Author's Notes
Have you ever done a thing, go back to it, realize 'I can do better', and spend the afternoon refactoring the code? Good times!
Switching back to Mytyl and co. for the latter third-fifth of our Beacon's Break adventures, which aren't as crazy as those Ruby is suffering in my other story, RCRDL.
Shameless plug is shameless.
Interlude 27.7: Remember the promise I made that day?
For it is in the darkest nights that we encounter our brightest light. Shackled by no fault of our own, we strive to paint our path forward and scream in defiance against the deafening silence. By my word, I free your soul; and by my wings, swear to stand by thee.
-o-
An Aura chant; she would recognize the cadence of those words anywhere she heard them. When your father was renowned Aura researcher Dresden Kamizono, you didn't get to not know the ins and out of Aura as understood by the scientific community, regardless of the inherent mysticism of the subject matter. Not unless you were willing to miss out on breakfast, lunch, dinner, or any sort of quality time with the family.
She had once asked her father how people discovered their chant. The answer was more ordinary than she expected. Most people just studied the history behind the poem and developed their own in an almost academic fashion. Few went beyond and diverged from the common structure; debates about why this particular pattern works so well were a hot topic among the researchers.
Even fewer created their chant in the heat of the moment. The few times she convinced her father to personally tell her a bedtime story, he loved to romanticize this particular scenario; to tell how the Aura of heroes was unlocked during these strenuous circumstances and rationalize that this pushed them to greatness; their call to action. A chant spoken from the very soul, unfiltered by the mind or heart, produced an equally pure Aura. Or so he said.
It was funny how and when inspiration might strike. At the time, she had no use for those words, fragments of a half-remembered dream that only stuck to her mind by virtue of the power behind them.
An entire soul condensed into a few spoken words.
When explained like that, it was little wonder why she remembered the poem so clearly while the rest of the dream faded into an incomprehensible muck shortly after waking up. She toyed with the idea of her subconscious telling her that this was her own chant. But the more she thought about it, the more ludicrous the idea sounded. It just wasn't her. Not completely.
Ultimately, she wrote it off as the stress from the docks making her have a weird dream that night. She certainly knew enough about the subject for her brain to build a few verses while she slept. She expected for those words to fade away with the inevitable pass of time. Luckily, the opportunity to make use of them followed quickly.
Mytyl laid on the bed of her hotel room, still dressed in her light purple nightgown. Her right leg rested on her left, bobbing to the rhythm of an unheard song. Her crimson eyes didn't stir away from the music sheet in her hand while she nibbled on a pencil, scanning the composition written in it over and over. An assortment of musical notes and lyrics competed for space among the paper's staves. Smudges where Mytyl had written and erased only served to make the cipher harder to comprehend.
Composing a song without the instrumentation to practice and hear progress was a tall order. A challenge she gladly took head on. Her brother didn't have a monopoly on her family's genius gene. Hell, her brother thought a cello was just a big fiddle. A BIG FIDDLE! Needless to say, just like she got dizzy making sense of her brother's schematics, if Copen looked at a music sheet, all he would see were squiggles. And would probably call them that too, to boot.
It might have taken the better part of the break's first week, but she managed to push the main melody to the last stretch. Now it was a matter of actually playing the thing. She already had an idea on what sound libraries she would use to synthesize the entire composition and how, more or less, all the instruments will play along.
She was sure Nori would come through with her request, but in the meantime she could only wait.
She spared a glance at the window. While sunrise had already come and gone, it was still early in the morning. Not even nine. Copen made sure to remind her of the fact when she went to his room to wake him up. Then he went to the hotel's lobby to inform them. And he educated everyone unfortunate enough to pass him by the hallway and elevator about the benefits of sleeping in. Frankly, it was a thing of wonder how he could build complex gadgets, but a reasonable sleep schedule eluded him.
There were still a few hours left before they were expected to leave to Patch. She allowed herself to close her eyes for a bit…
-o-
"Mytyl."
She stopped midway to the airship dock, ready to start the summer break at its earnest alongside Copen and Weiss. They stopped a bit ahead of her, both turning to see GV's approach.
"Did you decide to accompany us!" Mytyl asked before her partner could get a word in. Her time living with GV had taught her the boy was more pliable and willing to go along with things if you sprung them unto him. It was a bit mean to abuse his tendency of just going with the flow to avoid needless confrontations, but she really, really wanted Jaune and GV to come. She was more than willing to shoulder their expenses, and even Blake's and Pyrrha's. However, regardless of how many times she tried, it proved fruitless.
She couldn't blame them. Even ignoring how tacky it must seem to 'flaunt' her wealth – not that Mytyl agreed with the terminology – Blake still wasn't ready to spend an extended amount of time with Weiss. And vice versa. They might have apologized to each other, but the path towards reconciliation still had a few bumps ahead.
As for Pyrrha… in Yang's words: "P-Money refuses to be an accomplice to her own untimely downfall at the hands of a delusional, jealous fangirl, fanboy, or fanpet. Those exist. Zwei is a huge Achieve Men fandog ."
Mytyl shivered a bit at the thought of this Zwei. Who calls their dog 'Two'? It implies there was a 'One' once upon a time. And she wasn't sure she was the right mind space to acknowledge that.
She shook her head. Happier thoughts. Like how Pyrrha was overreacting. Then again, she had never been under much scrutiny from the public eye. Maybe she just couldn't empathize with the champion. Maybe she was also the girl who thought it was a brilliant idea to let Nori strap rockets to her wheelchair just to experience what being on a rollercoaster felt like. Maybe being an accomplice to her own untimely death was right up her alley.
GV's voice brought her out of her musings. "No, but thanks for the offer."
She sighed. Once more, he refused. And experience had taught her GV, Jaune, and Blake held a united front on that end. Pity.
"I was wondering if I could borrow you for a few seconds?"
The pointed look he sent Copen and Weiss made it clear this was a conversation he wanted kept between partners. Weird. GV was fairly open about stuff. He wouldn't just tell them without being prompt, but he wouldn't hide them either. Even his part on the White Fang was more a case of nobody asking him what he did before Beacon.
'Could this be something exceptionally personal?' Mytyl wondered. It'll be a first for GV. And his stern demeanor was ever so slightly harsher, anxious about something.
She nodded at Copen. Weiss would not mind giving her and GV some time, but Copen could be overbearing. Even now, he yanked her luggage from her hand despite protests, insisting that he didn't mind carrying them while she went and did her administrative duties as team leader.
Mytyl couldn't help but roll her eyes. At times like this, Copen could be a bit of an ass. It came from a good place and it meant he cared. But it didn't stop him from being annoying. It has been years since she needed continuous care like that. Years since their head maid and their instructor beat his instinctual reaction of protecting her out of him. If they were to be Hunters – they said – he couldn't continue babying her.
She waved Copen and Weiss off, as well as ordering Lumen to stay with Copen and signaled GV to follow.
'If I don't have to carry my stuff, might as well go to the cafeteria and pick some grub for the go.'
Shifting her attention to her partner, she asked. "So, how can I help?" GV wanted to confide something. That much was obvious. She could lend an open ear and offer a closed mouth.
"The song about Yang… you wrote it, right?"
Mytyl stopped and stared. Of all the things he could start with, that was easily among the last she expected.
'That reminds me, I have to finish the complete version.'
Saving that idle thought for the near future, she paid her undivided attention to GV. "Yeah, I did. I still need to record the music and vocals, though. What about it?"
GV perked up. "Are you taking other commissions?"
'Did he… was he asking...'
"Are you asking me to write you a theme song?" The idea was laughable. She wouldn't say impossible – GV is, after all, the guy who recites haiku when fighting – but there was a slight difference between a seventeen syllables poem and entire musical composition.
"No no no," GV quickly put that line of thought to rest. "I… have a melody." The hesitation in his voice and the awkwardness of his body posture suggested there was more to this 'melody'. It wasn't just a tune GV came up with on a whim.
Mytyl hummed in acceptance. His reasons were not for her to pry. Not to say there weren't other kind of problems. She highly doubted that GV had that melody written down. Wait, was he going to try and hum it? Is GV even capable of following a rhythm?
Her partner continued. "I was thinking that maybe you could complete it. Add some lyrics and make it into a proper song."
The way he said that. It was almost like he was pleading. It was an odd sight.
She couldn't say no. Even had the request been… less unexpected, she wouldn't have said no as long as it was reasonable. Getting dragged into Yang's over-the-top shenanigans had been fun. With everything leading up to Beacon and Beacon itself, it was nice to flex her musical muscles, so to speak. And money wasn't an issue for her, so she was more than willing to do pro-bono requests for her friends. It gave her an end goal to aim for.
And if what she suspected was correct…
"Do you have the melody written?"
"You can write music?"
'Oh, GV. That University of Life diploma is wasted on you,' she mentally lamented.
"I can hum it."
'Huh. So GV is going to hum it. That's going to be something.'
With the cafeteria in sight, Mytyl shot GV a smirk. "Well, you have until I pick up food and make it to my ride, so you better get starting on convincing me."
He nodded and closed his eyes. And taking a deep breath...
-o-
"Mytyl. Mytyl!"
She opened her eyes, brought out of her musings by Lumen's robotic voice. Stretching from her lying position, she searched for the pod, finding her hovering a bit further down the bed and towards the edge.
Right in front of a Weiss.
"Mytyl, Miss Weiss is scowling at you."
"I'm not scowling!" She said scowling, although Mytyl wasn't able to tell if it was directed at her or at Lumen's most recent remark. At any rate, her attention turned towards her friend, who was placing her luggage with all her clothes on top of the bed.
"What were you humming, anyways?" Weiss asked as she started rummaging through the content of her bag. "Sounded like a lullaby. I thought you were more into pop."
That was another thing that made GV's request extra challenging. It forced her out of her comfort zone. The melody GV hummed was slow and lulling; a sharp contrast to the more energetic compositions she favored.
"Nothing much. Just a commission," she said, pushing herself into a sitting position, raising her arms, and stretching some more. Soon she'll have to prepare for the day ahead. "What are you doing in my room, anyways?
"Right!" Weiss declared, hastening in throwing clothes out of the way in the search of the elusive… whatever she was searching for. "I required your opinion on a matter of utmost importance."
Mytyl canted her head as she observed the high-strung heiress. "You know, I expected you to be ready to leave an hour ago."
Ice eyes looked up from their labor. "I've been getting ready for the last two hours. You should get out of bed and get ready yourself. We'll be late!"
Unlikely, given that they still have two hours before their ride to Patch and Mytyl had no plans of spending them making herself prettier for a grand total of three boys, one of them her brother. There was also Mr. Xiao Long, she supposed, but that was an entirely different can of worms and made little difference. Though thinking in more carefully, there was some merits to prettying herself up…
Wait, two hours!?
She gave Weiss a critical look over. While her own nightgown reached her ankles, Weiss's stopped a little above her knees, giving ample view of the rest of her legs. "Weiss, did you shave your legs?"
The white-haired heiress scoffed. "Of course, I did. We're going to the beach. Having hairy limbs won't do."
"You shaved legs yesterday too!"
"Getting ice cream with hairy legs isn't acceptable either!"
"You don't grow enough hair to shave in a single day… do you?"
Weiss only response was a flat look. Pulling two articles out of the luggage, she asked her, "Which one should I wear?"
Mytyl blinked. She was being shown two swimsuits, colored deep blue, icy blue, and white across three vertical sections, with a Schnee snowflake on the left breast of each. All things considered… that wasn't the odd thing about them. If anyone has the money to be extra enough to buy two custom made swimsuits, it was a Schnee. No, that wasn't the weirdest thing about them.
The weirdest thing was that they were the same swimsuit, only that one was a one-piece and the other a two-piece. If explained like that, sure, they didn't sound the same. But the one-piece was lacy enough across the midsection for the two-piece to just be the one-piece after a pair of scissors cut off the midriff along the frills and not much else. Honestly, having a zipper on the one-piece and allow it to switch to a two-piece would have achieved the same results.
There was 'brand my swimsuit with my family logo' rich…
Then there was 'design two sister swimsuits, a one-piece and a two-piece, then brand them with my family logo' rich. Mytyl was the first type even if she didn't indulge on it. Weiss was seemingly the second type.
"Weiss… they're the same swimsuit, only one is missing a stomach."
The Dust heiress placed her hands on her hip and scowled. And this time there was no mistaking who was the receiver of her glare.
"That's the most asinine thing I've heard you say. Are you going to help me decide or not?"
"Fine." she yielded. "Let's see now… which boy's attention are you vying for?"
Weiss looked downright scandalized. "W-what nonsense are you babbling about now?"
"Allow me to explain," Mytyl candidly began, ignoring the spirit behind Weiss's words. "Lumen, visual aid. Now, if you are aiming for Jaune," she winced in preparation for what she was about to say, while Lumen switched to her Aura Amp module to represent Jaune, "you kind of left that bridge on fire at the beginning of the semester. So, you'll have to go all out to douse it."
Weiss look horrified as Mytyl weaved a tapestry of metaphors about her supposed interest in boys. She just wanted to know what swimsuit to wear!
And Mytyl didn't care about Weiss's desires. "So, you should go with the two pieces if Jaune is your end goal." Those words were thrown out there without much thought or enthusiasm.
Then her lips curled into a cat-like grin as she closed the distance to Weiss, who leaned backward in apprehension. Cupping her mouth as if to tell a secret, "if you want to catch my brother's interest, definitelywear the one piece. Copen has a thing for leotards."
Weiss hid her face on her hands and mentally screamed. 'TOO MUCH INFORMATION.'
Through her fingers, Weiss sent Mytyl a glare. "Please tell me you're kidding."
"Oh no," the lavender-haired girl chirped, "ballet is about the only cultural performance Copen won't sleep through. Ask him about it and bask on how dorky he can be. Finally, if you want GV…" Mytyl shrugged. "No idea, but he and Copen are more alike than either cares to admit, so I would say the one piece."
That was all the boys that were going to be present. Ruby's and Yang's dad notwithstanding. Weiss dragged her hands down her face. All she wanted was a fashion opinion. Not an in-depth analysis of how to seduce the boys!
"Mytyl, I'm not interested in showing off to any of them."
Mytyl blinked. "The girls then? Not sure about them. You might want to try asking Copen, but he might be biased."
"Not the girls either, you dolt! I want fashion advise, not seduction tips!"
Mytyl frowned at Weiss outburst. "Weiss, stop wasting my time."
"Huh?" Weiss mouth opened, not quite processing Mytyl's words.
"If you don't want to show off to someone, just wear whatever you're more comfortable with. And if this is just some competitive streak, don't. Swimwear is not where you, or I for that matter, want to compete against any of the other girls."
"I look great on a swimsuit!"
Mytyl rolled her eyes at Weiss's words. "We are Huntresses. Dare I say, we could dress in potato sacks and own the look." She raised four fingers. "Face it, Weiss. You and me? We cannot compete against Yang's boobs, Blake's ass, Ruby's weaponized cuteness, or Pyrrha's… everything."
She dashed to Weiss's side, wrapping an arm behind the heiress and holding her close, cheek to cheek, despite Weiss's feeble attempts to distance herself. "But that's ok! This is but one battle. Next semester, we'll have homefield advantage at Beacon's dance. So, let them savor this fleeting victory. Our vengeance shall rattle their bones and wobble their jiggly parts!"
Weiss side eyed Mytyl, then Mytyl's chest, then her own, then back at Mytyl's face. "Isn't that last bit counterproductive to your goals?"
"Our goals, Weiss, our goals. And don't worry too much about it. We just need to select our targets carefully."
"I do look good in a ball gown…"
"That's the spirit!"
Weiss sighed, resigned to Mytyl's eccentricities. Thankfully, a knock on the door saved her from her friend's radical scheming. Whoever it was didn't wait for a respond as the doorknob spun and the door opened.
"Copen!" Mytyl jumped from the bed towards her brother, who was carrying a large, rectangular cardboard box towards her bed, Lola hovering closely behind. "Tell Weiss she's pretty. She's been in the dumps ever since she found out she's neither Yang, Blake, Ruby, or Pyrrha."
"I have not!" The Schnee heiress shrieked, face crimson by the unspoken meaning behind Mytyl's words.
"Weiss, you're pretty," Copen said offhandedly, not even sparing the target of his lackadaisical compliment a brief glance as he set the box on the bed and worked on opening it.
Mytyl didn't miss Weiss's reaction, though, and sent the heiress a self-satisfied, smug smirk as Weiss momentarily forgot how to word.
"What's with the box?" Mytyl asked, looking at the box with curiosity.
"No idea," Copen admitted. "Nori sent it to me. And… there."
Ripping the last adhesive securing the box, Copen pried open the container. Alongside with Mytyl and the recently recovered Weiss, he peered inside.
"Another box?" Weiss asked, looking at the multicolored, box-sized box lying inside.
Mytyl raised an eyebrow. "I think those are just a bunch of things Nori packed into the box tightly. Very tightly." She picked the music sheet she had been reading and tried to insert it in the hypothetical space between where two colors met.
The sheet didn't fit.
"Are you sure it's not just an oddly colored box?" Weiss eyed skeptically the delivered goods.
Mytyl blinked. "Copen, do you sometimes wonder where Dad found Nori?"
"Way too many times to be healthy," Copen admitted. "How are we supposed to unpack this thing? I don't see anything to grip and it's too tightly packed to slide off."
"Producer! There's a paper taped to the side," Lumen informed Copen.
Peeling the attached letter, Mytyl read. "Mytyl, tell your brother to use his Semblance... How did she know I would be the one to find this?"
"Technically, Lumen did," Copen said. Tapping the mattress so that the telltale red 'X' of his Semblance floated above it, Copen flipped the box upside down and give it a little shake. The items inside flew from the box into the bed, the integrity of their box-shape intact.
"I still think it's an odd-looking box." Weiss said. Before a low, squeal of excitement coming from Mytyl caught her attention.
"I think that's my synthesizer! Lumen, Lock-on the pillow!" A blue, stylized butterfly-shaped 'X' appeared on the pillow as Mytyl's smacked the black rectangle that decorated most of the box's center in its smallest side. Only that it wasn't a rectangle, but a black case that slid off the multi-colored box and into the pillow, leaving behind a hollowed cubical rectangle that somehow retained its structural integrity.
Weiss looked at the marvel of engineering with morbid fascination. "What is your maid?"
"Welcome to my last ten years." Copen muttered. "Mytyl, I think this is your sun hat." Forcefully, he pulled a beige box from one of the edges and opened in. From it, a similarly colored hat with a blue ribbon tied around it popped out.
Mytyl rushed to catch it midair, giving it a shake to bring it back into its proper shape. "Sweet. I should probably get ready. I wonder if Nori packed my sundress too." Sticking her hand into the empty slot left behind by her synth, after a few seconds she pulled out an airy white and blue dress. "Neat!"
Weiss eyed the dress suspiciously, then the logic-defying delivery, and finally Copen. "Are you sure your father didn't build you a robot maid."
Copen pried a black box from the oddly-shape conglomerate. Inside it was a selection of expensive looking ties. "Dad dabbled in robotics, but he's nowhere near as good as me, never mind as needed to create Nori… though I don't know how long he has known Dr. Polendina," Copen conceded.
Weiss sighed. "I'll just tally this to another of your mys-Mytyl! What do you think you're doing?"
The offending party looked at Weiss; sundress in hand, body devoid of her nightgown, and Lumen hovering close by, wearing the sunhat.
"What?" Mytyl asked innocently.
"You're naked and Copen is here!"
Mytyl delivered a flat look. "Ok, first of all, I'm changing into my dress. Second, I'm not naked, I still have my underwear. And third, yes, Copen is here. So?"
"What about me?" Copen looked up from where he was separating dress shirts that seemed to be atomically fused.
"Don't look! Close your eyes!" Weiss ordered.
Copen kept his eyes open and looked. "Mytyl, maybe you want to wear your swimsuit under the dress. Save you the trouble of changing when we get to the beach."
"That's an excellent idea!" Looking for the swimsuit in her own luggage and not caring who saw, she sprung up with her price in hand: an orange tankini top ending on frills that would reach around her belly button and an accompanying tie-side bottom a darker shade of orange. "Since now I need to actually get out of my underwear," she said to Weiss, "I'll go to the bathroom."
Upon reaching the bathroom, she looked at Weiss one last time. "Seriously, Weiss, learn how to sibling." With those parting words, she closed the door.
And Weiss just stood there, genuinely mulling over Mytyl's parting words. She turned towards Copen, who was now observing how a pair of dress pants retained a cubical frame after being abducted from the oddly packaged goods.
"Copen, do siblings actually prance around each other naked?"
Copen blinked, and continued doing so as his eyes settled on Weiss. He gave a quick look where Mytyl had been, only to find Lumen floating there, still wearing Mytyl's sunhat. Lola, at some point, had joined Lumen's dress party and managed to tie a tie around herself.
He silently mourned for himself, realizing that without Mytyl there, it fell to him to enlighten Weiss about the intricacies of siblinghood. "First, Mytyl wasn't naked, she was in her underwear. Second, she wasn't prancing. And third, I suppose it depends on the family. I imagine some are more liberals than others when it comes to how prude they are. I'm guessing yours fall towards the prude spectrum?"
Weiss pouted at that. He wasn't wrong and that bothered her.
He closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. "I also imagine Mytyl swallowed her pride on those matters a long time ago." A quick peek at Weiss revealed the heiress in a contemplative mood, whether thinking about her own dysfunctional family or opting not to comment on the reminder that Mytyl hadn't always been as self-sufficient as she is now, Copen couldn't tell.
It felt wrong to leave the mood down. Looking at the objects closest to Weiss, he decided to comment. "I think you should wear the one-piece. It's more tasteful and would look wonderful with your skin complexion and slender build."
Weiss blushing was always a sight to behold. With how pale her skin was, she practically glows red. And seeing her launch herself into pillow and muffle a scream? It was odd but cute. Copen would admit human interactions weren't his forte. Maybe he said something wrong that could only be divined by the goddesses of femininity.
Now, if only the gods of express mail could help him here…
Unsticking a wooden cube from the amalgamate, he flipped the object and looked at-
-o-
From her happy place buried in the pillow, Weiss felt the weight on the bed shift. Accommodating her head to look at the source of the disruption, her free eye saw Copen sitting at the edge of the bed, his hand holding what appeared to be a wooden frame.
"What is that?" she asked her friend's brother. But no response was given. The two AC pods moved to hover alongside their creator, looking over his shoulders at whatever picture had captivated the boy. Curiosity niggling her, Weiss crawled towards Copen, following the pods' lead.
Her eyes widened in surprise upon seeing the photograph. It was a family photo. The stern-looking boy in the center, with his white hair and scarlet eyes, was an unmistakably younger Copen, around ten or eleven years old if she had to guess. To either side of him, in wheelchairs, were a girl and a woman. The woman had a blanket covering her lower half. She was smiling. Even through the picture, Weiss could tell the woman was sick and being there took great effort. The smile was brittle, but genuine, as if to rail against the world, telling it that she will not be robbed of this happy moment.
But what immediately caught Weiss attention was the woman's silver hair and golden eyes.
'Mytyl's and Copen's mother…'
Her eyes roamed over the second female next to Copen. Her silver hair, golden eyes, and heart-wrenchingly sick complexion. If Weiss thought she herself was pale, the girl was almost translucent. And her bony arms and diminutive height painted a grim picture over an already haunting drawing. But she looked happy. Too happy. As if she was seeing new, exciting things for the first time in her life.
'Mytyl…'
She knew Mytyl had been sickly when young but comparing the girl in the picture to her friend… it put into perspective just how much.
'Her hair and eyes…'
If it wasn't due to Copen's presence and the mother's similarities to her daughter, Weiss would have just written off the girl a familiar stranger. Someone who just happened to share a face with her friend. But the hairstyle, the bell ornaments, the way she clung to Copen; she was without a doubt Mytyl. The twins had always been tightlipped about what ailed the sister when she was young. This photo proved that whatever it was, it wasn't your average disease. Or at the very least, the cure wasn't your average cure.
Two other people were in the photos. An older, stern-looking man – with a squared jaw, platinum blonde hair, and sharp red eyes – stood behind the mother, holding her wheelchair. Copen's facial structure and hair was his mother's, but his eyes, and demeanors screamed his father's. The last person on the photo, standing behind and holding Mytyl's wheelchair, was a sharp-eyed young woman with straight, vibrant red hair, cut a little above the shoulders, and wearing the most stereotypical maid outfit Weiss had only seen in television and disguises. The ever-elusive Nori, she wagered.
"This was taken during the last Vytal Festival here in Vale."
Weiss felt a knot on her throat when Copen spoke. It was subtle, but there was a tinge of sadness creeping from his voice.
"Mytyl badgered Dad into taking us to see it in person. Thinking back… it was probably then when Mytyl decided she wanted to be a Huntress. Seeing all the flashy moves and pirouettes the students did… I wouldn't be surprised if she thought that if she became a Huntress, she could do that herself."
Copen huffed in amusement. "Took quite a bit of logistical juggling to pull this off; bring Mom and Mytyl to Vale with their delicate health. Wouldn't be surprised if some of Nori's black magic was involved."
"Sounds like a happy memory," Weiss said delicately, placing a friendly hand on Copen's shoulders.
"It is," Copen agreed. His thumb brushed over his mother's face. "Mom passed away the next year, so this is one of the last photographs with her."
The photograph was snatched from his hands. Weiss and Copen looked up to see Mytyl, lavender hair and crimson eyes, sending her brother a warm smile.
"Aren't you talkative… But you are right," Mytyl told her brother as she flipped the photograph and looked at it. "This is when I decided to become a Huntress. For those exact silly reasons. Told Mom it would be me on the arena one dat. She smiled and said she was looking forward to it."
With glistening eyes, she looked at her brother. "No slacking off, Big Bro. We have to make Mom proud."
Copen smiled. "We are winning this thing. I promise you."
Mytyl then noticed Weiss and her stupid smile. "What are you looking at, Weiss-cream?" Mytyl challenged the heiress.
Weiss, for a change, stifle a giggle at the nickname and Mytyl's expression. "Nothing. Just thinking how sickening cute that exchange was," she teased. "Especially for Copen. My mental image of him is forever tarnished," she lamented.
Copen stiffened at that, while Mytyl giggled. "Careful, Bro, your tough guy act is crumbling."
Copen groaned at the teasing. "It's just Weiss. It doesn't matter what she thinks."
Weiss crossed her arms and huffed. "Is that so? Maybe I shall tell Yang then."
Copen shrugged. "Go ahead. If you don't mind getting Nori'd out of existence, that is."
That got Mytyl laughing out loud, and Weiss herself took in in stride and opted to think of it as a joke. But just in case, she dashed any plans of telling Yang.
"Just so you know," Weiss added, "don't think Team RWPY will let you take the trophy home so easily."
A sentiment Mytyl agreed. "I wouldn't have it any other way, Weiss."
Author's Notes:
Ok, this chapter. It is proof that real life influences art. The upcoming A/N are about to get a bit heavy, so strap in. Feel free to skip the very last bullet point it if you don't want a downer story.
Let's do a rundown of this chapter:
Chapter's name: Inspired by the light novel "We Still Don't Know the Name of the Flower We Saw That Day". But that's the literal translation. You probably know it as Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
Aura chant: Curious and curiouser.
Flashback: Originally the flashback was on first-person. However, I opted to change it last minute for reasons that will be evident later on. For this reason, the writing might feel a bit off.
GV's commission: I'll talk more about this next chapter, when GV and Mytyl see each other. I will say this: it's an actual song that exists. Maybe even in-universe in the ASG-verse.
Zwei: Seriously, who calls their dog Two? Then again, my mother called my childhood hamster something along the lines of 'Sleepyhead'.
Weiss's swimwear: The one 'official' image of Weiss in a swimsuit had her in a white one-piece. Yuck. I gave that thing color.
Mytyl's swimwear: If you look at the official Gunvolt 2 website and search for the wallpapers, you can find a summer one with Mytyl wearing her swimsuit and sun hat in the background, chilling with Nori. Also, TIL the word tankini is a thing.
Mytyl's shamelessness: It does seem to vary from family to family, at least in my experience. No story here. Just an observation I've made throughout my life.
Mytyl's white hair and golden eyes: Curious and curiouser.
Kamizono matriarch: Mytyl's and Copen's mom is never mentioned in the games. I believe it's safe to assume she died at some point. I haven't named her, but if I ever do it'll probably follow the 'blue' naming convention the rest of the family has.
Nori's black magic: Alluding to the mythology gags Inti has given canon Nori is always fun.
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Downer story: Again, skip this bullet point if you want to keep downer IRL stories. I originally had plans for this chapter to carry on until they get to Patch and the beach. As it tends to be with me, I wrote more than I anticipated as more ideas flowed in. Before I knew it, I was writing about the Kamizono family and death and following after that end felt wrong. I'm happy with the chapter. Give us some of that Mytyl/Copen/Weiss interaction from the beginning that has been pushed aside in favor of my favorite interactions. Also gave me a chance to make a couple of humorous moments like Mytyl advising Weiss on swimsuits/boys and Nori's packaging service.
It got a bit heavier towards the end, what with talks about the Kamizono's matriarch and death, and this is where life influences art. At the moment of this writing this (so several months ago) my grandfather passed away. It got me thinking a lot about death these last few days and before I knew it, I was writing about it. It feels odd, since I'm not (was) the most affected by his passing. But I also didn't have people to talk about it due to where I was in life. So, I wrote about it.