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Neo and I were on board a plane again together and there was a storm billowing outside. A gust of wind rocked the vessel and lightning hit us with metallic grinding noises and threw up sparks. I pulled at the bay door.
It wouldn't open. It refused. I pulled and pulled and pulled. But the door wouldn't budge. Neo looked at me imploringly as I tried to leverage our way out. We were going down, down, down. There was nothing I could do. We were going to crash.
Finally the door came free. Neo was yanked out by the vacuum and hurled into the hideous vortex of wind and sleet and lightning. Her terrified face was the last thing I saw before she was sucked away from me on her umbrella. And she was flung into the heart of the storm.
I watched in terror as her form disappeared into the mist in an instant. She was gone just like that. Then the plane hit the earth and I was tossed through the glass of the cockpit. The glass's raked at my skin and twisted metal tore into my flesh. I lay where I fell - paralyzed completely, and, unable to move the Grimm descended on me and tore into my body. My arms were torn off and all of my guts were ripped out by savage teeth and claws and I lay there and I took it.
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I woke up from uneasy dreams. I need to stop being so scared. For a multitude of reasons really. It was drawing Grimm for one thing. The fear I felt... I couldn't be sure of the source. Was it me? Was it Mother? Was it both of us? She opened a back door into my mind and I had a door into hers as well. This fear was slicing both of us like a razor. It was a double edged sword. I wanted Mother scared. But I couldn't live and function with my fear dialed to eleven all the time.
I took Rosé on a jog and that helped clear my thoughts. I could feel it wipe my brain chemistry clean in a helpful way. I got a runner's high on top of a regular high and it was up there with the best drugs I had ever taken. It was good. It was also just plain healthy for my body. At first when we started Rosé got blisters on her feet and she could barely keep up but after only a few weeks she was pacing well and her feet had become calloused.
That was all well and good but I still couldn't well and truly place my anxiety. Which was in turn a source of anxiety for me. It was troubling. Was Mother really this scared? That might be concerning if something had her so frightened she couldn't think straight. What might she do? I had no idea what she would do when she's terrified. Or was it coming from me?
I had no idea. I reached out into the place that belonged to neither of us and to both of us. It was scary. There was so much fear there. It was coming from both of us. We were both scared. Mother, for all her ancient wisdom, had never been in this situation before with a wayward son. I for my own part was entirely in uncharted waters. That was always true for a mortal though. That was the human-faunus condition. That's what it meant to be Cetra.
I didn't know whether to tighten up or relax and so I could do neither. I could ill afford a sloppy defense and that meant that I could really afford to slacken or intensify my diligence. I didn't know what to do.
I knocked Rosé to the ground in a smattering of mud; the rain had left the ground a patchwork of puddles. We trained in a meadow with long grass and bright blue wild flowers off the beaten path. I let the rain fall down on me as I watched Rosé return to her feet and wipe the mud from her face.
Sometimes I wished that she would stay down. Sometimes I wished that she would say 'no more; I don't want this anymore; I want to go back home,' but she never did. She kept getting back up for more punishment and training and she took it all without complaint.
"You good?" I asked. I said it encouragingly but sadly. Please don't get up. Please give up and go home.
She just nodded and grit her teeth in a sort of snarl. Then she came at me with particular swings. Unfrustrated and unflustered, she swiped at me. I had long beat such things out of her. Frustration and floundering would do her no good. She knew that by now. Hopefully that attitude would be instinctual. It could save her life.
I showed little mercy and I was, in my own regard, a cruel and harsh teacher. She kept coming back for more. At times I felt certain I would discourage her and she would have had enough but it never came. And I was trying to discourage her in a lot of regards.
She swung low and I blocked with a loud clang; with her free hand she flung mud in my face. I swore and stepped back and she hit me across the chest with a shout of raging victory. I wiped my eyes and flattened her. She lay on the ground panting and smiling.
"Got. You." She breathed hard. She was beaming. Nothing could take that from her it would seem. She was too triumphant even as she lay with her silvery pink hair fanned out in the muck.
"You did. You cheated to do it. But it worked. Well done," I praised her as I wiped my face with my left hand. The mud was thick and gravelly. Congratulations were in order. She had worked hard and had to be creative to touch me. I prized those things in not just hunters but in people in general. She did a good job. Even if it got a little dirt in my eye.
"Just you wait. Soon I'll be good enough that I won't need dirty tricks to touch you," triumph roared behind her words. She was sure of it. And it was true.
"Soon," I agreed readily. Harsh training could do all things to a person. I was proof of that in some regard. Hard work couldn't be over valued. And her persistence in the face of training which should be putting her down would change her; already she had the glow of a huntress to her skin and body. Even the mud didn't manage to completely disguise that fact, covered as she was in it. Her transformation was transcendent to watch from the outside looking in and I had to wonder if this was what Pyrrha saw as she trained me.
Rosé was becoming superhuman. She had yet to unlock her own semblance but I felt it would be soon. Her mastery of her own aura was progressing at an incredible rate. Her sword play was just fine. It was nothing to write home about but it was far better than it was even so far as a week ago.
It was almost a religious experience for me to see it from the beyond. It was changing me as well. I was forced to be wiser and more confident. I had to make decisions which would affect her for the rest of her training. I had to share the little wisdom I did have and do it quickly.
It was transcendental to experience this. It gave me a certain sense of deja vu. It felt like I had been here before in some distant dream. I hadn't. This was new. Every moment was new and terrifying and more than just my own fate was in my hands. Destiny had touched me. It grasped me firmly and refused to let go with teeth sinking deep into my flesh.
I had so much to do. Rosé had far yet to go before she was even Beacon ready. I had to put a stop to my father and I had found no clues this far as to his next laboratory. I couldn't even be sure that it was here. What if he went back to Mistral or Atlas? What if he was in Vacuo? I had no idea. I just felt a strange confidence that even if I didn't find him in Vale I would find some sort of lead. That was important.
I helped Rosé rise from the muck and wildflowers and get back to her feet. She was tired. But she wouldn't stop smiling. It stretched from one ear to the next. She was on cloud nine. Her touché divided her history. There was before she got the touché and a new world after. And nothing could ever change that. There was no going back for her. Not in this, and not back to Vale as anything other than a huntress. She had already grown too far to stop now.
If I stopped teaching her, if I tried to save her life that way, then she would merely train herself at this point and she might do well at it. But not as well as if I stayed by her side and offered my guidance. Dismissing her now could kill her and it would be entirely my fault. I was so horrifically responsible. What a terrible thing to be: responsible. It weighed on the mind and body and soul with unmistakable gravity. My responsibilities to my loved ones, and friends, and to Rosé, now, and even to the world seemed to be growing and growing. Would it ever end? Or did the responsibilities only stop stacking up once you were stone cold dead?
I already knew the answer. At least a little in my heart of hearts. My duties to this planet would never stop amassing no matter how much I wanted it to stop. I felt that pang of fear. Mother? Is that you? Are you scared of me yet? I'm terrified of you. Do you share it with me? Am I you and are you me? Are we one or are you dominant? Do you even want to be? Do we have a choice in the matter? You probably never wanted this but Merlot set me up like a wind up toy and now I'm running away from your clutches. Can you stop me? Do you even want to try?
That gulf between us stretched on like an ocean. She erected barriers between our thoughts. I think she was tired of feeling how afraid I was. It wore you down until there was nothing else. I wielded that fear like a weapon. An unstoppable tool that sliced into both of our minds and perhaps into my sisters' too. It was the sort of panic that made you want to drop everything and run. I felt it all the time. Mother was tired of feeling it too now. That's why she was building barriers between us. Fear was my barrier. It was my weapon against her.
I felt it when she lowered her barriers tentatively and peeked into my mind with her black slimy tentacles. She found nothing but terror as she gazed into me. I looked right back at her.
"Stop this… you'll drive us both mad…"
"I'm already mad. You're the only one in danger here. Leave my mind."
"I cannot. We are bound up in one another."
"Then be mad with me. We'll go crazy together."
She receded and took her whispers with her. There was little she could do in the face of my terrors and apathy. She was forced to retreat and erect barriers as best as she could but it was no use. I threatened her levies with waves of fear. She couldn't torture me anymore. She couldn't make me more afraid than I already was. She had nothing to threaten me with. There were no more weapons available to her. She was now the one running from me in that ocean between us where neither lived and both survived. She had no choice but to try and shelter herself but I had a back door into her mind.
There was no escaping my misery and I found incredible joy in it. I was losing but I had a broad smile on my face.
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"-Cloud? Cloud!?" Rosé intruded a little and brought me back to my body and away from the gulf.
"Huh?" I wondered.
"You were talking to yourself. You were muttering. What's on your mind."
"Victory. And what it means to me."
"You're that proud I used a dirty trick to touch you?"
"Of course," I lied a little. But only a little. Not too much. I was proud of her to be sure. But that wasn't what was on my mind. While Rosé worked her victory I was working mine. Together we would both establish a living legacy. Rosé was a part of mine. I wanted more. I hungered for it and I dreaded it at the same time. I wanted my family. I wanted the truth. I wanted to be whole and I didn't want that to involve Mother.
I wanted Weiss and Ruby. I missed them. I missed their bodies. I missed sex. That wiping clean of the brain chemistry that was so essential. I missed them and my heart ached. But I had responsibilities. I had to learn how to fight Mother for real. I had a good defense at the moment but I couldn't be sure that it wasn't all more fake pressure. What if this was just another way she was torturing me? I didn't know and I was unsure how to find out.
But I couldn't tell Rosé any of that. She wouldn't understand my origins or what I was or the things I had to do. So I lied to her about what I was thinking about. It was no big deal. It wasn't like I was deceiving her truly or that I was lying to myself which would be even worse.
She did well today. She may not top her achievement tomorrow but she was willing to work hard tomorrow at the same time, different place. My apprentice was coming along well and I was doing well. Better than I thought I would. Better than should be expected. Suspiciously so, even. More fake pressure from my Mother? I couldn't be sure. Maybe I never could be. Maybe that was the point and was just another torment. If so it wasn't going to work. I was too well versed in mind games and acausal blackmail at this point. I knew too well how the game was played and the tools Mother seemed to have at her disposal. She wasn't omnipotent or omnipresent or omniscient. She could barely even see through me. And I made myself plainly open to her pressures to cut at her with my own blade. It was a smokescreen or mud in the eye. And that was, I could be sure, not fake pressure. It was genuine. Like my love for Weiss and Ruby. It meant something to me or I wanted it to mean something to me. They were the same thing really. I needed to stop splitting hairs. It only left me with a fine mess.
I needed to take the happiness that came and I needed to stop doubting it while I also wielded my fear and pain against Mother. It was a fine line to walk but I was getting a little better at it every day. I was savoring both the good and the bad experiences. I enjoyed my terror nights. I delighted in my own suffering. What else was there for me to find pleasure in other than my own suffering? There was nothing. So if Rosé could find pleasure in having me as a teacher I could find pleasure in my own terror and torment.
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-WG
