Well, this chapter gave me some difficulty. Guess that's only fair, since the last chapter was so easy.

I do not own anything except my own original characters created for this story.

A Sudden Absence

Growing up on the road, Jade had long since become used to seeing weird things. Almost nothing fazed her anymore. A bar fight turning into an all-out brawl? Knock out as many of the combatants as she could, as quickly as possible, and toss them outside to deal with later. A Geist possessing the remains of a demolished house and scaring the shit out of the former homeowners? Kill the Grimm, then reassure the civvies, in that order. Yang punching out some rando who had tried to touch her hair? Well, they should have known better than to try and mess with a woman who was obviously a Huntress in the first place.

But stumbling upon one of her friends slumped against the wall in outside a classroom, sobbing her eyes out? That was new.

"Hey, Scar? What's… what's going on?"

Scarletta lifted her face from her arms and looked up at Jade, her violet eyes red and swollen. She took a few hiccup-y sounding breaths, then spoke in a voice that was raspy from crying. "It's…" She gave anther light sob. "Team Orchid got back from their mission about an hour ago. They…" She choked off again, sniffling.

Jade was aware of an awful sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. In a voice suddenly hoarse with dread anticipation, she was able to croak out, "Who…?" But she couldn't finish the question.

She didn't need to, though. Scarletta understood what she was asking, and her tone was thick with emotion as she replied, "RJ."

"Oh no…" Jade didn't know the members of Team ORKD very well. They were fourth-years like RUST, but SAIJ knew RUST mostly through Indie and Aurum's friendship with Tanso, and none of them had any such connection to the members of ORKD. Jade was able to conjure up a vague image of a tallish guy with short purple hair and a gray cargo vest. There were two guys on Team ORKD… Was he the one who used a broadsword, or was he the knife thrower? Jade couldn't remember. The only other thing she knew about him was that it had been something of a running joke that he wouldn't tell anybody what "RJ" was short for. But none of that made this any less awful.

Scarletta was clearly taking the news hard—as she should be; RJ had only been a few months away from graduating, and the members of RUST were pretty close to ORKD. Jade couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose someone from CROM or AZSR at this point… and the possibility of losing one of her teammates was unthinkable. She sat down on the floor next to her friend, slipping her arms around the older girl in an attempt to comfort her. Scarletta let out another juddering breath, then seemed to go limp, slumping into Jade and leaning her head on the taller girl's shoulder.

Softly, the redhead continued, "I know… this was the risk we took… signing up for the life we did. But still… there were just… so many Grimm. I wish…" She trailed off for a moment. "Olive saw him fall. She wouldn't let them touch him. The others had to carry both of them back to Vale; she's in the infirmary now, unconscious. I guess she was nearly hysterical when they got back to Beacon… she wouldn't let anyone near her. They had to knock her out, just to treat her injuries." She sniffled again. "I don't know what'll happen to their team now. I mean, the others might be able to figure things out and move on with their lives, but Olive lost a lot more than her partner. She lost her fiancé—I know they weren't technically engaged yet, but we all know they were planning to get married right after graduation."

Jade rubbed small circles on Scarletta's shoulder, wishing she could say something to make her friend feel better. This hadn't been her fault. It wasn't unheard of for students to lose their lives on missions, but… it happened infrequently enough that it was always a shock when it did happen. The whole school would probably band together in their grief for the next… however long it took. Maybe RJ hadn't been a close friend to anyone besides the fourth years, but all of the students at Beacon were comrades in arms to a point, and the death of a classmate would be a sobering reminder to everyone else of their own mortality.

What was going to happen to Olive now? Jade had seen plenty of Huntsmen who moved on after losing someone important to them… but she'd also seen plenty who hadn't. She could only hope that Olive fell into the first category, although only time would tell. "How…" Her voice was choked from holding in her own emotion. She tried again. "How long… did RJ and Olive know each other?"

Scarletta closed her eyes. "I think… since they were eleven or so? That's when Olive's family moved to Vale, and they were already friends by the time I met them at Flare. I… what must she be going through right now?"

Jade squeezed her friend's shoulder. "I think the only thing you can do right now is be there for her. You said she was in the infirmary, right?" She waited for Scarletta to nod hesitantly, then continued, "Then go. Be there when she regains consciousness. I think… she'll be much better off if she has someone there with her."

xxxxx

Skye reached out a hand, then hesitated. She'd been standing outside AZSR's dorm room for something like ten minutes now, never able to actually bring herself to knock. Why was she having so much trouble with this?

She was here for a reason. Zelty had become quiet and subdued ever since learning of his father's death, isolating himself in his team's room and not speaking to anyone. Skye was sure that learning of a classmate dying so soon afterwards couldn't have been good for him. She suspected, based on the not-so-subtle hints that Aubergine and Rue had been giving her, that he had been a little depressed for a while, and while he'd managed to shake off some of it for a couple of days, learning of a classmate's death had evidently sent him sliding back down.

She'd left him alone, up until now. Everybody dealt with their grief differently, and she wasn't going to interfere. If he wanted her company, she'd told him more than once that all he had to do was ask her. But he hadn't.

Now, here she was. Trying to follow through on the rather strongly worded advice Aubergine had given her earlier today and just talk to him for a few minutes.

Skye raised her fist again, and before she could lose her nerve once more, knocked lightly but firmly on the wood. She heard a muffled, "One second!" before a series of thumps sounded, and a minute later, the door opened to reveal brown hair along with a lot of black and green.

Rue's tired expression raised a number of questions in Skye's mind, but the other Atlesian girl only directed her friend's attention to the other side of the room. Zelty sat on his bed, staring at them blankly. There was an open textbook next to him, but it didn't look like he'd been reading it.

"Have you still been using your semblance on him?" Skye whispered, unable to keep the accusation out of her voice. Rue quickly shook her head.

"No, I told you I don't like doing that! It's too much like drugging someone—I won't do it without their consent unless it's an emergency. He's been like that for a while. Not all the time," the girl hastily added. "Sometimes he'll go to the extreme in the other direction, constant motion. He'll pace when he's reading from a textbook, or fidget with his knives. Somehow, he's still making himself do all his schoolwork—I don't know how, but his grades aren't slipping at all—but… it's obvious he's just going through the motions. I'm glad you're here—seeing you might be what he needs to snap out of it."

Skye carefully sat down on the bed next to him. She knew Zelty had registered her presence—she saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes—but neither one of them said anything. She reached over and took his hand, only barely aware of the door closing as Rue quietly exited the room, leaving the two of them alone. Neither one moved for several minutes.

Finally, just as Skye was about to say something, anything, to break the silence, Zelty shifted, his fingers curling around hers. "I'm sorry… I've been so out of it lately. I haven't been a very good boyfriend." He tried to smile at her as though nothing was wrong. Skye didn't buy it for a second; there were shadows under his eyes, and his smile was very strained. She appreciated that he was trying to put on a brave face, but didn't he realize he didn't need to pretend around her?

"If you're not over it yet… that's all right."

They lapsed back into silence for a few minutes.

"I… I talked to your mom."

Skye turned and looked at him. "You did? When? What did she say?"

"A few days ago, before… well, before ORKD. She said… she said a lot of things. But most of it added up to that I shouldn't try and make myself feel bad. If I'm not sure how to feel… that's all right." He broke off for a second. "But… I feel worse about losing one of my classmates—someone I barely knew—than I do about losing my father. Does that make me a terrible person?"

"No." There wasn't a shred of doubt in Skye's mind on that particular point. "You are not a terrible person, and I don't think you could be if you tried. I think… that Mom probably felt the same way, when her father died a few months ago. She never saw eye to eye with him and they hadn't really been on speaking terms in years. So… she knows what she's talking about." She paused a minute to see if he would respond. When he didn't, she continued, "Did it help? Talking to her, I mean?"

"I… yes. It did." Zelty was quiet for a moment. "She said the same thing, about not being a terrible person. Your mom is… I don't even know how to thank her for this."

Skye squeezed his hand. "You don't have to. I know she comes across as cold and unfeeling to a lot of people, so… if she's being open and welcoming to you, that means she really likes you."

"I know."

The silence resumed once again, but it was a much more comfortable silence this time. Skye was content to sit there, providing whatever support and reassurance she could.

"There was… one other thing I wanted to tell you," Zelty said suddenly. His voice had gotten much stronger than it had been when Skye first sat down. She turned her face toward his. Was that progress? Skye hoped so, but she suspected it was too soon to be sure. She waited expectantly for him to continue.

"My mother contacted me. Yesterday."

"Oh." Skye wasn't sure how to respond to that. Cautiously, she ventured, "Is that… good?"

Zelty shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know yet. I haven't seen her since my parents' divorce was finalized; that was over five years ago. I… I want to think she's sincere about making it up to me, but… she left me. Alone."

In a sudden burst of emotion, Skye leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. He seemed startled at first, but quickly relaxed into her. Softly, she said, "I can't make any decisions for you. But… if you decide to go through with it, I'll be here for you."

"I don't have any right to ask that of you," Zelty mumbled into her hair.

"Shush. I'm just trying to be a good girlfriend." Skye frowned at him. "You need more people on your side. So I'm here if you need me."

xxxxx

Indie had been forewarned about RJ's death by Jade, so she hadn't been completely blindsided when the entire school suddenly seemed to go into mourning. Classes were cancelled for the rest of the week, and everybody she saw was expressing their grief… some in healthier ways than others. Yesterday, two students had started yelling at each other in the courtyard, shouting about something that Indie couldn't figure out. She thought she'd have to physically break them up, until one student rocked back on his heels and collapsed to the ground on his butt, sobbing. The other student, evidently his partner from the way she reacted, immediately shut up in response, and fell to trying to soothe him.

Everybody dealt with their grief differently, Indie knew that. She hadn't known RJ very well, but the school wasn't so big that she didn't at least know the names of the students outside her own year. She'd admired RJ's knife-throwing abilities a time or ten, and the sudden, glaring reminder that she was only human had her retreating into her books more than usual, looking to drown out her conflicted feelings with irrefutable facts.

The Headmistress had given a long speech to the students about how their lives were important, and they shouldn't let the death of their classmate and friend affect their resolve, and that if they were having second thoughts about their chosen career, come see her in her office as soon as possible to discuss their options. Overall, Indie thought, it would have sounded like obligatory sympathy if Goodwitch hadn't gotten choked up a couple times during her delivery. She'd been shocked at that; she hadn't thought the Headmistress ever expressed her feelings where the students could see her, but apparently even Goodwitch's severe façade could crack under the right circumstances.

Now, out in Vale, she picked at her food. She hadn't really been in the right frame of mind for this, but she hadn't wanted to cancel one of her dates again, not after already having to do so once. After giving it some thought, she'd finally decided that getting off campus and away from the gloominess that had pervaded the student body in the last week, would probably be good for her. At the very least, it would be a change of scenery, and that might be just the thing to shake off her gray mood.

"Hey, is everything all right?"

Indie looked up from her plate, where she'd been poking the food around. Dusty… no, Marron, she corrected herself—he'd asked her to call him by his real name, not the nickname his work buddies used—was giving her a concerned look. "You're being quieter than usual, and I've never seen you play with your food instead of eating it before. If you're… starting to get sick…"

"No, it's not that." Indie wondered what to do, then she sighed. There wasn't any point in trying to keep it from him, and she was sure he'd understand. "It's… well, we got word a few days ago that one of our classmates—from one of the fourth-year teams—died on a mission. Everybody at Beacon is a little depressed right now. I mean, any one of us could be next." Her gaze dipped back down to her still-mostly-full plate. "I guess… maybe I wasn't quite ready for the reminder."

Marron reached over the table and squeezed her hand. "You knew that when you decided to become a Huntress, right? Didn't you tell me your whole family graduated from Beacon?"

"I… pretty much," Indie answered. "I've always known the risks."

"And you don't regret choosing this life?"

That, at least, was an easy question to answer. Indie shook her head. "Not in the slightest." She was a little surprised to hear the resounding confidence in her voice.

"Then…" Marron looked a bit hesitant, but continued anyway. "I think that means you made the right choice."

Indie considered that. He was right. Maybe he'd decided to go to a trade school and then a technical college, rather than a combat school, but he'd told her that his mother and older brother had both graduated from Haven Academy, which was why he had his aura unlocked and why he knew so much about combat. He knew what he was talking about, although maybe not on the same level as a full Huntsman. Still, dating him didn't come with the usual issues of dating a civvy. She suddenly wondered if that was why Aubergine had chosen Aqua.

But that was none of her business. She went back to her dinner, more enthusiastically than before, actually eating this time and not just moving the food around on the plate. It was surprisingly good, even though it wasn't hot anymore.

When the bill came, Indie snagged it before Marron could, and before she could lose her nerve, stood on her toes and gave him a brief kiss on the lips. She pulled back quickly, not wanting to have to talk about it. "I'll see you next week."

She wondered, as she sat on the airship that would take her back to Beacon, what had come over her to suddenly make her so bold. It wasn't that she'd never been kissed before—the first one with Silva Callahan on a dare in eighth grade didn't really count, but the others since then certainly did. Was it just that this was her first real relationship?

The airship had landed while she'd been thinking and as she wandered into the building through the side entrance, she realized that she really didn't want to be around people right now. Hanging a left at the next fork in the hallway, she found herself in the main hallway.

Her eyes roamed over the roster of graduates, pausing briefly to find RWBY and JNIPR listed under the Class of 83. Seeing those never failed to remind her of why she'd chosen to become a Huntress in the first place, and with the gray mood that had settled over the campus like a mist recently, she could use the reminder. Right next to the graduate roster, though…

Indie had seen this plaque before, but it had never meant much to her and she'd never stopped to read the names on it. This was the list of students who hadn't survived their training, hadn't made it to graduation. Their names, teams, and year of the graduation they had never gotten to attend were all laid out in a column. Skimming over the names, her eyes tripped briefly over Pyrrha Nikos, Team JNPR, Class of 83, before running to the bottom to find the most recently added entry.

Royal Ignis Junior, Team ORKD, Class of 105. The emblem of a lit torch was engraved next to it. Indie wondered how many students had already done exactly what she was doing right now, finding some sort of comfort in knowing that their classmate had been memorialized this way, along with so many others. The words had only been engraved there yesterday.

The sound of light footsteps approaching, followed by a soft "eep!" of surprise, drew her attention to the doorway. It was a first year student, not one that Indie knew by name, but that she vaguely recalled seeing around the school last semester. That was actually surprising… Beacon's student population wasn't small, but it also wasn't large. Indie had thought she knew the names of every student on campus.

"Umm… I can… come back later?" the mousy-looking girl hedged, shrinking back a little.

Indie quickly shook her head, hoping to reassure the girl, who was obviously intimidated by her. Whether it was because Team SAIJ had a reputation around campus, or just because Indie was an upperclassman, she wasn't sure. "No, don't bother. I was… just about to leave." She stepped toward the girl, who ducked her head as Indie passed.

A thought suddenly occurred to her and she turned back around. "Are you… looking for anyone specific?"

The girl let out another startled yelp, evidently not realizing that Indie was still there. She made a concerted effort to school her features into a more neutral expression, before replying, "I… yes. My brother. Royal Ignis."

Indie did her best to hide her surprise. This tiny girl was RJ's younger sister? She hadn't been aware that RJ even had a sister, let alone that she was a Huntress student herself. There wasn't much resemblance, Indie decided. RJ had had dark purple hair that he wore cropped short, and gray eyes. This girl wore her black locks pulled back in pigtails, emphasizing her high cheekbones, and her green eyes were fixed intently on Indie. RJ had been fairly tall, but Indie didn't think this girl could be any taller than Lian was, and Lian wasn't even thirteen yet. If this girl was a first year Beacon student, then she was probably seventeen or eighteen.

"It's… right here," Indie told her, pointing to RJ's name on the plaque. The girl stood on her toes to read it. "By the way… what's your name?"

"Twila," the girl replied, after a moment's hesitation. "Um, Twila Ignis."

"Twila…" Indie repeated. "How old are you, Twila?" She supposed it was possible that the girl might have gotten into Beacon a year early. Maybe now wasn't the best time to ask, but Indie couldn't help her curiosity.

"I turned eighteen last week," Twila answered, sounding a little more confident.

"And what made you decide to become a Huntress?"

The younger girl's expression became more serious. "I always looked up to my brother, so when he started combat school, I decided I would too." Her lip quivered, just the tiniest bit. "Even though he's gone now… I'll never give that up." Despite trying to hold back tears, there was a fierceness in her tone that made Indie take an involuntary step back.

"All right… well, I'll leave you to it." Indie did not flee the scene—she had more dignity than that—but she was definitely walking faster than normal, unnerved by the sheer intensity of the younger student. She was sure Twila's eyes had gotten darker, turning nearly black by the time she'd left the girl. Having color-changing eyes wasn't so weird, but in this case, they had only added to the impression she'd gotten of Twila, that in spite of her timid nature, she was not someone to be messed with.

xxxxx

For Aurum, hearing about one of her classmates dying was like being doused with cold water. She'd known that choosing to become a Huntress would very likely end in a violent death. She knew the statistics, that one out of every five Huntsmen died before retiring, and that one out of every twenty Huntsman students didn't even survive until their graduation. But… just knowing the numbers hadn't ever driven home for her how it would feel to lose someone that way.

Of course, the fact that nearly her entire extended family hunted Grimm for a living, or at the very least used to do so, sort of defied those odds. Aurum had never lost a family member to Grimm, even taking into account people like Winter who were only family by association.

Just because I've never lost anyone close to me… maybe I convinced myself it wasn't so bad.

She knew perfectly well that there were reasons her family members had survived as long as they had. Ruby could petrify Grimm with her eyes, no need to get close to them. Weiss had a desk job and hadn't been out in the field in several years. Yang had stopped taking any mission ranked as more than moderately dangerous immediately after Jade was born, out of a staunch refusal to let her daughter grow up without a mother. Aurum's own parents had alternated taking missions, never going out at the same time, so that if one of them fell, their children would still have one parent left.

Even going beyond RWBY to JNIPR didn't really break the trend. Jaune had an absolutely absurd amount of aura that was almost never depleted in regular combat. Ren and Nora were so in sync with each other that tag-teaming Grimm that another pair might hesitate to confront was nothing to them. Ilia only rarely took missions outside Patch, where Grimm populations were small and manageable. Only Pyrrha Nikos had fallen in battle, and that had been against another person, who had had magical powers no less, not Grimm.

Aurum let her mind wander. It had been two weeks since the student body had fallen into mourning, and while she was sure that RJ would be on everyone's minds for a while, other matters were slowly starting to take priority again. Her hand absently drifted away from her lap… prompting the heavy textbook wedged there to fall over onto her thighs. "Yow!" It didn't actually hurt, but it did startle her out of her reverie.

Okay, maybe in the middle of homework wasn't the best time for this.

A glance down at the book showed her that yes, her History assignment was still unfinished. With an exaggerated sigh, she picked the book back up and tried to refocus on it. She did like history, when she could actually understand what was being said—she wasn't sorry to have left Oobleck's classes behind her this year. He talked way too fast and she always felt like she was missing the good parts.

She focused on the heading marked "The Faunus Rights Revolution." This had occurred years before her parents were born, and had officially been the end of the treatment of Faunus as lesser citizens. Of course, in reality, discrimination had persisted while law enforcement often turned a blind eye. Aurum scowled. It had only been twenty years since the SDC's alliance with the White Fang had finally ended with the full eradication of Faunus mistreatment. Maybe she couldn't remember it, but it had been during her lifetime.

She'd been only two months old when Blake and Weiss had unveiled the agreement that made the partnership official, between the SDC and the White Fang. As Aurum took in the photo that accompanied the paragraph, she noted how completely cool and in control Weiss looked, despite the difficulties of being five months pregnant and in the middle of a messy divorce. But then, she had never looked less than perfect. Aurum went back to the reading.

Under High Leader Ghira Belladonna, who originally founded the organization, the White Fang became known as a group of Faunus who spoke on behalf of their people. However, after he stepped down and Sienna Khan took over the mantle of High Leader, the group became much more vocal.

Aurum couldn't help letting a snort escape. Vocal? That was certainly one way to put it. Interested to see what the book said next, she scrutinized the following paragraph.

a violent splinter cell that fell apart after the assassination of Sienna Khan and the subsequent death of Adam Taurus. Ghira Belladonna briefly took up the title of High Leader once again in the wake of this cell's attack on Haven Academy in 81 AU, but only two years later retired for good, passing the title on to his daughter. High Leader Blake Belladonna was newly graduated from the rebuilt Beacon Academy at the time, and together with her teammates, including future Schnee Dust Company head Weiss Schnee, worked ceaselessly to create a model of unity between Faunus and humans.

The picture that accompanied this paragraph was one Aurum recognized. The full image showed all of Team RWBY standing in name order, but this version had cropped out Ruby and Yang so all that was shown was Weiss, standing next to Blake. Both women were showing smiles to the camera, and Weiss had her hand on Blake's shoulder.

The fruits of their unending labor were unveiled on May 20, 85 Age of Unity.

The image next to the first one showed Weiss and Blake shaking hands in front of a large, official-looking document. Aurum squinted at it. If she was correct, that had been in Atlas. A series of smaller photos were arrayed in a row at the bottom of the page. One showed Weiss disembarking an oceangoing vessel in Menagerie and being greeted by the Belladonna family. Another showed a few workers in hard hats, going over a Dust mine inch by inch, checking things off a very long list on one's scroll, and a third was a simplified version of the SDC's snowflake logo, overlaid with the sleepy wolf's head that the White Fang still used to identify themselves, that was used to signify the partnership between the two entities.

This was the kind of history Aurum wanted to see.

Loss and heartbreak… yeah, I might like my happy endings, but this is still the RWBY universe, where things aren't all sunshine and roses. I'm still extremely annoyed that I couldn't find a place to introduce Team ORKD earlier, so y'all could meet RJ before I decided he had to die.

Funny thing about the name Marron: I was thinking it would make a good RWBY name, because it sounds like "maroon." Then I found out that the word actually refers to a chestnut brown color in French. Guess sometimes things just work out that way.

Stay tuned, and please leave a review!