Hello folks! In this second-to-last chapter, nobody knows what the hell they're supposed to do next, but Whitley is considering a career as a professional disaster.


115. Cumulus


"Yo!" Russel called out, into the oppressive silence that had fallen over the battlefield. "Why are they still all over the place? I thought we were bringing them to the courtyard!"

Pyrrha winced and pulled the hatchling in her arms a little closer to her chest. Jaune just sighed. "We are," he said. He picked up another dragonet from the ground, careful to support its broken tail. It didn't so much as blink at being lifted. "There are a lot of them. And some of them are kinda heavy."

She looked down and bit her lip. The hatchling didn't stir. Only the slow rise and fall of its little chest proved that it was still alive. Its scales were a brilliant white, seeming to glow with inner light. It was so small, it couldn't have been alive more than a few days... and since Watts had apparently sped up their growth somehow, that meant it might have hatched as early as yesterday.

Harpy leaned over her shoulder to sniff the little one, then licked its back. It didn't react, but Pyrrha liked to think the comforting gesture still helped. With any luck, this one wouldn't remember any of this in a month's time—they could find it a rider, and it could grow up happy and healthy.

Some others...

Twiggy and Freya worked together to carry a glassy-eyed Tallow, with Ao Guang pacing alongside them and occasionally setting his paw against the fire dragon's flank to steady him. He wasn't emaciated like the other pit dragons had been, but there was definitely something wrong. When they last saw him he'd been the same size and age as most of their year's dragons. Now he was closer to Crucible's size, and there were a pair of strange bony protrusions sticking out behind his horns.

All the biggest hybrids were like that. A little... strange, once they grew beyond what was normally possible for dragons. Almost like...

"Any—gah!" Nora yelped as one of her charge's paws brushed against her skin, leaving a delicate pattern of frost on her shoulder. "Any luck finding the big one?"

Sky made a face. "I heard someone say it got out into the city. Lots of property damage, but it was in a mostly commercial area so I don't think there were many people around."

"Is it still hostile?" Ren asked. He carried another hatchling in his arms, carefully wrapped in a blanket so that it wouldn't shock him. It didn't seem to be able to turn its powers off, either.

"There aren't any more buildings coming down," Russel said. "So... probably not?"

They walked together to the open field, where a crowd of adult dragons waited. And there, one at a time, the hybrids were carried over to the General and their Professors. Goodwitch couldn't be much help with a screwdriver—a hybrid had coiled around her dominant arm and refused to be moved, so she mostly handed tools to Port. Slowly, methodically, they freed dragon after dragon.

Sometimes the hybrids cringed and cowered when the devices were removed. A rider would lead them away, murmuring soothingly as they went, maybe offering them a hand if they seemed receptive. They could get started on the next dragon quickly. And if they'd all been like that, they could easily have freed dozens of them at once.

But sometimes they started to thrash and scream, and even attack those closest to them. That was when the older dragons would come in, to hold them down and counteract their powers where they could.

A few of them sat silent and motionless on the sidelines—an acid-spitter, one that apparently breathed a deadly gas, and a few others whose powers were too dangerous to unleash right away. They would have to be taken care of later, in a more secure location.

Pyrrha didn't want to think about how they would deal with the ones that couldn't control their powers, or the giant for that matter. But she wanted even less to wonder about all the dead. On their side, and among the hybrids. Ilia had managed to salvage one of Watts' notebooks from the lava. He had kept careful track of all the hybrids—enough to know that there had been a hundred and twenty-nine alive at the start of the battle.

So she gathered up motionless hatchlings, and helped the dragons on their team hoist larger hybrids onto their backs, all while trying not to think about what came after. And then it was done, and it was time to count the dead.

They couldn't let any devices loose into the world. That meant accounting for every single one that Watts had made—his spares, and the ones that had been used on the hybrids.

JNPR and CRDL worked together, each of them making their own separate counts so they could check one another's work. As they walked, Jaune moved up close to Pyrrha and murmured, softly so the others wouldn't hear, "Are you okay? You and Harpy can go help with the hatchlings, if you need to."

She shook her head.

One. Two. Three...

And regretted it, once they started.

Four. Five.

Harpy walked close beside her, leaning down to nuzzle at her hair whenever she flinched. And she flinched six times. Seven. Eight...

They counted twenty-one, in all. CRDL got the same number, so they returned to the courtyard to talk to the teams who'd been tasked with counting the living hatchlings.

"We've got a hundred and seven. Somebody's missing one."

So they did their rounds, again, and under a pile of rubble Twiggy found a broken tail. She dug down, and uncovered a pair of hybrids coiled up together. Both dead.

Jaune's brow furrowed. "Uh, am I bad at math, or...?"

There was a frantic recounting. They got the same numbers—twenty-three dead and a hundred and seven alive. Two hundred and thirty.

"What the fuck?" Russel turned in a circle.

"Did you find the giant?" asked Neon, one of the students doing the live count. "Because we counted it as alive, but maybe—"

Ren shook his head. "No, we would have noticed that."

Pyrrha wandered into the crowd of living hybrids. Many of them shied away from her, but some stretched out their heads and looked at her so pitifully that she had to stop and pat their noses. One squeaked and squirmed out from between two of its fellows. It looked... oddly wet.

Kneeling down, Pyrrha spotted a shard of eggshell stuck behind its ear and let out a startled laugh. "The eggs! One of them must have hatched during the fight."

She tried to focus on the way the little one squeaked and ruffled its tiny wings, and not on what conditions must have been like outside when it had emerged. Pyrrha straightened up and looked around. "Is there someone who can, um...?"

Harpy's ears went flat.

"Because I can't," Pyrrha added hastily.

Neon and Flint jogged off to search for someone who could bond with the newly hatched hybrid... but it didn't seem particularly distressed. Another dragonet lay beside it—bigger, but probably not much older. Their tails twined together, and the littler one nuzzled enthusiastically against the larger, just like T—just like Twiggy had Jaune when she was freshly hatched. The larger one purred whenever the baby cooed, and watched Pyrrha warily until she stepped away.

"Have they... bonded?"

"Wait, what?" Nora leaned over her shoulder to look. "Aww!"

"Found those two together."

They jumped and looked up, found a Flight Squad Rider standing with his hands in his pockets. "Little bugger didn't have a device, figured somebody must've gotten it off. But you said it hatched here?"

Pyrrha nodded. "I think so."

"Was the bigger one protecting it?" Ren asked.

"Nah. Other way 'round." The Rider grimaced and gestured at the older hatchling. Pyrrha stepped to the side and flinched when she saw that its left legs were missing. They'd been bandaged carefully, probably before the device was removed. "Tiny little shit almost bit my fucking hand off when I tried to pick it up."

The elder hatchling's ears went flat, and it hissed a warning.

"Didn't mean nothin' by it! Love the little fella. Real brave and, er, handsome."

Satisfied, it shut its eyes and went to sleep with the little one huddled under one of its wings.

Pyrrha smiled at the little heap one final time before walking away with her team. "What's next?" she asked. "Any word on the giant?"

"Nope!" Nora grabbed one of her arms. "We're going... to sleep!"

Pyrrha pulled away. "But... we're not even close to finished. There's still dozens of hybrids who need to be freed, and we have to figure out where they're all going to stay, and—"

"That can be somebody else's problem long enough for all of us to take a nap," insisted Nora. But her eyes lingered on Pyrrha.

"I'm fine." Her hands, which apparently hadn't gotten the message, balled themselves into fists.

Ren lay a hand on her shoulder. "You're allowed not to be."

Jaune took her other hand and squeezed once. "It's been... a lot for all of us. And—"

"I know," she said, too quickly. Two familiar snouts pressed against her back. There was a huff, and a waft of warm, dry air stirred her hair. "I do," she repeated, calmer now, glancing over her shoulder into a pair of concerned yellow eyes. "It's been one thing after another for so long... I don't know what's supposed to come next."

Harpy flicked an ear. Turned her head, with terrible slowness, to stare deeply into Pyrrha's eyes. There was something flickering there, an answer to a question she didn't know how to—

The hybrid yawned pointedly.

Ren was polite enough not to laugh. Jaune tried, but a little snicker slipped out from behind his hand. Even Twiggy, Guang and Freya chuffed in amusement. Nora rolled her eyes and said between giggles, "I told you!"


Huo was, to no one's surprise, much grumpier when they told him he had to rest his legs for a few days than he had been when the giant broke them.

"You don't want to be helping right now," Zircon told him, shivering even in the warmth of the makeshift stall they'd set up for Huo. It had been one of the rooms where Watts had stored the hybrids... but he tried not to think about that too much. Or about the hybrids they'd been trying to help all afternoon, the ones that still wouldn't eat or move or look at anything. They were even scarier than the ones that liked to bite.

"I want to be moving," Huo whined, wiggling his good legs. "They're letting Guang follow Ren around!"

Nymph huffed. "You don't have to follow Sun, he's right there."

"Hey to you too," Sun said, when she jabbed her nose at him, and scratched her under the chin.

"We brought you guys a present," Neptune added, producing a sheaf of papers from behind his back. "Watts' notes."

Huo's eyes lit up. His tail wagged as Neptune placed them in front of him and then hastily backed away. The papers vanished in a puff of flame.

Sun kicked out at the pile of ash, scattering it everywhere. Sage coughed into his arm, and Zircon coiled his tail protectively around his rider. Scarlet just nodded and said, with grim satisfaction, "That's the last of it. If we do our jobs right... no one will ever make one of those things again."

There was a long, heavy silence. Zircon padded over to the spot between Huo and Nimbus and lay down, with his brothers' scales warm against his sides and his tail twining with Nymph's. Sage settled against his chest.

"Damn," Sun said. "We actually won."

"Dude, you're just getting that now?" Neptune laughed and leaned into his shoulder.

"I mean, in my defense I'm pretty sure Huo wasn't the only one with a concussion."

"Speaking of kicks to the head," Scarlet said, "what... what happens now?"

Zircon whimpered. He'd been so focused on fighting the Council, and trying not to think about fighting the Council, that he hadn't thought at all about what would happen afterward. Sage patted his head, and he pushed his nose against his side, taking in the familiar smell that meant safety.

"Now... I suppose we can do what we want." Sage scratched behind his ears. "I don't know about any of you, but I'd like to go back to Beacon."

"Can we?" Scarlet wondered. "After, well... everything. Is it even open?"

"It'll have to be soon." Neptune glanced at the door to the room. This whole building was full of hybrids recovering from serious injuries. Outside, those whose wounds were mostly superficial lounged on the lawn and perched like gargoyles on the roof. Over a hundred of them in total, most still without riders. "Somebody will have to help them learn to control their powers, and I don't think Atlas can handle them all at once."

"How does that sound?" Sage asked Zircon. "Going back to Beacon."

He lay his head in his rider's lap and purred. Going home sounded like the best idea he'd heard in a long while.


Over the next several days, Whitley was introduced to a small army of Riders. They had polite questions about Glacier. They wanted to know how he'd come to bond with a dragon older than he was, and how he handled the challenges that came with such a rare elemental, and if perhaps he might be willing to—and that was about when Glacier got huffy and started snapping at them. But even if the big lug would let him, he wasn't interested in a dragonet.

It wasn't like he didn't get why. There were over a hundred hybrids, and even if some of them didn't want riders, they still needed dozens of willing humans to bond with them on short notice. But that was someone else's problem, or so he'd assumed. But Ragnar decided to make it his problem, which meant it became Glacier's and Oscar's problem, and that made it Whitley's problem too.

"I'm sorry about all this," Oscar said one morning, after they'd sat with Ragnar through another round of impromptu sight tests. Apparently it was something the Dragonries did, where older dragons would weigh a prospective student and decide whether or not to let them in. Glacier was fantastically unqualified for the job, and his habit of staring blankly at the people he was supposed to be judging didn't exactly inspire confidence, but Ragnar seemed to like having him there.

"It's fine." Whitley crouched to examine Glacier's right forepaw. He'd torn a nail at some point during all the fighting, and he didn't want it getting infected.

"I'm also sorry about. Um. Professor Goodwitch asked me—well, she asked Ragnar, I'm just along for the ride—but she asked if he'd come back to Beacon. To teach. Since they're sort of... understaffed and all."

"Oh." Whitley swallowed a surge of... something. Then he glanced up at Glacier, and the knot in his stomach disappeared. The great lizard was staring at Oscar, his head tilted to one side, and Whitley knew immediately that he would insist on going with them. "I suppose it could be interesting."

"You don't have to." The knot came back.

Whitley shifted from foot to foot. "Glacier wants to."

"Maybe." Oscar glanced behind him at where Ragnar stood. "But... what do you want to do?"

Whitley frowned. He... hadn't thought about that much. "I don't want to go back to Atlas," he decided. "Especially if Weiss and Winter actually try to arrest Father. The farther I am from that disaster, the happier I'll be."

Oscar rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess compared to all that, pretty much anything would sound better."

"Yes." Oscar winced. Whitley stared at him, baffled, then looked to Ragnar for help.

The earth dragon made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort.

Dragons, Whitley reflected, could be uniquely unhelpful when they wanted to.

"I'd like to stay with you. And Ragnar!" Whitley cleared his throat. "You've... well. Grown on me. A bit."

Oscar's face lit up. Ragnar chuffed and lay on his side, giving Whitley an uncomfortably knowing look.

"If you want," Whitley added. "I don't think either of us would be any good at teaching. No one ever told Glacier how to be a dragon, and they certainly didn't tell me how to be a Rider."

"I do!" blurted Oscar. "Want you to come. As long as you want to."

"Yes. That would be... agreeable."

Whitley shot a frantic look at the dragons. Glacier was watching them with his head tilted to one side, his tail twitching ever so slightly with boredom. Ragnar's gaze was a lot more focused, his ears perked up tall and his eyes wide.

What on Remnant was wrong with everyone all of a sudden? What was wrong with Whitley? Why was this conversation turning so horrifically awkward? He was a Schnee, he didn't stumble over his words like this. And why were they getting excited over going to Beacon when they'd been stranded out in the wilderness together for months? The last time he'd seen anyone this inexplicably happy over something so stupid had been when Weiss was talking to that—

Oh. Oh no.

"I need to speak to my sisters," Whitley said, and turned on his heel and r—made a tactical retreat.

He didn't actually mean to talk to either of them, but as he was walking away his mother noticed him and called out. Whitley wandered over, and found her sitting between Weiss and Winter and their dragons.

"Hello mother," he said. "Hello sisters. Still planning that hostile takeover?"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yes. As soon as the hybrids are a little more settled. Someone needs to work on bringing them back ethically, and I certainly don't trust Father to do it."

"I could help." Both of his sisters and even mother turned to stare at him. Whitley hadn't quite meant to say that, and still wasn't sure why he had, but he wasn't going to back down now. "I assume you'll be returning to Beacon? We'd be close by, so it shouldn't be hard to find time to work on it."

"Are you... enrolling?" Winter asked, looking more baffled than Whitley had ever seen her.

"No." His ears heated up. "I'll just be... around. I don't particularly enjoy risking life and limb on a daily basis, you know. So if the two of you decide to orchestrate another coup, you're on your own."

"It wasn't a—" Winter started to say, but Weiss bowled right over her.

"That would be quite helpful, actually. It's been a while since I've been involved in the day to day of the company."

Whitley was probably just as out of the loop as she was, seeing as he'd been stranded in the woods for weeks, but he decided to ignore that. "Of course. You'll need someone to help you with the paperwork as well, if you want to carry on as a Rider and still have time to sleep."

"You didn't say you were going to Beacon," mother said, interrupting them before they had a chance to get into the weeds—which was probably for the best. Whitley didn't feel particularly up to nuanced discussions about corporate scheming right now. "Why do something like that if you don't want to be a Rider?"

On second thought, Whitley would much rather talk about cutthroat board members. Especially when Weiss' eyes narrowed, like a shark that had just scented blood.

"I like the weather in Vale," Whitley lied. "And I'm certainly not going anywhere near the manor while you two keep stirring up all the trouble you can find."

"He funded that monster," Winter grumbled. "We have to do something."

Mother just frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. "But why Beacon of all places? It's a—" she glanced at Weiss—"a lovely place, I'm sure, but really, if you need someplace to stay we can make other arrangements."

"No!" Whitley said, much too quickly. "No, there's no need for that. Glacier's gotten very attached to Ragnar, you see, so I have to go with them."

Weiss started to smirk.

"It's annoying, really," Whitley went on, his voice rising in slight panic. "But you know him, he never listens to anyone when he has his mind set on—"

"So you finally noticed, did you?"

Whitley went red, right from the tips of his ears to the hollow of his throat. "Die."

"Whitley!" mother burst out, horrified.

Weiss just laughed.


The new human was called Glynda, and it had to keep her in sight.

She walked across the shattered street. It trotted at her heels and whimpered whenever it slipped on a shard of pavement and fell behind. Her shoes made a soft, steady clicking sound. It wished it could force its own heartbeat to match.

The clicking stopped. Glynda turned, knelt down, and sighed. "Cumulus..."

It was called Cumulus. It had never had a name before, and even now it wasn't sure it needed one... but it liked when she said it like that. Warm.

"I need to help with the injured hybrids, now."

It licked her fingers. They smelled like leather, not latex. Strange, but good.

"Some of them are... quite bad. Do you want to stay outside?"

A jolt of adrenaline. It whined and buried its face in the crook of her arm, hoping she'd forget about the question. It hated when she asked questions.

"Look at me."

It poked its head out and met her eyes. The fear eased. Her voice was nice—strong and firm, but never angry.

"This is where you'll stay, if you don't want to see the others." She patted the ground. "It's safe here, and I'll be back very soon." Then she nodded towards the big room with the open roof, where Hy—Cumulus had stayed with the others before the battle. "If you want to come with me, we'll be in there. We can leave whenever you like, if it's too much."

It squeaked and shuffled its paws. She was going to make it choose, now. It wished she wouldn't do that. Maybe if it sat there long enough she would get bored and decide for it.

She held out one hand, palm-up. "Tap here if you want to stay." Then the other. "And here if you want to follow me."

It crawled between them and hid its head inside her jacket.

"That's alright. Take as long as you need."

This wasn't so bad. Inside the jacket was warm and dark and quiet. Safe.

It felt her flinch. "Tai..."

There was a heavy thump, somewhere nearby. It poked its head out to see, and found a man sitting on a bench on the other side of the road. He was all bright and warm colors, yellow and orange and brown, but somehow he looked grey. It grabbed her arm.

"Claws," she reminded it.

Oops. It shifted its grip so that it wouldn't scratch her. Then she made to stand up, and it squawked indignantly and clung on.

"I'm only walking over there," she said. "Would you like to come with me?"

More questions. It whined and wound itself around her feet, hoping she'd give up and stay still. But she took first one step, and then another, and if it didn't do something she'd get out of sight and—

It bolted after her, warbling anxiously and jumping up to snap at her hand. She bent to stroke its neck. "There, see? That's good. That's very good."

A familiar warmth bloomed in the pit of its stomach and spread outwards, all the way to the tip of its nose and the end of its tail. That was the one good thing about questions—no matter how it answered them, she always smiled afterwards.

The grey man had put his head in his hands, and didn't notice them approach. Glynda stopped, hesitated for a long moment, then pulled something out of her pocket. "Tai?"

He looked up. His eyes were distant and unfocused. Could humans lose the magic? "Oh. Glynda."

She sat down next to him, and it hopped up into her lap. It watched the man warily for a few seconds, but settled down with a yawn when he made no move to attack.

"Have you eaten anything today?" Glynda asked, and held out the thing from her pocket. It was shiny green, all wrapped up in plastic.

"Yeah. Some eggs. Yang made them."

"That's good." She pushed the thing into his unresisting hand. "Take it anyway."

He didn't seem to notice that she'd given him something. He just stared into the distance and said, "They were good."

"Hm?"

"The eggs." He clasped his hands together, accidentally squishing the plastic package. "I shouldn't... I didn't think I'd be able to eat."

"You need to eat," Glynda told him. She'd told Cumulus the same thing, over and over, even though its jaws hurt. But when the food was too hard, she'd found something soft for it to eat instead.

"I saw Tempest. Right after... she wouldn't eat. Didn't. For a long time. She was so angry and hurt and... and I'm just..."

"People grieve in different ways, Tai," Glynda reminded him. He didn't seem to hear.

"Sometimes I think I should be like that. Like them. I should scream and break things. But maybe I shouldn't, maybe I shouldn't be shutting down like this."

"Tai—"

"I don't... how do you do it? Just... keep going."

Silence. Then, "I had students that needed me. Now he needs me." She tickled Cumulus under the chin. It purred and squirmed onto its side so she could rub its belly. "As long as someone else is depending on me, I can't shut down. So I don't."

"I wish I worked like that."

"You need to give yourself time, Tai."

"Are you going to tell me it gets better?" he asked dully.

"No. I've heard that's supposed to happen after you process things, which is precisely what I've been avoiding. Miss Nikos would make a better role model."

The grey man leaned back and sighed. "How's the little one?"

"Better than most." A scritch under its chin. It wagged its tail. "I'm... not sure how much he understands."

"Is he biting you whenever you tell him to do something? I heard that's been a problem with some of them."

"Quite the opposite, actually. He seems... unsettled, when I don't tell him what to do. We're working on it."

The man hummed. "They're all reacting differently, I guess. The younger ones seem better off."

"Their first few months are critical, developmentally. The more of that time they spend under those devices..."

"...Yeah."

Cumulus wiggled its legs in the air, then squeaked happily when she ran a thumb across the bottoms of its paws. "Tai?"

"Mm?"

"Are you sure, about the new teaching post? We can find someone else."

"Nah." The man got up and stretched. "I liked teaching at our little bootleg Dragonry, and I think it does me good being around Qrow and the girls. They can tell, too, which means they'll try to stay home if I don't go with them. Besides..." He glanced at Cumulus. "I think it helps. Having something else to take care of."

Her hands stilled. It craned its neck to lick the tips of her fingers.

The man turned to go, but before he walked away he glanced over his shoulder and said, "Glynda? Don't forget to take care of yourself, too."

She nodded once. The motion was jerky. "The same to you."

"Yeah, well. I've got lots of people reminding me."


"It licked her fingers. They smelled like leather, not latex. Strange, but good."

hhhh sometimes i look at a line out of context and i... regret.