Disclaimer: Of course I don't own RWBY, its characters, or the franchise. That's all Rooster Teeth~
Story: In that forest with Yang, Ruby's silver eyes activated too early and she finds herself traumatized after a long time of captivity. Years later, her precarious mind wonders if she'll ever be okay, all while trying to grow into herself. If only her Soulmates could tape herself back together, though they'd have to figure out that they are in the first place…
Set as a complete AU rewrite of the series, included as a Soulmate!AU.
Spoilers: Definitely, as an AU rewrite.
Warnings: Age disparity, maybe future situations if this is continued. Violence, death, and cursing is a given.
Pairings: (Main) ClockRose (Ozpin/Ruby), IronRose (Ironwood/Ruby), and Qrow/Ruby, with some Ruby/Various. (mostly one-sided), especially WhiteRose. Toss up on RoseBull (Adam/Ruby).
A Thorn Crown For the Rose Queen
Chapter Two: Little Girl Lost
It was cold. Wherever she was was way too cold and she was already feeling all achy, like she would be if she was sick.
The last thing she remembered was being with Yang and all those scary Grimm surrounding them. Was she in the belly of one of them? Was she dead?
"Hey, kid. Wake up."
She froze. She didn't recognize that voice. That wasn't Daddy or Uncle Qrow.
Ruby refused to open her eyes, fervently wishing her father would come find her. Footsteps sounded away from her, growing fainter and fainter until she was sure whoever it was was gone.
This was just another one of her nightmares. It had to be.
Opening her eyes, she gave a shuddering breath and wanted to sob. She was in a small room, surrounded by concrete walls and floor, no windows, and a small bed shoved to the corner that she was lying on.
Ohnoohnoohnoohnoohno —
"Daddy? Yang? Uncle Qrow?"
Not even noticing her crying growing louder and louder, she noticed she was freaking out and sobbing about her family when the door burst open and two strange men entered.
"Ah, so the little one's awake," one of them mused in mirth (voice sounding like the one she'd heard earlier), while the other made an irritable face.
"Enough!" the other barked out, but she just cried harder, shaking her head. He strode over and struck her across the face, and both the force of the blow and that she was hit at all made her go silent in shock. "I said enough with the damn crying!"
"Relax, Mikhail —don't get all frazzled over a little girl," he said in amusement.
"Shut up," he replied to the other man, who looked similar to him like Ruby and Yang were kind of but definitely not similar. Then he turned back to Ruby with a frown. "You, what did you do back there?"
"B-back where?" she hiccuped, looking frightfully at them.
"Back in the forest!" the man named Mikhail snapped at her. "With your eyes!"
"Do you know what happened back then?' the other man asked, more serious than earlier but not as harsh as the man angrily near her.
"N-n-no! I swear!" she hiccuped again, starting to cry softly. "I don't know anything!"
Mikhail snorted but looked to the other man still by the room's door. "Well, fuck, Leonid. What do we do?"
"Guess we'll have to push her to remember," Leonid smiled slowly at her and Ruby shivered, deciding he wasn't the nicer man after all.
"I want to go home please!" she begged them, but Leonid finally walked over to join them.
"No. We're going to train you to use those eyes of yours —they're too useful to be left alone."
"No, please, let me go home! I want to go home! Pleasepleasepleaseplease —"
The resounding smack from him didn't make her go silent this time, only made her keep crying. And then the first man, Mikhail, left the room and came back with a chained Grimm, using some sort of electrical rod and electric collar to keep it from getting to him and controlling its movements.
"W-why do you have a Grimm?" she shrieked at them.
Mikhail moved it towards a metallic-looking pole that Ruby had ignored earlier, placed too close to the bed she was on. He latched the sturdy chain to the very thick pole and then stepped several steps away.
The Grimm first tried to leap at them, snarling gruesomely, but was held back by chain and pole. Failing to get near the men, it turned to Ruby and began to try to attack her, clawing at the edge of the bed and leaving behind marks and torn sheets.
She screamed and scrambled back, blocked by the wall behind her. Too focused on it, she didn't see the men start to leave her behind until one of them spoke up at the door.
"I suggest you start figuring out how those eyes of yours work, if you don't want to be food for that Grimm."
Ruby was too terrified to say anything.
The Moss brothers, as she came to know them, kept a careful eye on her and the Grimm. It didn't stop her terror or the close calls, or their frustration at the lack of anything from her eyes.
But she really didn't know what happened or what they wanted her to do?
"Here," Mikhail sneered at her one day, throwing her a sharp dagger from where he was, away from her and the growling Grimm. "If it comes loose, stab it. Repeatedly. Make sure it's dead and gone."
"B-but —" she stared at him wide-eyed, eyes still sore from crying (even if she was still crying then too).
"No buts!" he snarled. "You want to be dead, that's up to you."
"But I'm just 5!" she yelped. "I'm too small and —"
"Don't make excuses. Either you live or you die. It's up to you."
He turned his back on her and didn't say or do anything, leaving her behind. Once again crying and wanting her family and to go home, Ruby clutched the dagger to her and stared fearfully at the thrashing Grimm, wondering when it'll come loose and come for her.
And that was how it was day after day, night after night until it broke loose and she had nowhere else to go but face it.
Either you live or you die.
The huge monster snapped its jaws close and she swung wildly with the dagger, but it wasn't like she had the strength against it and it half practically flew across the space, scrambled onto the bed towards her as its claws tore up the sheets.
It violently smashed into her, crashing against the wall and dazing her —she saw stars in her vision and her small body jolted with pain, only for the Grimm's jaws to close around her small arm.
Another scream tore out of her throat —raw and deafening, and in blind terror and pain, she swung the dagger in her other hand again and again without seeing anything.
She kept swinging even after its body slumped against her lifelessly, jaws releasing her limp arm and one of the brothers came in and watched her curiously, almost indifferently if not for the amused glint.
Leonid clapped slowly.
"Well done, kiddo. We're gonna have to fix you up though."
If it was from so much blood coming out of her or all the pain, Ruby didn't have it in her to stay awake.
The last thing she saw was red petals floating around her.
When Ruby next awoke, her body was aching worse than ever and her breathing was shallow. Leonid was there, sitting by her and watching her curiously.
"You activated your Semblance," he revealed immediately. "And Mikhail's is actually pretty useful in healing as well. You're practically good as new, even though that Grimm practically tore your arm out. It's amazing. Are you even human?" he chuckled.
Ruby shivered, staring at him.
"Seriously though, that wasn't what we wanted," he was then frowning, looking disappointed. "If you were going to kill it, we wanted it to be by using that eye power of yours."
"B-but I don't even know what you're talking about," Ruby hiccuped, sniffling.
"You will," he said, as if he was absolutely sure of it. Mikhail came in then, dragging another Grimm, and Ruby choked up anew with tears. "If you know what's good for you…or if you want us to go back and find that sister of yours —we'll find that girl and feed her to the Grimm, do you understand? Figure out your eyes."
Like a waterfall, her tears just kept coming again and again…but all she could see was her older sister being taken by these men too and being thrown to a Grimm, fed on just like she remembered the first Grimm biting down on her arm and feeling like she was about to be eaten alive.
"Nooooo!" she screamed, feeling her eyes burning.
Unknown to her though, they were glowing bright and silver, almost as if moonlight was shining out of them.
"There we go," Leonid murmured.
"Leo!" Mikhail shouted in alarm. "Get out of there!"
Leonid grunted, rushing to his brother's side just as Mikhail let go of and smacked the oddly acting Grimm further into the room and away from them.
The two of them exited the room and hastily shut the door behind them, finding the light escaping from the door's slight openings. They rushed away from it, but Mikhail couldn't avoid being touched by the light a little, finding his shoulder burning painfully.
Though they escaped for the moment, they returned to a stone-encased Grimm and a peacefully sleeping girl that had been left behind in that room.
Repeatedly, this was done again and again, with Ruby becoming more and more distressed as time went by. Her distress was so heavy and great, increasing with every Grimm they left alone with her and talk of revisiting her family to feed them to Grimm, that Ruby was practically inconsolable most days.
She had failed a lot in the beginning, trying to reenact whatever they wanted her eyes to do again. But the more they threatened her family, the more upset and disturbed she was until her eyes started hurting again and doing the weird glow thing she began noticing happened.
She was always tired though. Especially after that just happened —Ruby felt like her body was worn out and her head felt heavy. Her eyes were the worse, burning and not wanting to stay open!
"Your eye power is pretty useful," Leonid noted that morning, watching her. There was no Grimm in there with them for once. "Useful and powerful…but not realistically something to be used all the time. At least for now. You're always too tired whenever that power is activated and you're basically useless after."
He then came closer to her and before she knew it, he'd yanked her closer and had closed something around her neck.
"What're you doing?" she whimpered, touching whatever it was. It was cold like metal and thick. It was also too tight!
"That's a Semblance Collar," he said indifferently. "Keeps you from using your Semblance and trying to attack us, which we figure you're capable of figuring out how to use sooner or later." He then held up a remote and pressed a button.
Ruby screamed in pain as jolts of electricity went through her.
"Doubles as a shock collar in case you get any funny ideas."
She clutched at the collar around her neck, watching him with teary, wary eyes.
"You'll be grateful for this side training," Mikhail grunted, cleaning the gun he had in his hands. "Apparently can't rely on that godsdamned power of yours, not without training to be more useful and your weak body to handle it. Leonid is better with sharps work —he'll get on you about knives and shit. I'm going to teach you about firearms. You know anything, kid?"
"Not much," she replied in a small voice, eyes wide as she fidgeted in place.
She wasn't in her room anymore too, and she was so tempted to look around. But she also was aware his temper was short and he wouldn't hesitate to hit her if she irritated him.
"Then we're going to start today off with all the firearms you recognize and the ones you'll need to end up learning."
To that end, that was the first start of 'lessons' the brothers decided they would start her in on.
And the less said about Leonid, the better, Ruby decided too. Knifework with him was hellish, just a session of ducking and running away from the sharp knives he either threw or slashed at her with. If it was her turn to learn how to use them, he made her repeatedly learn how to hold them and thrust and slash with the knives, until her tiny hands were stiff and bones were locking up painfully.
The many cuts, deep and shallow, that covered her body were relentless in their stabbing pain. But she couldn't use her Aura to heal herself (like she had learned Aura was capable of doing) because she wasn't allowed to use it, and the first and only time she had agreed to let Mikhail use his healing-type Semblance on her while she was conscious had been horrible and she regretted it so much.
"Mik's Semblance only works if the wound or wounds are fatal," Leonid had snickered at her after. "You've got to be near dead for him to be able to activate and use his Semblance."
Ruby had been horrified and decided she would much rather deal with the wounds she gained in the future instead, than again agree to being healed by Mikhail.
Unless, of course, she was unconscious or Leonid had been bored enough or irritated with her enough to end up stabbing her a few times. That or the one time, so far, that the shock part of her collar had been used on her when she had asked about going home. It had lasted for a while, to the point it had burned her skin badly enough that Leonid had just about slashed her neck some more to make it fatal enough for Mikhail's Semblance to be used.
Ruby hadn't asked them about home or her family again after that.
And that was how her time with them passed, with them or a Grimm as company.
"Well done, kiddo," Leonid grinned at her, but his eyes didn't hold any real kindness.
Ruby meekly lowered her head, trying not to look at the brothers. Mikhail didn't say anything, focusing on the Grimm carcass in the middle of room —the same one they'd been watching her run from in terror, until she killed it in a fit of desperation and a mangled leg and arm as a result. Mikhail ended up finishing her up and she tried not to think about his Semblance.
"I think you're ready to go," Leonid ended up saying, which made her head snap up so she could stare hopefully at him.
"I can leave?" she asked, trying not to sound desperate and hoping they wouldn't change their minds.
"Looks like it's time," Leonid nodded and then Mikhail walked over to her.
Without warning, a dark clothed bag was shoved over her head and she couldn't see anything anymore.
'Home,' she thought. 'It's okay. I'll be home. Just a little bit longer.'
So if they roughly carted her off somewhere, she just held onto her hope and thought things would be okay now. They were done with her and she'd be home soon enough.
And if she fell asleep, it was because she had hope that she hadn't had for a while now.
…In what only felt like moments later, even though she understood it was much longer than that, she was woken up and had the bag pulled off of her head.
Sand and trees and water was all she saw.
"Welcome to your new home, kiddo," Leonid laughed. "Whatever we taught you? Put it to good use. Let's see how you survive."
Mikhail, directly behind her, was strangely gentle as he pushed her numbed body forward.
She didn't even notice them leaving her behind on that island alone, too busy staring forward in despair.
Started 3/12/21 (3/11 11:56 pm) – Completed 3/15/21
A/n: Hey all! Hope you guys are enjoying this new story :) Some really stuff this chapter, but I promise it won't last long. I think. Welp? Let me know how y'all are feeling this out!
Quick Points:
1. Leonid and Mikhail are OMCs and not from the show.
2. Mikhail's Semblance is pretty much Yosano's ability in Bungo Stray Dogs~