyond the gate a causeway led back down into the city proper. Sheltered as it was by the great curtain wall, the centuries had been kind to it. The stones were worn smooth but still sturdy. A cathedral loomed towards the rear of the city, the snow and ice piled up around it.
That was where they needed to go.
But, for now, they descended into the city, following the footprints of those who'd entered before them like a map through the winding streets. In some places Winter could see the eroded remnants of fine etchings and carvings in the stonework. Names were chiselled into the rock above almost every door they passed, and this was much more recent handiwork, for sure. ORBECK. HEYSEL. ROSARIA. Maybe they were a few names of the city's surviving custodians. Maybe they were the names of the dead laid to rest here. Winter didn't know.
"Why didn't you say anything?" she asked Gilderoy quietly. "You've died. You know there's more than nothing waiting for us."
"I think it's more comforting to believe there's nothing. Even if she'd believe me… why should I take that from her?"
"I'd want to know the truth. I'm glad I know what little I know."
"Why? It was… terrifying."
"Do I need a reason? Knowledge is valuable for knowledge's sake," Winter said. And besides: she didn't like the thought of lying to herself, even if it'd be easier.
"I guess so. I'd like to know what the rest of them think comes after, though," Gilderoy said. "I mean, they could be right about some of it at least. Maybe it'll help me make sense of what I remember."
They came to a crowded terrace on the edge of a precipice. The city stretched out further beneath them, and directly ahead they could see the cathedral. An altar lay in the middle of the terrace, and atop it were laid three bodies covered in shrouds, Hodrick among them.
When everyone had settled, two men stepped forwards in fur hoods and cloaks. The symbol of the branching tree roots was painted on their chests, one in black and one in white. Each held a mask shaped like the face of a tiger. Their fangs were pale in the darkness, but their faces were dark and menacing. They pulled back their hoods and donned the masks, and Winter saw that their eyes gleamed red through the slits.
The taller of the two, with the black tree painted on him, drew in a deep breath through his nose, then breathed out again through his mouth. It formed mist in the air, coiling out through the holes of the mask. Then, while Eleum Loyce watched in complete silence, he raised a bare foot up and brought it back down on the cold stone with a soft thump.
Thump.
His partner repeated the action the third and fourth times, and on the fifth a heavy drumbeat joined them from somewhere deep within the city. More music joined soon after from among the onlookers: bone whistles and flutes and a fiddle and a four-stringed lute with a short neck and a low, thin sound.
The men with the faces of tigers danced to it, following the beat of the drum now with the stamp of their feet. And as the music picked up speed so too did their movements, both bizarre and coordinated at once: a prowling, twisting caper. Winter watched with mild curiosity.
She could only guess what it all meant. Perhaps the tiger, as a predator, was symbolic of all the different ways that the dead had fallen, whether to cold or to sickness or starvation or Grimm. Or maybe the tree roots represented the path to whatever afterlife they believed in, and the tigers were their escorts.
The song launched into a frenzy. The fiddler climbed her way up the e string, the whistles strained at the upper notes, and the tigers screamed to the sky, towards the aurora that hung so low to the ground, twisting and curling about their heads.
Then, abruptly—as though launching their last beat off a precipice—the music stopped, and a fire roared into being on the altar where the bodies lay, incinerating them in an instant and carrying their embers towards the sky. The flames burned red, and seemed to shimmer and flicker as though viewed through the facets of a gemstone. All Winter could hear was its crackle and a faint howl on the wind.
What happened after that, Winter could never say for sure. It felt like she was waking up from a deep sleep, though she was still standing upright and it seemed like no time at all had passed. Dreams lurked on the edge of her memory: voices and images, some of them pleasant, some of them not.
Vaguely she was aware of McDuff telling them that it was over and they could find what they were looking for, but she was too occupied clutching at those half-remembered hallucinations to pay him any attention.
It was only when Gilderoy tapped her on the arm and asked, "Are you okay?" that she wrenched herself back to reality. The scraps of dreams faded like fog in sunlight, and she was left only with the memory they'd existed—not any clue what they'd been about—and a strange sense of homesickness. Not for the Schnee manor, nor the dorm where she'd lived during her education, nor even her apartment ten minutes' walk from the wing of the academy given over to the military. She was rarely there anyway, always away on one mission or another.
Yet, without ever really having genuinely called a place home, she missed it.
She did her best to push the sensation aside. "I'm… fine."
"What did you see?"
She pursed her lips. "I don't remember."
"Yeah. Right. Me neither."
The music had started again, though now it was a waltz instead of… whatever the tiger-dance had been. Eleum Loyce was less solemn now. People were dancing on the terrace—Sirris among them—while others stood, hands on mugs and thermoses, talking pleasantly among themselves. A few couples were running off, doubtlessly searching for somewhere quieter to enjoy the night. The fire continued to burn, red as it was. Winter didn't stare at it too long; she had the uncomfortable feeling that there was something staring back.
"We should go."
/-/
It was with some surprise that Oscar Pine found himself waking up in a cell.
This was surprising for a number of reasons. Firstly, he did not recall having fallen asleep in a cell. In fact, he didn't recall falling asleep at all. The last thing he remembered was a heated argument with the voice in his head about his own fate.
Turned out his fate involved a cell.
Secondly, he was sure that if Ozpin had thought they were in any serious danger he would have taken over to get them out of it.
Unfortunately I was rather distracted telling you—not for the first time—that my presence here doesn't necessarily doom you. It's quite the opposite, really. You'll live many lives. Not many people get that opportunity.
Oscar felt pretty doomed. Worst part was that if not for Ozpin, none of this would have happened in the first place.
You can spend all the time in the world asking yourself where you'd be 'if you hadn't done this' or 'if that hadn't happened to me', but really the question you should ask yourself is what you'll do next.
Oscar scowled and sat up, taking a better look around. The ceiling above was stone. The floor was stone. Likewise, the walls around him were stone. One had a door set in it: metal bars and a metal frame. The only light came from torches set in sconces in the corridor outside.
"Kid's awake," came a voice from the cell across the hall. A face appeared between the bars, with tousled golden hair and blue eyes that gleamed in the dim light.
"How long have I been here?" Oscar asked.
"Hard to say." The man shrugged. "I'd guess a day."
"Thirteen hours," came a different voice in the cell to Oscar's right.
That wasn't too long, but maybe long enough that someone was looking for him. Though she didn't seem terribly fond of Ozpin, Lara liked Oscar enough to worry. And even Artorias hadn't been entirely without sympathy.
"There you go," the blond man said. "Thirteen hours. Lucky number."
"I don't feel lucky," Oscar muttered. "Do you know how I got here? Where is here anyway?"
"Somewhere on the twenty-first deep," said the blond.
"How many times do I have to tell you? They took us left after the elevator. That way leads down to the nineteenth," said the man on in the next cell over.
"You're on the twenty-first deep."
This one was a woman's voice. Oscar heard a strange sound in the corridor, like a broom being swept from side to side. It drew closer and closer, accompanied by heavy footsteps.
A man stepped into the doorway first, casting a large shadow. He was short and broad, with heavy jowls and beady, cunning eyes set far apart in his skull. "It was this one," he said.
"Step aside," the woman said.
"But my—"
"He wouldn't be the first random street urchin you've brought me, Gull. You'll get you're reward as soon as we can be sure you didn't make another… mistake."
Gull nodded and moved out of the way. The woman took his place. She had long dark hair and pale eyes. She was a faunus, though her animal trait was more dominating than that of any other faunus Oscar had ever met: from the waist down she had the body of a serpent with iridescent green scales.
The woman glanced at her scroll. "Fifty-thousand lien if—and I quote—'you happen to find a certain man somewhere between the ages of twelve and thirty who talks to himself a lot and seems generally confused about his identity'." Her eyes flicked over towards Gull. "I can't fault you for your ambition. I can fault you for your intelligence. You can't possibly believe that was a serious bounty."
"The others for the huntsmen—"
"Oh, don't get me wrong. It is serious. Tyrian doesn't joke about these things. But you didn't know that. Your naivety might just luck you into a lottery." She looked back to Oscar. "If you get the certain man, of course, and not just some other man of that age who talks to himself and has identity issues."
Oscar cleared his throat. "I'm just a kid from a farm."
"Wind Path isn't known for its agriculture," the woman said.
"I'm not from here."
"Obviously." She leaned in close to the bars. "What's your name?"
Lie.
"Os…car." Oscar said, then winced.
You're not a very good liar.
It wasn't like it was easy to come up with a fake name on the spot. Even Ozpin hadn't provided one, only told Oscar to lie, for all the help that was.
You could have at least changed the second syllable.
"Hm." She looked back towards Gull. "Make sure he doesn't starve, at least."
"But—"
Gull was cut off by her withering glare.
"Yes, Mytha."
She didn't pay Oscar any more attention, and departed back up the corridor. Gull followed, shooting him an odd look before disappearing. Oscar waited for his steps and the swish of her tail to fade before letting out a long breath.
"Who was that?" Oscar asked.
"Unclear," the blond said. "Someone high up in the criminal underworld, obviously, but it's been hard to work out how high. She's somewhere between 'loan shark' and 'the godmother'. I'm starting to think she might be somewhere in the upper part of the range."
"She's cute though," said the man in the next cell over.
"Neptune, I swear to the gods—"
"I'm just saying. Snake charming's a talent I may or may not be able to learn in the isolation of a cell."
"Is that your plan to get us out of here? Seduce the terrifying criminal?"
"It's better than your plan! I'm just brainstorming."
"Should I be worried?" Oscar asked. "I'm not sure I can even imagine a worse plan."
"It wasn't that bad."
"Then where are Sage and Scarlet?" Neptune scoffed.
"They're coming, don't worry." The blond leaned back into the gloom of his cell, lacing his hands behind his head.
"They don't even know where we are."
"Uh, yeah, but we know now. We're on the twenty-first deep, just like I said. You owe me twenty lien."
"Oh, you just trust that she was telling the truth? Her telling us we're on the twenty-first could mean we're really on the fiftieth, for all we know!"
"Shows what you know, then," the blond mocked. "There are only twenty-four deeps."
Oscar could just about hear Ozpin sigh. If nothing else we're not completely without friends.
You know these two?
They were at Beacon, for a time. They're… competent. With the right motivation.
One would have thought that being locked in a cell was the perfect motivation to escape that cell. Perhaps he was expecting too much.
/-/
Pale moonlight filtered through red and purple clouds, entering through tall windows to illuminate Salem's chamber. The door ground open, and she looked up from the seer, red eyes blinking.
A man stood in the doorway. Almost a boy, barely an adult. But the swordspear held loosely in his right hand betrayed that he was much, much older than he seemed.
He looked different. His hair was blond this time, and cropped short under his long-brimmed hat. And he was rather short. Shorter than she'd expected, at least. Strapped to his back was another weapon, a sword with a crossguard that turned parallel to the blade, and a metal mask of a woman's face was hanging from his left hip.
"Should I call you Malgwyn?" she asked.
He pursed his lips. "That's a complicated question."
"It doesn't have to be," Salem said, dismissing the seer with a wave of her hand. "The name you choose is just that: your choice. It needs nobody's approval but yours. What would you like to be called?"
"I… don't know."
"Then Malgwyn will do for now, and if you want me to call you by another name you need only tell me."
He nodded slowly. "That's fine."
"You do remember that life, don't you?"
"I do," he said.
Salem nodded and leaned back in her seat. "Why did you come here?"
He produced a familiar poppet from a pouch on his belt and tossed it down the table towards her. "Watts is dead."
Salem picked it up and turned it over in her hands. "Half dead is half alive, as the saying goes."
"Priscilla took his head."
"You should know better than anybody that all but the soul can be replaced. Considering the research Watts gained access to in Atlas, the efficacy of his contingency should be the only thing in question, not its existence."
Malgwyn narrowed his eyes. "If you want the relic, take it yourself."
"Perhaps I will. But you and I have so much to talk about first." She gestured to the seat across the table.
He sat.
/-/
The cathedral was silent.
Snow piled in through the shattered windows. Ice-cold roots snaked outwards from somewhere deep within, creeping along the railings of the staircases that circled the edge of the chamber. Winter wished she had a weapon.
Her footsteps were loud on the marble floor, but there was no echo. Vengarl's instructions had been vague, but he'd said he'd never actually seen this entrance to the Ringed City himself. All he'd been able to say for sure was that it lay in the cathedral, and that from there they had to find a way down.
In places the roof had holes in it and snow had fallen in on the stairs. Winter glanced up as she passed under them, catching glimpses of the lights that still flowed between her and the stars.
There was only a small landing at the top of the stairs. The marble was covered in scorch marks. Below lay a circular chamber. A pit frozen over with ice sat in its very centre, and four wooden seats surrounded it. It wasn't too far down; Winter dropped, rolling as she landed to negate some of the impact. A corridor leading back to the last hall was sealed by more of the strange tree roots.
Maybe the symbol she'd seen all throughout Eleum Loyce was a little less metaphorical than she'd thought.
"Is that it?" came Gilderoy's voice from above her.
"Maybe. Did you find anything?"
"No. Dead end," he said. There'd been another path near the entrance and they'd split up to explore. He hopped down into the chamber with her. "How thick do you think the ice is? Do you think we could break through?"
Winter summoned a glyph on the ice's surface then stepped onto it, letting the glyph take her weight at first but slowly weakening its grip. The ice creaked and groaned but didn't crack.
"If we hit it hard enough, I think so," Winter said. "I'm just not sure we should."
"That's the way, isn't it?"
"It's a long way down," Winter said. "This kind of ice doesn't form naturally. Whoever blocked this path did so for a reason. McDuff probably knows about the Ringed City, and the rest of the town must at least know this is here. They enter the old city four times a year, and they don't seem to restrict access to the cathedral at all."
"McDuff didn't try to stop us."
"He wasn't so pleased about you coming here either," Winter said. "It wasn't a matter of whether we should or shouldn't come here, it was whether or not he trusted us. I think there's another way down."
"Like what? I told you the other way was a dead end."
She shrugged. "Vengarl said the entrances to the Ringed City are in places where the relic's power has been used."
"Your plan is to 'magic' us through the ice?"
He made it sound as if the entirety of her plan was to raise her hand and wiggle her fingers until something happened. But to be fair, she wouldn't know if it'd work until she tried it.
"Not so much a plan as the end-goal." She paced around the seats, running her hands over them. Some of them had faded inscriptions. "I don't know what happened out there with the tigers and the red fire, but magic doesn't seem too far-fetched. Not anymore, not knowing what we know." Of course if it'd just been a dance and a lightshow she might have dismissed it as a particularly elaborate performance—perhaps involving a semblance or the use of dust—but she'd seen something more. She'd heard it, felt it.
On the back of one of the seats the inscription was less-eroded than the others. There was a name carved into the back—FABIAN—and the emblem of a sword beneath it. She could feel something else in the woodwork. It was the same sensation as touching an auro-mechanical device, but when she pushed a little aura through it nothing happened.
"Do you think this is something? There've been depictions of this stuff everywhere in town," Gilderoy said, standing before the passage closed off by roots. "It has to mean something, right?"
"I need to concentrate," Winter said. She tugged her glove off her left hand and pressed her palm to the back of Fabian's seat and recalled the sensation she'd felt back on the terrace, when she was sure she'd seen magic. The surprise and unease at the flame, the pounding of the drums, the tension of the flute.
Whatever other magic she'd been told about—the relics and the maidens, mostly—the magic of Eleum Loyce was one of visions. And, while whatever vision she'd seen had been conjured by a certain ritual, she wasn't entirely sure the ritual was the important part. Only the state of mind it put a person in. It was much like how she harnessed her semblance: it was easier with a weapon she could use as a focal point, but she didn't necessarily need it, and the specifics of the weapon itself weren't all that important.
But, though she could still feel that slight tug on her aura—and it felt stronger—nothing happened.
She scowled and pulled her hand away.
"What were you doing?"
"I don't know," she snapped. She circled the room again, running her hand on the seats again. She could feel them all now. There was something in each and every one, lurking somewhere just out of reach. "I—"
The ice cracked.
Winter stopped in her tracks.
"Did it work?" Gilderoy called.
Lying in the middle of the block of ice was an old woman. Her aura was flickering cobalt blue and her left arm was badly burned. Winter rushed forwards to help her, but her hands passed right through her.
The ghost made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a cough. "Gods. You never changed at all, did you?"
"Winter?" Gilderoy asked.
She glanced up only to see the Fume Knight crashing down towards her, greatsword raised over his head. Winter didn't have time to move away, only to raise an arm and shield her face—
But his ghost passed right through her.
The ice shattered, and Winter fell.
Neo was following Arty around last chapter to make sure he didn't get jumped by some desperate thugs. Bless Neo. Best girl. The real ice-cream was the friends we made along the way.
Oscar's having quite the adventure just to get to Haven in the first place. I cut Team RWBY from this chapter because I felt seeing the Junior Detectives here at Wind Path was a more subtle way of hinting at how bad the situation is at Haven, but we'll obviously be exploring Lionheart's mistakes via Team RWBY going forwards.
I wanted the 'magic' (if we can call it that, but I'll be getting into the exact definition of magic later so we'll just call it that for now) of Eleum Loyce to feel more spiritual than other forms of 'magic' we've seen so far. The tigers were Lud and Zallen as remembered in Loyce's oral history, but the instrumentation for that dance scene drew more from the Demon of Hatred OST (Sekiro) than any boss theme from DSII.
Anyway, that's the end of the Volume 4 content. Only took me two years.
Looking back I can point out quite a few things I could have done better this volume, mostly in Atlas. One or two plot threads I wanted to follow up on never went anywhere, like the Vordt autopsy. And Watts was far from perfect. In hindsight his plan seems… slow. Not very proactive.
But it's fine because I just gave myself room for Arthur Watts II Electric Boogaloo later on.
Overall I'm happy with it though. The Arty/Ana arc hit all the beats I wanted it to, Roman and Neo were fun (I'm not anywhere near done with them; it'd basically be a crime to bring Roman back without putting him and Ruby in a room together at some point), JNR ended up where I wanted them (emotionally speaking) even if the road there didn't pan out as smoothly as I'd hoped.
I got a job recently, which ironically means I'm writing more. I was unemployed all of last year and after checking job listings I'd spend most of my free time on video games/Netflix, but now that I have less free time I find I prioritise writing much more.
So for now it's probably safe to expect an update every two weeks or so. It'd be good to commit to a routine again, so I'll say February 23 for the next chapter.