Summary:

The path to one's destiny is long and arduous, and it often goes places we do not expect.

Cinder never imagined she'd be the one to save the world. But here she is.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

"Do you believe in destiny?" The girl's face was strained, but something intangible glinted in her eyes. Pyrrha Nikos. Top of her class.

Dying.

Cinder smiled. She drew the arrow, and she uttered words she believed with more conviction than anything else in the world.

"Yes."

There are some who believe that destiny is written. That our fate is inevitable, and determined at the moment of our birth.

Cinder once believed that she was destined for greatness. She believed that she deserved it, and that it would come to her through the machinations of the universe.

There are others who believe that destiny is what we make of it. That we forge our own fates, and that our actions determine our future.

Pyrrha believed that, when she was still alive.

Cinder doesn't know what determines her destiny, not anymore. She doesn't know if this destiny was written on her flesh when she emerged from the womb, or if this destiny is merely the culmination of all her decisions.

But there is no doubt that this moment is her destiny.

This moment is where she changes the world.

Individual rebel cells, so long separated that they hadn't even dreamed of each others existence, brought together to stand against the Grimm.

The last Huntsmen and Huntresses doing their duty with zeal.

Salem's secrets shown to the world, her servants isolated and slain.

After more than three long years of suffering, humanity was finally winning.

But none of it would matter if Salem still stood.

Three deadly women entered the spider's lair.

Cinder stepped out of the portal with elegant steps, moving fluidly onto the blasted rock of the cliffs that Salem called home. The howling wind stirred her hair, and with a sliver of Fall Maiden magic she kept it out of her face.

Weiss and Ruby stepped out behind her, and the portal quickly closed behind them, the dark red vanishing in seconds. Crescent Rose rested against Ruby's shoulder, while Weiss gripped Myrtenaster tightly.

Salem had anticipated their arrival.

Raven stood across from the trio, hand resting on the hilt of her blade. Her mask glinted cruelly, and she was still like sharp glass.

Beyond her, Salem looked out on the dark, crystalline wasteland she called home. She looked as regal as ever in her flowing robes, and just as disaffected. She barely acknowledged their arrival, preferring rather to raise a skull clutched in one hand.

"The worms are here, Ozpin. I think they've come to kill me. So much for your smaller, more honest soul." Salem laughed in dark mockery.

Raven adjusted her stance and tilted her head. The obedient attack dog, waiting for her orders. Like a trained pigeon.

"Your reign is over, Salem," called Cinder. "We're going to take back Remnant."

Ruby and Weiss took a few steps forward, and Ruby said, "We're going to kill you! It'll be fun." She grinned viciously.

Salem just played with the skull in her hand. After a moment, she idly said, "What are you waiting for, Raven? Kill them."

Things happened quickly after that.

In the span of a single instant Raven had unsheathed her blade and struck at the two ex-Huntresses, but Ruby was already moving in a flurry of rose petals. Raven's katana clashed against Weiss's rapier, raised to block her strike. Ruby appeared a few meters behind Raven, Crescent Rose in sniper mode and pointed at the villain's back.

Time was frozen, each combatant a posed statue. Then time started again, and another instant passed.

Ruby fired and Raven sidestepped. Weiss stepped back and conjured a defensive glyph to block the shot, but in the instant her attention was off Raven the masked woman stepped behind her and kicked her in the back. Weiss went skidding forward to land at Ruby's feet and Raven followed behind faster than the eye should be able to follow, katana lashing out at Ruby. Crescent Rose met her attack as a scythe, and again time froze as they stood there, blades locked.

Cinder could see the hate burning in Raven's veins. She could see it in the subtle straining of her muscles. She could see it in the tightening of her grip. Raven didn't like meeting her match.

Time started again, and the three women, all once Huntresses, all something darker now, whirled. Blade struck blade, semblances clashed, and no words were exchanged as they danced an impossibly fast ballet of steel and magic.

Their melee broke, and they faced each other. Weiss breathed heavy next to a grinning Ruby. Across from them, Raven stood in combat stance, hand on her blade.

Blood dripped from her stomach, and one hand touched the blood gingerly, as if in shock.

Raven snarled, and then she was attacking Ruby again.

Rose petals swirled through the air as Ruby countered every strike Raven made. Raven became more agitated by the second, even as Ruby remained calm, practically serene, just grinning and blocking.

Only blocking. Never attacking.

Raven realized the danger a second too late, and then Weiss's summoned knight slammed its blade into Raven's head and the dark warrior went flying.

Raven crashed against the harsh stone and pushed a hand against the ground, trying to get up, but her arm gave out on her and she cried out in pain. The pieces of her shattered mask cascaded off of her, revealing scared red eyes and dripping blood.

Raven tried again to move, and pushed herself away from the three invaders, towards Salem. She crawled, each inch a torment. An eternity stretched in silence disturbed only by Raven's pained gasps.

The broken bird crawled to Salem's feet and reached out with one shaking hand, her eyes pleading, her mouth gaping wordlessly.

Salem let the skull of Professor Ozpin fall from her hand and shatter against the stone. The pieces of bleached bone scattered, most of them falling into the ravine below. The Queen of the Grimm looked down at her loyal servant and her lip curled in disgust.

With a flick of her wrist, Salem sent Raven's body floating into the air between the dark queen and the three interlopers. Salem turned slowly to regard the body and gently glided forward to stand on a raised stretch of cracked earth. Her insidious gaze raked the form of her most loyal agent for only an instant before she coldly said, "Worthless."

With another gesture, every bone in Raven's body shattered. Raven's scream died in its infancy and her limp corpse tumbled to the ground.

Salem's gaze turned to Cinder and her two servants.

"Humanity has tried so hard to kill me, Cinder. They have sent their guardians, their great protectors, their legendary heroes, and I have used their corpses to feed my children. Humanity's fire burns low, and so you come here to my sanctum hoping to steal fire from the gods one final time. How cute." Salem's tongue was sharp and biting, each word vicious and precise.

Cinder laughed softly. "You've fought guardians, protectors, and heroes, but you haven't fought me. I understand the things they don't, the things that make you strong. I've seen your strength, and I've made it my own."

Salem tilted her head with curiosity. "Do you, Cinder? Have you truly learned from me? Or are you simply imitating something you are incapable of understanding? Do you truly know the ecstasy of the kill and the cold fire of spilled blood? Do you know the power of empty, endless, brutal hunger?"

"I've laughed as I ground my boot heel into willing flesh. I've tasted the finest food in the world and found it lacking next to the broken smile of an eager toy. I've killed, and I've made others kill for me. I dare say I know your hunger better than you do, Salem." Cinder smirked and tossed her hair.

Salem's gaze was disapproving. "You are still so weak, even now. Still so human. In the end, no human can understand. You cling to your mortal desires, your pleasures of the flesh, your tethers to this world. You care about your wolf, and you find satisfaction in toy soldiers. None of it matters. There is only the kill, and the hunt, and destruction. The Grimm know that."

In the distance, Grimm howled, climbing out of their dark pits, birthed into a world of misery to serve the will of the queen of blood and death. Created only to destroy and corrupt until there was nothing left of the world but bitter ash.

Cinder met Salem's gaze with her own. Once, she'd have quailed. Not anymore. "You can kill, and kill, but eventually you'll run out of victims, and then you'll only have yourself to destroy. You're as empty as the darkness you control, Salem. But I have Ruby. I have an eternity to enjoy, where you have only as long as it takes for you to kill the last survivor." Cinder glanced at Ruby and smiled. Her wolf smiled back, and a pleasant warmth filled Cinder's chest.

Salem shook her head. "Pathetic. To think you might care for that worm. Love. It disgusts me."

Cinder smirked again. "Maybe you just don't know what you're missing. I can't imagine anyone ever loving you."

"Power is not about love. It is about being stronger than everyone else. It is about driving them to desperation. It is about breaking them and making them suffer."

"No. Power is about devotion. Power is about being the bright flame, it's about luring the prettiest moths. Power is luxury, and laughter, and building something to last."

Salem laughed. Dark mirth spilled from her and her eyes narrowed. "You think you have power, little flame?"

Cinder clicked her fingers and fire sprang to life. "I know I have power." Weiss and Ruby raised their weapons and settled into combat stances in front of her.

A hard edge entered Salem's voice. "Let me show you just how much power you truly have."

Salem clenched her fist, and Cinder's pets collapsed against the hard earth.

Weiss started retching, disgusting noises emerging from her throat as she hacked and coughed and finally vomited up the parasite that Cinder had shoved inside her. The creature withered and died, and Weiss fell to the ground next to its corpse as twisting shadows rose and swirled around Salem's raised fist.

More darkness rose from Ruby, a thousand black lines trailing from her and collecting around Salem's fist. Cinder saw her eyes clear, and her wolf ears vanish into shadow, and something impossible to read cross her face. Ruby collapsed against the ground like Weiss, face hidden by slumped shoulders.

Cinder cried, "Ruby!" and reached out with a hand, fires forgotten. A few lines of darkness trailed from her just like the ones on her servants, and she felt something inside her stolen away.

The last of the darkness gathered and was absorbed into Salem. "Everything you have ever possessed, I gave to you. Everything you have done has been my legacy, my will. I gave you all the tools you used to amass power. I gave you the power to corrupt, to control, to break. And now I take that power back. Your pawn is free of your control, and I have given your precious wolf a gift: her identity."

Cinder's breath caught as she looked at Ruby crouched there, huddled against the dirt.

"All of the effort you expended, all of the power you so carelessly poured into her, and now the Huntress inside of her is awake again. The hero you worked so hard to destroy, awake again. I wonder, how long do you think it will take her to kill you for torturing her?" Salem's smile was acid.

Cinder couldn't speak.

"Perhaps now you finally begin to understand. There is nothing in your pursuits, Cinder. All your efforts are futile. Everything you do, every pleasure you enjoy, they are all temporary. You tried to get rid of a threat to your power with coercion and manipulation, and now that threat is awake again. The only way to get rid of a threat is to kill it. The only way to keep power is to kill everything that might try to take it."

Cinder took a step forward. She needed to marshal herself, to control her emotions, but she couldn't. She was afraid.

Salem laughed. "Look at you. You are a pathetic, spineless creature. You are a worm unfit for a hook. You are weak. You have always been weak. All your life, you have tried to change that. You have striven futilely to attain power, and in the end you have done it all for one thing only: respect. You crave respect. You want to be recognized, to be desired, to be listened to. That is why you sacrifice so much for the sake of power, Cinder. It is the only way you know how to get the respect you so desperately care about."

Cinder took another step, but her motions were unsteady. She needed to get to Ruby, she needed to see if she was okay. A tear ran down her cheek, and she tried to hide from Salem's words, tried to focus only on getting to Ruby. She couldn't.

"Is it not deliciously telling you have to force people to respect you? How you have to burn that respect into your servants again and again? And yet, even when you beat them down, they still betray you. Emerald was afraid of you, Cinder, and she was in love with you, but she never respected you. To get respect, you break minds and enslave bodies, and even that gives you only the barest modicum of true respect."

She was closer. She could see Ruby's hands, clenching and releasing. Cinder was afraid.

"For all your efforts, Cinder, you will never earn the respect you so desperately crave. You will never have what you want. You are doomed to struggle endlessly, tearing apart your own resources in the endless pursuit of an impossible goal, until you die alone and worthless. No one will ever respect you, Cinder."

Cinder stood there, hope fading, dreams slipping from her grasp. She stood there, cheeks wet, hands shaking, fear clouding her mind.

And then Ruby said, "I respect her."

For the first time in all the years Cinder had known her, Salem seemed taken aback. She raised an eyebrow and looked at the girl kneeling on the ground.

The girl rose, and she was no mere girl, no mere wolf, but a Huntress. Ruby's silver eyes blazed with power, and Crescent Rose gleamed in her grip. "I respect Cinder. I understand her. She's a monster, but in the past weeks I've been a monster too. She tortured me. She took so much from me. But she's made me into what I am now. I know the measure of Cinder, and I know the measure of you, Salem. I respect Cinder more. I respect the woman who engineered her own escape from a prison of stone. I respect the villain who tore down Vale. I respect the planner who orchestrated the final assault on your servants."

Ruby looked to Cinder, and spoke softer. "I respect the person that a part of me came to love, in some dark way. The person I came to know once I felt the monstrous desires that lurked in her heart. Once I knew them as my own."

The silver-eyed Huntress looked back at Salem and pointed Crescent Rose at her. "But you? You're nothing but a murderous sociopath, a spree killer with delusions of grandeur. You're a monster, sure, but more than that... you're Grimm. And Huntresses exist to kill Grimm."

Ruby cocked Crescent Rose like a shotgun and leveled a gaze at Salem so self-assured and powerful it made the Queen of the Grimm take a step back.

Salem snarled. "I am tired of talking. One Huntress cannot kill me. Not even with the Fall Maiden's help."

"How about two?"

Weiss had stood up, and Myrtenaster's chamber glowed, ready to use its Dust.

Salem looked at her incredulously. "I just freed you from your slavery, girl. You would fight on the side of your captor?"

Weiss curled her lip. "I hate Cinder, but I hate you more. You're responsible for all of this, and I'm going to enjoy killing you."

Salem snarled again, and then the three of them were attacking.

Salem threw eldritch power at them, but Ruby's Silver-Eyed Warrior powers burned away Salem's darkness. Salem commanded the tortured landscape to assault them, but Cinder's Fall Maiden powers countered Salem's control. Salem fought with centuries of experience manipulating the forces of magic, but Weiss had spent years honing her skill with Dust to seize this moment.

A Huntress, a rebel, and a sorceress fought a dark god, and they made her bleed black blood.

Salem's battered, wounded form slumped against a rock, and hate burned in her eyes as she screamed infernal rage at them. Weiss and Ruby held her down, and Cinder pressed her hand to Salem's face. Bright fire coursed through her and surged out her arm, and Salem screamed one final time, and then the Queen of the Grimm was no more.

Humanity celebrated their victory. The survivors reveled, and cheered, and their thoughts turned towards rebuilding, and reclaiming the civilization they had lost. It would take years to even come close to what had once stood, but they were optimistic. The Grimm were retreating into the dark corners of the world, and the long night was at last over. There would be hardship, and disagreement, and the clash of old traditions with new ones, but humanity would survive. And in time, they would thrive.

The dark war had exposed vulnerabilities. A few key strikes had left humanity divided, broken, mistrustful. Bigotries had been exploited to tear communities apart, and the ignored crimes of the past had resurfaced. Moving forward, humanity would have to be careful not to be so easily divided again. Communication could not be so fragile, and tensions between humans and faunus could not be allowed to reach such a boiling point.

There were no easy answers, no miracle solutions to repair the problems that had plagued the old world. But there was the possibility of progress, and it was a possibility worth fighting for.

Humanity had bright days ahead.

Weiss and Cinder looked out on the workers busily carrying materials to the new construction site.

Weiss was the first one to speak. "I won't let you rule them."

Cinder looked at her in silence.

"You helped save the world, so I don't have it in me to kill you. But you're still a monster, and I still don't trust you."

Cinder nodded. "I can understand that."

"So I won't let you turn this bright future into a dark empire. I won't let you corrupt the dream that these people are working to build. I can't let you do that. All this sacrifice would be for nothing if I just let another egotistical tyrant take power." Her words were cold and barbed, but Cinder had been expecting them.

"You're right. It would be a tragedy for them to bow to me."

Cinder looked at Weiss and gave a bittersweet smile.

"So I have no intention of trying to rule them."

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "You can probably guess why I don't immediately take your word for it."

Cinder winced. "I know. I'm a monster with a terrible history of manipulation and betrayal. But I believe that you will do a good job guiding these people into the future. And I won't try to come after you. I won't try to build a dark empire, and I won't try to enslave you again."

Weiss just stared at her coldly.

Cinder hesitated. "For... for what it's worth, I'm sorry. Truly sorry. I know it isn't worth anything, but I am sorry. You didn't deserve what I did to you."

She wasn't lying.

In her actions, in her hunger, Cinder had often been as twisted as those she had broken. But falling for Ruby, defying Salem, that final confrontation... her worldview had been cast into question.

She still felt the hunger. She still felt that dark need to dominate and destroy all she could see. She felt a hunger to kill, and corrupt, and be worshiped as a god. That need for respect.

But now it was tempered. She felt... empathy. She looked at these other people, these beings that weren't her, and she could somehow feel their emotions like she felt her own. She could feel them as people, she could... she could see them as something more than toys for her amusement.

Ruby had awoken Cinder's humanity, and it was a strange feeling.

Cinder swallowed nervously, and got up the nerve to say what she'd been rehearsing the past few days. "I'm going to leave. I'm going to go far from you, and I'm going to leave you be. I know I can never prove to you that I'm sorry, and I know I can never make up for what I've done, but I swear to you that I will try. One day, I will be there to help you, and to protect humanity. I will repay my debt to all of you, or at least try."

Weiss sighed. "I don't know if you're lying. Honestly, I don't think I care. I've lost everything I ever cared about. I'm going to try to build something new here. Maybe... maybe one day I'll find it in me to give you a second chance." Her tone went hard. "But if you betray me again, if you come back here with malicious intent?"

Weiss gripped her rapier and it practically hummed with energy.

"I will be ready."

Ruby was waiting by the shore, looking out at the endless expanse of shining water. Her dark cloak waved gently in the wind, and she looked intimidating in her new outfit; when she'd come back from the fight with Salem she'd gone about creating new Huntress clothing for herself.

Cinder was hesitant as she approached. Was this the Ruby that had laughed with her friends? The Ruby that had come to her, driven by vengeance, or the Ruby she had broken and made empty? Was this the Ruby corrupted by Salem's darkness, reveling in the misery of others? Or was she something else entirely now?

Though Cinder moved as quietly as a ghost across the sandy beach, Ruby sensed her approach.

"Hey, Cinder."

Cinder swallowed nervously and moved to stand next to Ruby. "Hello, Ruby."

They stood there in silence for a moment that stretched into eternity.

Ruby broke it first. "You're wondering who I am now."

Cinder furrowed her brow. "How did you know?"

"I know you, Cinder. You don't spend as much time as we've been together and not learn something about the other person." She chuckled. "You don't spend weeks experiencing the distilled form of someone's corruption without learning something about the person who last had that corruption."

There was another silence, and this time Cinder broke it. "So who are you, now?"

Ruby shrugged. "I'm a Huntress. I'm not that nervous, eager little girl who came to Beacon. I'm not the empty husk you paraded around your palace. I'm not the sadistic monster that turned on my best friend. I'm... me."

Cinder quirked an eyebrow. "And what does that mean?"

"I don't really know. But I want to find out."

Cinder looked down, and when she looked up Ruby was staring into her eyes.

"You want to say something. Say it."

"I... I'm sorry. For everything I did to you."

"You enjoyed it." Her tone wasn't accusatory, more matter-of-fact.

"Yes."

"The part of you that enjoyed it is still in there."

"Yes." No point in lying. Ruby had felt that same hunger. Maybe she still did.

Ruby closed her eyes, and when she opened them again they were piercing. They pinned Cinder to the spot and demanded truth of her. "You've seen me as many things, Cinder. But which one did you like the best?"

Cinder frowned. Which one? She liked them all. But... "When you were darkened. When you were the wolf."

"Why?"

"You... you felt alive. You felt more alive than you'd been since I first saw you in Beacon, since you first caught my eye."

"Mm." Ruby seemed lost in her thoughts as she stared out at the crashing waves.

Cinder didn't know what to say, so she waited.

"You're an interesting person, Cinder." Ruby looked at her and smirked. "Maybe a bit too interesting at times. But you're getting better."

"Thanks?" Cinder laughed a little, and Ruby joined her.

"Listen. I don't know who I am now, but I want to find out. And I'm willing to do it with you."

Cinder blinked in surprise. "After everything?"

Ruby held up a hand. "I'm not finished. I'm willing to find out with you, but not as your slave. Not as your servant. Not as your lesser. If you want to travel with me, you have to do it as my partner. My equal." Her mouth tilted upward in a sly smile. "Maybe even my lover. What do you think?"

Cinder's heart raced like a jackrabbit, and she stumbled over her words a few times before managing, "I would be delighted, and honored, Ruby."

Ruby smiled, and leaned in, and Cinder responded on instinct.

Their lips met, and Ruby's hand curled around Cinder's, and their kiss was deep and comfortable. They drew closer, and embraced, and gave into the kiss fully.

After a long, breathless eternity they separated, and smiled at each other.

They had a whole world to explore together.

Author Notes:

So that's it. A Rose Burnt to Cinders is over. It's been a wild ride, and I've been happy to see so many people enjoying my writing, and what I've done with these characters. I started this story half to explore a dynamic between Ruby and Cinder, and half to practice my writing. I want to be an author, and fanfiction is an excellent way to explore writing in a space where your audience already exists.

RBC has changed significantly since the idea was first conceived. In my earliest outlines, Destiny was where Cinder and Ruby died, and Salem killed humanity. Cinder was also unrepentant the entire time, Ruby was her broken slave the entire time, and Emerald's betrayal happened way later. But at the halfway point of the series, when I came back from hiatus, I started looking at it differently. Chapter 7 was the turning point where the final draft ended up diverging heavily from the original concept.

Evil is fun, and addictive, and hungry, but it has its downsides. Empty hunger stays empty forever. When I decided that Salem would be the one to die, I also decided to alter the character development of Cinder and Ruby. So Cinder learned to value things as more than broken toys, and Ruby regained a measure of individuality and wild spirit. Of course, they're still basically villains by the end of the story, but they're not complete monsters. They are complex human beings with dark desires and an understanding of when those desires go too far. I don't know what they'll get up to as humanity rebuilds and the Grimm step back into the shadows, but I know they'll have a lot of fun doing it.

I'll admit that some of the character development hasn't been as seamless as I'd like, which really owes to the spontaneous nature of my writing process for this story. The changes to Cinder's character have mostly happened in the second half, and because I didn't know where I was going, the changes didn't necessarily lead into each other perfectly. If I was to rewrite this story, I would probably focus most of my efforts on tightening the character arcs of Ruby and Cinder, showing more fully their shifts in personality.

I hope you've enjoyed A Rose Burnt to Cinders, and I hope I've delivered everything you wanted and more.

Tainted Gems:

I can't say that I saw this finale coming the first time I read it, but I'm a fan of it.

There were times when I became sick of reading the fancy prose and felt it added nothing to the scene—particularly in the second half—but again, it has its moments of pure poetry. One phrase that sticks out in my mind is "whispering lilt", but there are plenty of other examples.

Now, I did say I liked the ending, but I'm referring more to the idea of it than the execution.

Raven's flat and boring personality is the worst thing about this story, and her scenes only detract from the rest of it. Salem isn't much better. She's the worst in this chapter, prattling on about the concept of power unthreateningly. Not least of all because it seems so OOC from the show, and not in an interesting way. And then she is defeated simply and suddenly, with no real payoff—and it's not purposely an anti-climax; it just seems rushed.

Then Cinder is replaced by a lookalike clone who meekly apologises to Weiss for being a bad girl. Ruby's change makes sense, and I like the execution, but Cinder's dialogue is lifeless and OOC.

I get the feeling that the author wanted to be over with it, because this is a problem that could have been easily solved with longer scenes, and more of them.

But chapter 4 is a favourite of mine, and essentially everything you can ask for in a Cinder/Ruby fic. And I'm glad that the author saw this story through to the end. It's still my favourite Falling Petals fic, and a strong debut work. I find myself re-reading it now and again just to appreciate some of the well-written smut. I thought some of you might appreciate this work, too.

What about you? What did you think of this story?

I'm happy to hear that there are people who still remember A Rose Burnt To Cinders and are as fond of it as I am. It's not perfect, of course, by any stretch of the imagination—but it's a fun fanfic that quickly draws you in and targets emotions that you wouldn't have expected it to.

I can only hope for more Cinder/Ruby, or Falling Petals fanfics with as much to offer.