They buried Dee under a tree along a dirt path that snaked through the woods. There was no ceremony save for a eulogy delivered by the only person among them who knew the fallen Huntsman. Their motley group lingered there for another hour, taking the time to rest and gather their thoughts while Dudley grieved.

Ruby considered giving an apology; the man's friend had died in her place. Miss Calavera thought otherwise. Instead, the old lady calmly expressed her condolences on behalf of the Empress and team JNPR. She then promptly reminded them all that they needed to find shelter before nightfall lest they suffer the brunt of the northern Mistrali frost. And they ultimately did find shelter at around dusk when the trail ended at the gates to some kind of commune. The name Brunswick hung on the archway above the approach.

"I've heard of this place," Dudley said, cradling his modified Dust carbine. He sounded calmer and more resigned. Then again, it could be his coping mechanism. "Used to be some private farming collective or something."

"No one seems to be around," Nora noted. She started calling out. Save for the wind, no one answered. "Huh. Is this place deserted?"

"Looks like it," Jaune said, coming off of the third window he peeked through. No lights, no lit candles, no humming of electricity. "Creepy."

Team JNPR paced slowly ahead in a tight formation around the Empress with lax grips on their weapons. The absence of nary a hint of life was unnerving. Worst case scenarios played in Ruby's head as she followed Jaune step for step: concealed traps, Grimm nest, or another ambush in waiting.

After awhile, Dudley waved made the announcement. "I think we're in the clear."

Somewhat relieved, Pyrrha took in the complete emptiness of their surroundings. "These houses...seem fairly recent."

"None of the buildings appear to have any structural damage to them," Ren added.

"Good enough," Maria said. She pointed to the largest building on the commune. "That should be the main mansion right there."

"Looks empty," Ruby echoed.

Jaune once again took point with his sword raised over his shield. "Can't take any chances."

Miss Calavera took the Empress by the wrist and tugged her away. "Best leave it to them, Your Majesty."

And so Ruby stood back with the old lady while Dudley and team JNPR headed up the porch of the three-story manor and kicked down the front door.

The territory itself was fairly vast. It spanned hectares of disused farmland now almost entirely buried under the snow. Distant farmhouses and sheds sat derelict across drifting white fields. The rest of the houses were concentrated around a large round well in the middle of the property. Many were locked and no one was willing to expend any more energy to barge into every other home at this point. So they resorted to clearing out the manor, finding nothing but dust, cobwebs, and misplaced furniture completing the décor of peeling drywall.

"How long has this place been deserted?" wondered Miss Nikos.

"Dunno," shrugged Dudley. He headed over to the fireplace where some chunks of chopped wood lay scattered before a dried bed of ashes. "What a mess..."

In the parlor, Ruby studied a large portrait bearing smiling faces. No doubt these were the previous occupants—perhaps the founders even—of Brunswick. Nothing too notable among them; ordinary plebeian farmers, it seemed. Not too dissimilar from the rural citizens back on Sanus, constantly tilling the fields and providing food for the rest of their fellow citizens.

'As is their lot in life,' Salem would say.

The Empress could never really agree with her godmother on certain perspectives. Salem preached a social hierarchy that, come to think of it, scalded Ruby's altruism. Here on this portrait were over a dozen people who had labored on this land, making the best of their circumstances so they could live a good life and provide equal opportunities for others like them. She would have smiled at the thought if it not for the fact that these same people could have suffered something so serious that they had to abandon their home.

Or something far more sinister could have befell them.

Jaune came up to her. "I've never heard of this place before. Must have been far enough away from the nearest cantonment to barely even register."

"Yeah," the Empress nodded, tracing each face on the photograph. "We have those too on Sanus. A lot of them. They're so distant, they're almost entirely autonomous. If it weren't for our legions, they could have broken off from the Empire."

He eyed her warily. "Um, what, uh...what did your legions do to keep them in the Empire?"

She sighed. "Nothing that involves force, if that's what you're implying. Sure, we've had incidents in the past but they're mostly minor protests. What they do is that they establish a base in the province and build forts or occupy existing ones across surrounding areas, usually close to the highways or on directly hills."

"That way they'd the whole place under Imperial control," he completed. "Not too different from how we do things over here."

"Heh, yeah. Strategic."

"Pretty trusting of you, Your Majesty, to disclose this kind of information."

Ruby grunted. "It's not that big of a secret if it's what everyone else does. Atlas knows about it, probably has a more modified version to suit their needs. Menagerie, too. And, as you said, it's the same strategy being used here in Mistral."

"Oh."

"Besides, I trust you."

Jaune gawked at her. "Uh, th-thank you for your trust, Your Majesty."

Ruby smiled widely in return. "You're welcome."

He glanced back up at the photograph, noting the prosperity that had once blessed this commune. "These people were really looking forward to a bright future on their own, huh."

She sighed. "They tried. At least they tried."

"All clear!" announced Miss Valkyrie from the mezzanine. She came down the steps with Mister Lie in tow.

"Bedrooms and guest rooms are all empty," he reported.

"Ransacked?" Maria asked.

Nora shook her head. "Not looking like it."

"There appears to have been attempts to clear out the cabinets and drawers," Ren added.

"Sounds like an evacuation," noted the old lady. "Or an attempted evacuation. You didn't find any bodies?"

They shook their heads.

"Not yet, then."

"That's pretty grim of you to assume that, Madame Calavera," Pyrrha said.

"Brace yourself for what you wouldn't expect to find," Maria replied dryly. "That way you won't waste time screaming out your lungs."

The Empress glanced to the old lady and then to Miss Nikos. There way this elderly woman was handling this situation they were in was quite unusual. That and her tone carried some heavy authority that sounded so familiar. Ruby and Pyrrha wordlessly communicated a thought: who was this old lady?

Miss Calavera tapped her cane loudly on the floorboards. "Alright, people! We're going to be here for awhile so make yourselves at home."

With their scrolls on half-power, complete isolation from the Kingdom's CCT network, and no other (safer) means of contacting the outside for help, no one protested that.

It was dark by the time they had gotten comfortable within the walls of the Brunswick manor. The fireplace was alight with a warm flame—the only sign of life in the entire commune, according to Dudley. He had returned with Jaune and Pyrrha from checking the other houses. Equally empty but not entirely devoid of supplies, despite half of those supplies being uselessly outdated or expired. Additionally, they had uncovered an old flatbed truck sitting in the garage behind the manor. Hoping that there was not too much damage to the engine, a bit of tinkering and a can of gas could get it back up and running again.

Meanwhile, a thorough exploration of the manor yielded a bar, a storage room housing numerous cans of food, and a padlocked door that undoubtedly led to the basement. Or the wine cellar given the amount of alcohol lining the shelves.

If Uncle Qrow were here, Ruby mused, he would have drank a quarter of the manor's liquor supply in one night.

"You sure these aren't expired?" Maria pressed, going over the unopened cans they had brought from storage. "Ugh. Typical. The dates have been scratched out. Damn stooges."

"Why?" asked the young sovereign.

"Probably to save up on expenses," snorted Miss Calavera. "Is this the best of the worst?"

Ruby, Ren, and Nora nodded. They really did comb through the shelves.

"It'll go down good if you cook it right," Dudley said. "I mean...it's not like it'll kill you. I've had stuff that's three months off the calendar and it wasn't so bad."

Maria scoffed. "Wasn't so bad? How badly did you shit then?"

Jaune took the cans from the two senior adults before they could bite at each other again and headed to the kitchen with Ren. "We'll sort through these. Pyrrha, is the stove working?"

Pyrrha gave a thumbs up. The stove had been hooked to an old gas tank under the sink. Amazingly, there was still some propane left in it. A few minutes later, the aroma of boiling meat carried into the living room where the rest of them had congregated, the girls huddled close to the fireplace while Maria read through one of the tomes she pulled from the bookshelves lining the walls. Dudley seated himself in the corner close to the window so he could do maintenance on his rifle.

"Smells really appetizing," Nora drawled.

"Not too bad," noted the licensed Huntsman.

"Ren's a really good cook," continued the now chipper Miss Valkyrie. "Jaune is too. They're like master chefs or something! I'm sure they can turn something really bad into something really good. I can taste it!"

Ruby chuckled behind her palm. She could never really master the kitchen; there was entire service staff for that at the palace. Though she was a bit curious to learn. "That's very convenient. World class?"

"Now that's a compliment," snickered Pyrrha. "I'm sure the boys would appreciate it coming from you."

"Not everyday an empress calls your cooking world-class, you know what I mean?" Nora laughed.

"Can you even cook?" snorted Dudley.

The champion frowned at him. "Manners, monsieur?"

"Can you cook?" snorted Miss Valkyrie.

The Huntsman, for his part, had the right to be offended. "Of course I can cook! I'm a licensed Huntsman. I graduated from Haven way before you kids got out of combat school. I worked four years in the field before getting the train job that I now lost. I've got enough experience to know how to scrounge up grub, thank you very much!"

"We get it, mullet man," Maria barked from across the parlor. "So at what temperature do you deep-fry catfish?"

"Catfish? What the...hey, look! I can make the basics, alright," Dudley defended. "Eggs, toast, bacon, noodles, chicken, throw in some beef in there too. Hell, I can even throw together a nice salad, y'know. Just 'cause I don't really look like I deliver doesn't mean I can't."

"So why aren't you in the kitchen?"

"'Cause their boyfriends beat me to it."

"He's not my boyfriend!" shrieked both a very flustered Miss Nikos and a very panicked Miss Valkyrie much to the surprise of the Empress.

"Something going on over there?" Jaune called from the kitchen.

"Nothing!" Pyrrha squeaked over the Maria's not-so-subtle cackling.

"Keep on cooking, Jaune-Jaune!" Nora threw in nervously. "Yeah, ha-ha! Uh, we're just, uh, talking about cooking, y'know? Cooking with the Empress! Yeah! That sounds like a nice cooking show I'd watch."

"Really?" the blond yelled back mirthfully. "Can you ask Her Majesty about any recipes she knows of? Maybe a royal dish that we commoners don't often get, hah!"

Heads slowly creaked to the young sovereign who had shrunk under her blanket that had been draped over her shoulders.

"Your Majesty?" Miss Nikos prodded.

Ruby twiddled her thumbs, unable to look any of them in the eyes. "Um, I can't cook."

Bodies turned.

The Empress shriveled. She could practically feel the weight of their stares, prodding her to repeat herself. "I...I can't...I can't c-cook."

Dudley rolled his eyes. "Figures."

Nora threw her arm over Ruby's shoulder. "Hey, it's not so bad, Your Majesty! Not everybody's good with the pan, right? Did I say it right? Good with the pan? Is that even a phrase? I should write that down."

"Um, what Nora means is that cooking isn't everybody's strong suit," Pyrrha worded.

"Ain't an excuse not to learn to cook," grunted the Huntsman.

"Amen to that," agreed Maria.

Ruby deflated. She could say she tried. Then again, the last time she had her hands on anything in the kitchen other than a spoon and fork ended with a fire that triggered the palace sprinklers and a stern reprimand from Ozma because Salem had been having a bad day that time. But the effort was undeniably there.

"I tried to learn," she mewled.

"That's a start," chirped Miss Nikos. "What did you try to make?"

Cookies. Sugar cookies. With lots of sugar in them. "Pastries?"

"That's technically baking but it's better than nothing," Nora hummed.

"Anything else?" Pyrrha asked.

The Empress bit her lip. "Uh...eggs and milk?"

"You can milk a cow?" Dudley interjected.

"Uh..."

"Bonjour, bonjour, monsieur, mesdames, et mesdemoiselles!" harked Jaune as he pridefully waltzed into the living room with steaming plates of diced meat. Ren followed behind with a tray laden with bowls of soup. "Thank you for your patience."

"And, of course, the best for Her Majesty," the blond concluded, handing the Empress her dish with the widest smile she had ever seen. "Bon appetit."

Ruby, for her part, tried to hide her fluster. Though, the warmth on her cheeks must be because of the steam coming from the meal. "Th-thank you, M-mister Arc."

"Treading on coals there, young man," chuckled Miss Calavera.

Jaune shifted his brow while checking if he stepped on something. "But we're on carpet. I'm not stomping out the fireplace."

The Empress could literally hear someone rolling their eyes. Definitely not Pyrrha because the champion was quietly eating while staring distantly at the fire iron leaning against the hearth. The food was amazing though. So much so that she felt even more embarrassed when Jaune and Ren went on about how easy it was to prepare. And that anyone could do it.

Even someone as culinarily inept as Ruby, she thought to herself.

It was decided then. The young sovereign was going to ask him about cooking later.

Later was an hour that had gone by faster than she thought. Pyrrha and Nora volunteered to do the dishes because the boys had done all the work in the kitchen after all. Dudley went to raid the wine cellar while Maria went back to digging through the other tomes on the shelves. That left Ren meditating—it looked like he was—in the corner while Jaune sat beside the Empress in front of the fireplace, keeping the flames alive.

"The food was good," the Empress started. "You're a good cook."

"Oh, it's nothing, Your Majesty. It's really easy. Heat up the pan, throw the meat in, mix it around, dice it up some, maybe add in a pinch of salt or some vinegar, and there you have it. Quick fix for late mornings. Or nights where you have a mountain of homework."

"Quick fix, huh."

"Yep."

"Quick meals that aren't too sophisticated or grandiose, huh. Just good enough."

"That you don't want anything else. Yep."

"That's...good to know." Wow. Is this what she was missing out on being a royal? Back in Vale, the palace cooks were always drilled to provide the best meals so much so that each day was topped off with a healthy banquet. Healthy by Cinder's standards; her Lady of the Bedchamber was one hell of a dietitian and she made sure the Empress and the Grand Duchess lived off the same food that gave her such an ideal form.

"Besides, Ren did most of the cooking," Mister Arc continued. "He's a better chef than me. In fact, half the recipes I know, I got it from him."

"Oh. Good for you and your team."

"Definitely. So you cook too?"

Ruby twiddled her thumbs. "Um, n-not really."

Jaune laughed. "Oh, right. Personal chefs, huh. Perks of being born in the purple, right?"

"Yeah," she responded timidly. "In fact, I wanted to ask you something about...um, well..."

"Yes?"

Okay, Ruby. You can do this. Just posit a simple request. Nothing too fancy. You're an Empress for the love of all things holy. "C-can you teach me?"

"Pardon?"

Gulp. Did she really have to repeat herself? "Can you teach me how to cook?"

The blond blinked. Twice. Three times. Then nearly fell over on his own footing. "Uh, c-come again?"

The Empress tilted her head. Was he deaf? "I said...can you teach me how to cook?"

Jaune gathered himself, glancing around to see Maria watching him over the cover of the book she was reading. He then pointed to himself and then to the sovereign. He mimicked twirling a ladle in a pot to which Ruby nodded.

"Oh. Well, I, uh...I guess...I could?"

"You'd do that?"

"I mean...since you asked and...well, you're royalty, like the royalty so I can't really go against that, y'know, like...can't say no to an Empress, heh, yeah..."

"So...will you do it?"

He sighed and shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

She beamed up at him. "That's great! Thank you so much!"

"Y-yeah. You're welcome. So...what do you want to know?"

Ruby pondered that. What exactly did she want to learn? What even constituted the basics, really? "Um, can we start with...uh... What do you suggest?"

Jaune hummed in thought. "We could try...heating up canned food? I mean, it's just what Ren and I did awhile ago. And it's probably the only thing we could try since this place is, y'know..."

"Yeah, I guess we could try that."

He checked the kitchen to see Pyrrha and Nora finishing up. "Alright, then. If you'll come with me, Your Majesty?"

Ruby was on her feet and beside him instantly. "Lead the way, Mister Arc."

"Am I holding it right?"

"You're doing great, Ruby."

"Okay. What's next?"

"Time to put it in."

Snort.

Ruby and Jaune turned around to see Nora cupping her jaw to conceal her mirth. Ren tried his best not to call out his partner while Pyrrha seemed to maintain an unusually deep interest with the cutlery hanging beside the pantry. The rest of Team JNPR had been standing there watching their team leader try to guide the Empress of Sanus on how to properly heat a pan over a stove.

"Are you guys, okay?" wondered Mister Arc.

"We're fine, Jaune-Jaune," cooed Miss Valkyrie, whose cheeks had gone puffy red from whatever it was that she found suddenly amusing. "Keep at it!"

"O~okay." He turned to the young sovereign who had been holding the opened can of preserved corned beef over the heated pan. "Anyway, just drop the meat in. If it's taking awhile, you can just scrape it out with a spoon."

Ruby did so, slowly mixing the meat over the teflon and savoring the aroma of sizzling (hopefully unexpired) ground meat. Was cooking this cathartic? The smell alone was making her excited. This was her first non-sugary dish! That she didn't botch up completely!

"Are you guys really going to keep watching us?" Jaune whined towards his teammates.

"Nora is," Ren replied.

Said girl whipped out her scroll and began recording.

"Nora!"

"But this is too good to pass up!"

"Did you at least ask permission? You're filming a royal!"

"Who's filming?" Ruby turned around. "Oh. Um, are you...recording us?"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Nora frothed giddily. "But there are some moments in life that need to be remembered for all time."

"Alright, that's enough," Ren interjected. He tried to grab her only for the shorter girl to start a game of reach where she constantly kept her device constantly out of reach. "Pyrrha! A little help here?"

Pyrrha blinked out of whatever trance she was in. "Sorry, what is it?"

"Look," Jaune sighed. "Can you guys just...keep it to the parlor? I'm trying to teach her here."

"Try straightening your back, Jaune-Jaune."

"You know what? Why don't you guys check on Dudley. See if he didn't, I don't know, drink himself to death or something."

Ren managed to confiscate Nora's scroll before dragging her and a confused Pyrrha back into the corridor. "Will do."

"Quirks of being in a Huntsman team, huh," the Empress mused.

"Yeah. You get used to it," groaned Mister Arc. "Gets pretty annoying but that's family."

"Family, huh. Seems everyone here has family in Argus, huh."

"Oh, just me and Pyrrha. She's from Argus and her mom still lives there. My sister Saphron moved there not too long ago when she settled down to have a family of her own."

"That's convenient."

"Yep. Plan's still the same, though. We head to Argus, talk to Saph, hopefully get her to help us help you and hopefully end this...crisis."

"Does your sister know?"

"Uh, I haven't been in contact with her much recently." He scratched the back of his head. "Okay, honestly, I didn't even tell her anything before we went out on that mission. Not allowed to make scroll calls out in the field unless absolutely necessary. And it was the really rural mountain forests so choppy signal even with the Kingdom's CCT in range."

"Oh." Ruby paused over the steaming mounds of ground meat sizzling over the teflon. It just occurred to her... "Dudley mentioned an Atlesian garrison in Argus. Does your plan involve the Atlas military somehow?"

"Um, I wasn't counting on that option until he brought it up. Unless you want to..."

"What about the SDC? Surely, they must have a branch there."

"The Schnee Dust Company? Yeah. They have one in almost every city. Argus is pretty rich so there's bound to be a big branch."

"Then that means..." She snapped her fingers. "Weiss. She could help us."

"Excuse me, who?"

"Weiss Schnee, heiress to the SDC. You know her?"

"Um...no?"

Ruby blinked. "Huh. I guess that's a good thing. Weiss could stand to ease her ego."

"Uh, Ruby, what do you have in mind?"

"I'm not safe under the custody of the Mistralian authorities, that's pretty clear. But I can count on Atlas. At least, Marshal Ironwood. By extension, I can get Weiss to help us through this and I trust her more than the Marshal."

Jaune held up his hands. "So, you're suggesting enlisting the help of the Atlas military and the SDC?"

The Empress bit her lip. Was she postulating too much? "I'm not saying we shouldn't go with your plan—"

"Sounds like a good plan."

She blinked again. "... Oh. You think so?"

"Yeah. Way too risky though but I can see that working out way better for us if we could pull it off."

"Wow, I...never thought you'd be on board with it."

He flashed her a warm smile. "Hey, I'm still a student and I'm still learning. Besides, I'm learning from a royal who has a massive army, right? Pretty sure you've got more experience with troops than I have my team so who am I to say you don't know what you're talking about?"

"Huh, yeah," hummed Ruby. Her shoulders slumped—if only he knew. Her, the youngest sovereign to be crowned in over fifty years, holding absolute authority and supreme command over the military juggernaut that was the Imperial Sanussian Army. If only that was as true as what these Mistralians believed it to be...

Sniff. Sniff.

Oh, snap. The food!

The pair whirled around to salvage what was left of the food and to prevent the kitchen catching fire.

"I got it!"

"No, I got it!"

They did not get it.

"How do I put it out!?"

"Get a grip! Don't panic!"

"I'm not panicking!"

"You're yelling!"

"Shut up!" Ruby recoiled from touching the teflon. "Ouch!"

Jaune snatched the pan from her with an old mitten. "Don't touch it! It's hot!"

They bickered back and forth while someone thudded over to the kitchen. After another moment of fumbling around and getting entangled around furniture while reaching for different pieces of cutlery did the Empress and the Huntsman-in-training manage to kill the stove, empty the pan, and scrape the burnt chunks of canned meat into a bowl.

"You really had my appetite going for the second time around there," Maria remarked.

Ruby and Jaune sagged against the kitchen counter and tried sheepishly to look less guilty of the mess they had already created.

"Sorry, Miss Calavera."

"Uh, it was a learning experience?"

"Looks a lot like it," chuckled the old lady. "Never thought I'd see something like this in my lifetime."

"You might want to come see this though," Ren intoned from the corridor. His expression was grim, matching the urgency in his voice.

"What is it?" Jaune asked.

"You found out what really happened to the folks here, didn't you," guessed Miss Calavera.

Mister Lie raised a brow at her. "You know, too?"

The old lady held up the thick leather-bound journal she had been poring over. "Monsieur Bartleby had good bookkeeping."

Ruby was as amazed as the rest of them at the discovery of an extensive reservoir running underneath the near entirety of the estate. Wading in knee deep water—sewage or condensation—enabled them to map out the caverns running underneath the manor and serving as a reservoir for the other houses.

It was also in these tunnels where Dudley—after cracking through the locked door in a partly drunken state—stumbled across the frozen remains of some of Brunswick's original settlers. Team JNPR discovered the remnants of what killed them. After gathering their wits, they decided to leave the bodies as is; there was nothing that could be done to the mummified cadavers scattered across the tunnels, including the now desiccated Monsieur Bartleby hanging off one of the support beams.

"What kind of Grimm was it again that caused this?" Pyrrha asked after they had gathered in the wine cellar underneath the storage room.

"Apathy," Maria answered grimly. On the table was left open the journal of the commune's landlord. Particularly, it was left open on pages that had a detailed description of the abomination on the left leaf while the other right bore a full-scale drawing.

"You're telling me that these people used Grimm to control the farm?" Jaune worded.

"More like keeping them occupied and productive," Nora noted.

"I never thought such a thing could be done," Ruby added.

Miss Calavera snorted. "Desperate people tend to do desperate things. With how isolated this farm is, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Yet even I'm at a loss for words for the reasoning."

"Man, fuck this place," slurred Dudley.

"Look on the bright side," suggested Miss Valkyrie. "At least the Grimm are gone."

"You sure 'bout that, kid?"

"A handful must have migrated elsewhere," Maria narrated, unfolding a piece of paper on top of the journal. "Stirred enough trouble elsewhere that a team of Huntsman was sent to track down the source. Eventually, they decided that rehabilitating Brunswick was not worth the time, effort, or whatever resources the Kingdom could spare at the time."

"They didn't even bother to give the dead a proper burial," Ren murmured.

"Why bother when they're already preserved?" rebutted the old lady. "Won't stink up the place, won't attract predators. Low chance of anyone coming here because of how isolated this place is."

Pyrrha pored through the note, a different entry made by one of the Huntsmen who had been involved in clearing the commune's Grimm nest. "When was this?"

"Last year."

"And it was left abandoned after that?" Ruby wondered aloud.

Heads turned to her, each expressing some form of regret or disbelief. Then a sigh from Miss Calavera made the Empress realize how dense she must have come across.

"Your Majesty, the Kingdom of Mistral is not as wealthy as you were made to believe," she began. "Much of the country is still recovering from the Second Intervention. To be blunt, what the Imperial Army could not destroy by force, the Imperial Senate destroyed by treaty."

"High indemnities were to be paid to the Empire," morosely remarked Mister Lie.

"A lot of businesses went bankrupt," Mister Arc added somberly. "Demobilized soldiers were left with no homes and no work. My dad was in debt for a time before he got lucky with his connections to the Royal Knights."

"A good buddy o' mine," Dudley murmured, "old geezer who fought in both the First and Second Intervention...couldn't afford to pay for his apartment. Went to live in those shit-hole housing units...somehow got kicked out of that 'cause he wasn't pulling his weight. Well, how the fuck can he? Lost his arm in the fighting and left high and dry 'cause the government ran out of money to cover his pension. Poor guy couldn't find a job 'cause there was none." The Huntsman slumped defeatedly over the chair. "Life wasn't cheap after that..."

The sound of condensation dripping from the pipes punctuated the uncomfortable silence.

"No one wanted to come to Brunswick because there was no good reason to," mouthed Miss Nikos.

Maria shook her head. "Bad harvest, poor investments, rising debt, and a plan involving Grimm that backfired. That would make anyone want to keep their distance. But the real killer here? It's the county governor. He promised support to keep the farm going. Either that support dried up or the money was spent elsewhere. Brunswick was left to fend for itself when the cold season came."

"And the Grimm?" the Empress croaked.

"Last resort."

Ruby felt her legs weaken.

First Oniyuri. Then Kuroyuri. And then the hardships of the people in Higanbana and the dark side of the capital city of Mistral itself. The consequences of the Empire's actions in the past was hitting her harder than before and she wanted to run away if only to contain the range of emotions bubbling within her.

"Ruby?" Jaune called. "You okay?"

She let out a quick breath. And another. A sniffle followed. And she was already backed against the side of the stairs leading up to the storage room, catching her ragged breaths.

"Hey, it's not your fault," the blond tried.

Dudley glanced at the young sovereign, showcasing a drunken glare, before turning away in disgust.

Ruby slid down to the floor, eyeing the cobblestone while a stray tear trickled down her cheek to her bosom. Pyrrha paced over to wrap her in her arms while she whispered assurances that felt so hollow in this dark, moist basement.

"This place isn't entirely unsalvageable," Maria remarked. "If you ask me, I'd turn this place into an outpost. The buildings are already here. Just build a road to get supplies in, fortify the place, and you have a nice little fort that'll help keep an eye on whatever traffic's coming through. But that's just me."

"You know, as much as I'd like to go into details about that plan, I think it's time to call it a night," Jaune said. "It's late and we ought to be early if we're to start walking to Argus."

"I could use a walk right about now," Dudley grunted.

"Let's get you to bed then," Nora snorted, slipping an arm under him while Ren balanced his other side. It took a bit of effort but they managed to get him upstairs. Jaune followed suit with Pyrrha guiding the Empress by the hand.

"Miss Calavera?" croaked the young sovereign, stopping halfway up the steps.

"Yes, Your Majesty?" responded the old lady.

"You seem to have a good mind for military affairs."

Miss Calavera smiled. "I learned from experience."

"Experience, huh."

"Comes with age."

"You knew my assassin, you knew how he fought, you're more agile than most others I know of, you even have Gravity Dust infused in your cane which functions much like a mecha-shifting weapon common among Huntsmen," Ruby listed. "There's something about you that...that really sets you apart."

Maria laughed softly. "I appreciate the compliment, Your Majesty. I am quite the personality, as I've been told."

"Come on, Ruby," Jaune prodded over a yawn. "It's been a long day and it's best we get some sleep as soon as possible."

"He's right, Your Majesty," the old lady intoned. "Goodness knows I need my beauty sleep."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: April 5, 2020

LAST EDITED: May 14, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: May 14, 2020

NOTE: Time to pick up the pace. Argus awaits.