Chapter 5: First Day Jitters.

"All the soldiers looked exactly alike except one. He looked a little different as he had been cast last of all. The tin ... had only one leg. But there he stood, as steady on one leg as any of the other soldiers on their two." —The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1838), Hans Christian Andersen.

Nine Years Ago ...

He was a curious, shriveled thing on the ground. If a human could be turned into a raisin, he would be one. Sunken cheeks with deep creases. Empty, gaping eye sockets, rotting teeth, and skin as dry and crumbly as old leather. It was peeling, too, with bits of yellowed skull peeking out and glinting under the amber light of a street lamp. The carcass was disintegrating before her eyes, the leathery skin falling in flakes, the bone crumbling more and more. Soon there would be nothing left but dirty clothes.

The crumbling figure of what used to be a man was tucked between a dumpster and an external fire escape. The apartment connected to it loomed high above her, like a giant, laughing over her terrible life.

Look at you now! it seemed to say. You're a murderer. You did this. He's dead, and it's all your fault.

My fault, the girl thought dimly, as she stared over his body. I did this. I killed him.

"Hey."

The girl whirled around to see a tall, muscular, imposing figure at the entrance of her little alleyway crime scene. The light cast shadows over his. The one eye not shrouded in darkness was a striking silver, pale and shining in the moonlight. She could see half a scruffy black-going-gray beard, a square jaw, weathered skin, unkempt salt-and-pepper hair. Some wrinkles, but not a lot.

Not like the landlord who owned their apartment building. He was short, and not muscular like this man. Mr. Foggarty had heavy wrinkles, a balding head, a stupid little mustache. He was weak and watery eyed.

This man screamed danger.

At least his clothes seemed normal enough. Green jacket over black t-shirt, scuffed boots, and a pair of grungy trousers. A worn backpack over a shoulder.

But one thing stood out: the cybernetic left leg. One pantleg was folded up to just above the knee. The girl could see the scarred, gnarly tissue that bridged the gap between skin and metal.

The girl's eyes flitted from the man to his leg to the body and then back to the man and his leg.

He stared at the body, before staring at the little spright of a girl. "What happened?" His voice was low, rough, and gravelly.

The girl stared up at him and looked like she was about to say something. The man edged forward carefully, holding out his hand sin a pacifying way. The gears in his leg shifted and clunked quietly as he walked.

She saw he had big hands with callouses, slightly hairy at the knuckles. As he moved forward, light revealed the rest of him, and the girl came to the conclusion that he seemed tired, but nice. There was something in his eyes. A distant warmth. He had to be nicer than the other men she'd met, courtesy of her mother. Nicer than the man sitting not three feet away from her, his corpse still stinking of Death and decay.

"What happened?" he repeated, not unkindly.

The girl couldn't help it, but suddenly she burst into tears. "I didn't mean to!" she wailed, big fat tears rolling down her cheeks. "He was going to — He was trying to — He was trying to take my clothes off! I just — I didn't want to, but he was angry and he hit me," —she pointed to her bruised cheek— "and I grabbed onto him and now, now, now he's — he's a mummy!"

At least, he looked like one. She remembered reading something about mummies when learning about Vacuo at school. In ancient times they did something like that, didn't they? The bodies looked all awful and gross and wrinkly, like the man — the body over by the dumpster.

"A mummy," the man repeated, glaring at the corpse. His face twisted into something hard and terrible and angry, but at the girl's frightened little whimper he forced himself to calm. "Okay. You turned him into a ... a mummy. Good."

The girl scrubbed at her cheek and looked down at her feet. "Uh huh." She didn't know why killing a man like that was "good," but she decided not to question it. Her little fingers picked at her shirt, the fabric ripped at the shoulder. "I really didn't mean to," the girl said again, sniffing miserably. "I really, really didn't. It just happened."

The man stared at the girl and the girl stared back.

"I believe you," he said finally, in that gruff voice of his. The man walked towards her and she watched as he pulled on a pair of work gloves from his pockets. He began to fumble around with the mummy and the girl watched with morbid fascination as he sort of folded the disintegrating limbs until the body was in a sort of ball. Then he shoved it into the dumpster. The remains sort of puffed into a little cloud, fading to dust. The only things left were clothes, which he wedged under a garbage bag.

"Tell no one of what happened tonight," the man commanded the girl. The girl nodded vigorously, no longer crying her eyes out. He sighed with relief at her quick agreement. Then he squared his shoulders and seemed to come to a decision.

"Come back to my apartment," he said, half offering, half ordering. "I'll ... um, I'll make you a cup of Joe."

The girl hesitated, eyeing the man suspiciously. "You're a stranger," she pointed out. "I'm not supposed to talk to stranger.

The man crossed his arms. "This stranger just got you out of jail, kid." But you have a very good point.

All the blood drained from the girl's face and she looked like she was on the verge of tears yet again. Her lip was jutted out and wobbling precariously. The man cursed his own stupidity and quickly crouched down until they were eyes to eye. "Hey. Hey hey hey. Don't worry about a thing kiddo. No one's going to hurt you again, okay? Not on my watch. You're not in any trouble."

The girl looked at him, contemplating this.

The man looked back at her, remembering another little girl with pigtails and green eyes and pink skin and a woman in white beaming at him from behind a veil, also with green eyes, so happy and free and in love.

"Fine," the little girl said decisively, as though she hadn't been the one in need of rescuing. "I'll go with you. Just for an hour. Okay? Then I need to get back to maman."

Maman seems like a terrible person if she's let you wander around Vale at nine o'clock at night, the man thought, but didn't say it out loud. Instead he took her hand in his own gloved one, so very small and delicate and dangerous in his palm. They began to walk out of the alley and into the streets, their path illuminated by street lamps and the moon.

The man was careful not to touch her skin, but she didn't seem to notice his caution. She was staring at his leg, his metal one, and he couldn't find it in himself to be irritated.

"Your leg is cool."

The man grunted, not very impressed himself. "Hm. I guess."

"Where'd you get it?"

"The Atlas Military. I was a soldier."

The girl mulled this over for a moment. "Okay. Is Atlas very cold?"

"Yes. Very."

"Maman says that Atlas is a place for highbrow, pompous assholes with sticks up their derrieres."

"... What's your name, kid?"

"Quinn. Quinn Frost. What's your name, mister?"

"Kieran Argus." He paused, before saying, "Your mom from Atlas? Sounds like you speak some Atlesian."

"Yes, a little. Maman was born there. She doesn't talk about it much.

Ah. So this is where the disgraced Frost heiress disappeared off to. "Hey kid?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"You know what a Semblance is?"

"Yes? Wait. Nooo. What is it? Can you tell me?"

For the first time in a long time, Kieran cracked a faint smile. "Yeah, kiddo. I'll tell you all about it."

~ : : ~

Now ...

The rest of the weekend flew by quickly— too quickly. Quinn spent most of Sunday wandering around Patch — with Qrow's permission. She was surprised at his willingness to let her go off on her own, but she wasn't going to complain. So she set out to explore Patch. Or rather, she explored Patch for a job.

Four out of the five auto repair shops turned her down. One of theem actually accpted her, not that he had much of a choice.

She was hired as a repairman at Perry's Auto Body shop at exactly 2:31 pm. It was run by a platypus Faunus named Perry, who had a broad, flat tail jutting out from his greasy jumper. Perry was a muscular man of average height, with dull, greasy brown hair and muddy brown eyes.

Perry didn't seem super happy that she was a human, or that she was a kid, but once she disassembled a car engine in ten minutes, he was more malleable to hire her.

"You're the only one besides me who'll be working here," Perry admitted. "Everyone else were White F—I mean, they quit." He paled a little at that and nervously adjusted his glasses. "They quit."

Quinn noticed his little slip up, but didn't much care if the former employees were White Fang. Hell, she didn't care if Perry was White Fang. "All I care about is working and getting paid for my work," she told him, and the man slackened with relief. They arranged that she would work for four hours after school, and would do a full eight hour shift on Saturday, and Sunday would be an off day.

"Are you sure you can work that much?" he asked. Quinn was almost positive that he was going over labor laws in his head. "I mean, you've got school. And you're sixteen."

Quinn doubted he was that much older than her—maybe in his mid twenties— but waved him off and assured him that school would be a breeze, and she really needed money, and just don't worry about it Perry. Everything will work out fine.

She went home that day and promptly informed Qrow that she got a job.

He stared at her as she blocked his view of the television. Quinn met his surprised gaze with her own steely one, as if daring him to argue with her.

Qrow got the message. "Well, okay," he said, leaning to the side to watch the Vale Motorcross. "Good for you. But if your grades slip, no more working. Got it?"

Quinn nodded. Fair enough. "Yeah, got it. Thanks."

And then, before she knew it, it was her first day of school.

Despite Patch being a quarter of the size of Vale's smallest high school (Vale had five), it was still, in Quinn's opinion, crazy as hell. 2,000 kids was a lot.

Everyone was rushing to their classes, shoving people around (including her), and yelling or laughing or horsing around.

The noise was too fucking loud. Pre-The Unspeakable, Terrible, Awful Thing, she'd been homeschooled all her life. She'd beemn attending an online program that let you build your own curriculum, and they would get you in touch with an online mentor. There would be weekly tests, essays to write, research projects. The program was especially rigorous, and Quinn felt intellectually challenged every day.

She had full autonomy, complete independence, with no one having high expectations for her (aside from Kieran, who really didn't delve into her education at all). Her mother sure as hell didn't help nor care.

Now she was in this hell hole full of hormonal, angsty, emotional teenagers. And the bar, she could tell, was set very, very low.

Quinn shuddered at the thought of wading through the cesspool of acne and insecurity, and clutched the straps of her backpack in a tight grip. Fortunately, Quinn had a height advantage, being a good several inches above most females and many males. Kids noticed her and since they apparently found her intimidating (whether from her height or her resting bitch face—she wasn't sure which), they parted as she walked from the entryway to the office.

Patch High School's office was manned by an ornery looking woman, who reminded her of Mrs. Gold. The secretary was sitting at her desk, wore cat-eye glasses with huge swooping wings, and looked like she dragged herself out of a nursing home. Her wrinkles were so pronounced that it made her look like she was perpetually squinting. In fact, she was squinting angrily at the very moment Quinn entered the office. The lady (her name tag said Poppy) glared at her Scroll-top screen, stabbing at the holographic keyboard with venom.

"Stupid Scrolltop — stupid budget cuts — stupid kids —"

Quinn coughed lightly into her fist. The woman looked up sharply, her squint increasing and her frown deepening. "Who are you?" Poppy crabbed, peering at her.

Quinn kept her face impassive. "New student, ma'am." She added that last bit hastily. It wouldn't hurt to show her elders respect, no matter how menacing they looked. "I'm Quinn Frost."

Poppy looked her up and down, taking in her undercut, the short, untamable mohawk, the black jeans, white t-shirt, and the buffalo plaid longsleeve tied around her waist.

Poppy's lips pursed in disapproval. "Frost, did you say?" Her squinty eyes alternated from staring at her flickering screen and Quinn's face. "Hm. I guess you are, huh." As if Quinn gave her some reason to doubt her identity.

It took Poppy quite a while to obtain her schedule, a map, and a note to the teachers that she was a new student. Quinn bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet, her sneakers squeaking against the tile. The noise gave Poppy yet another reason to glare at her. Finally, just as the tardy bell rang, Poppy sent her info to Quinn's Scroll.

"Have a good day," Poppy drawled tonelessly, focusing again on her Scrolltop.

"Thanks," Quinn muttered, before practically sprinting out of the office. According to her information, her first class was chemistry: all the way up on the third floor. Quinn was forced to use her Aura to boost the strength in her legs, which allowed her to speed up three stairways in a blur. Quinn pretty much nearly broke the door open as she stumbled abruptly into the class room.

The teacher and students of Chem simultaneously looked at her and she stood breathlessly near the open doorway. "Um," Quinn said, forcing down an inevitable blush. "Hi. Sorry I'm late."

The teacher, a tall, wiry man with too big, too wide eyes, frowned. "Who are you?" he asked in a nasally voice.

Quinn frowned back. "I'm Quinn Frost. The new student?" *Well this welcoming wagon has been positively peachy.*

"I haven't heard anything about a new student."

Of course you haven't. Quinn silently and irritatedly thrust her Scroll at her homeroom teacher and he peered down at it with a dubious expression on his face.

After a few seconds, the teacher sighed. "Oh, right. Now I remember." Quinn bristled. He probably didn't. "Quinn Frost, yes of course. Go ahead and sit wherever." A spindly hand waved vaguely to the rest of the class room.

Quinn looked and saw everyone in her twenty-three student class room was staring at her. There was an equal blend of Human and Faunus, and all of them looked upon her with curiosity.

Quinn claimed a seat in the middle of the grid of desks. As the teacher (whose name was Mr. Boyd) began to lecture, Quinn fished out a notebook and a pen. She quickly realized that kids weren't doing the same. Some kids were on their Scrolls, playing games or watching videos. Others were gossiping with each other, or sleeping with their faces on their desks.

Quinn tried her best to listen to Mr. Boyd in spite of the fact she thought he was kind of a prick, but nothing doing. The noise was too much and all she could hear was snippets of "equation," "balancing," "reactant side," and "product side."

Even though Quinn was a whiz at engineering and electronics, Chemistry was a bit beyond her. But what astounded her was the lack of care from Mr. Boyd. He could clearly see that no one was giving a damn in his class, aside from a choice few who apparently wanted to graduate. But he didn't do anything about. He just droned on tonelessly, apathetically, without a care in the Brothers-damned world.

It disgusted her.

Thankfully, the rest of her classes until lunch weren't nearly as hopeless. Nor were they very difficult, in comparison to her homeschool curriculum. She'd been right when saying to Perry that school would be a breeze.

She ate lunch at noon. No one came to talk to her, which she wasn't exactly torn up about. It was one thing about deciding to make friends in the comfort of her own mind, but quite another to actually do it.

Public school wasn't what she was imagining. There weren't really any cliques. Everyone seemed forward thinking, and from the many posters lining the walls, the school did not tolerate racism or discrimination of any kind. Everyone seemed nice, although that one guy, Mr. Boyd, was a terrible teacher. That and his students didn't seem to care about his particular subject.

In Literature class, she was partnered with a girl named Lily Incas. She was timid and shy, but seemed eager to make friends with the new transfer student.

"Hi," Lily whispered, as Ms. Ragwort taught about the romance of Echilles and Petriclus. "My name's Lily Incas. You're Quinn, right?"

Quinn nodded mutely, her eyes trained on Ms. Ragwort, who was gesturing to the plot pyramid on the SMRT board.

Lily waited for a few seconds.

Finally, Quinn blew out a silent breath of air. "Yeah. That's me, the new girl."

Lily nodded, as if hearing this for the first time. "Cool, cool. I hear you're from the mainland. What's it like there?"

Quinn glanced at her from the corner of her eye. That was a strange question. Most people in Patch visited Vale often, or lived there seasonally. After all, the city was just a quick ferry ride away. Quinn came to the conclusion that Lily was scraping at the bottom of the barrel for nebulous conversation topics. Okay then.

"It's fine. A little congested downtown, but what else is new?"

"Do you ladies have anything to add about the parallelisms between Echilles and Hecter?"

The girls looked up to see Mrs. Ragwort peering at them from the front of the class.

Lily blushed bright red, her bronze skin lightening up considerably, from her collarbones to the tips of her ears. "Oh, um—"

Quinn had to intervene. "We were only discussing the dishonorable acts of Echilles when he desecrated Hecter's body, and that Triam, Hecter's father, showed great humility and bravery when he met with Echilles' at night to humbly request the safe return of his son's corpse."

There were a few beats of silence before Mrs. Ragworth gave a little sniff, eyes bright with intelligence. She reminded Quinn vaguely of a hawk, with sharp, roaming eyes, and a beak-like nose. "Hm," she said. "Very good, Miss ... "

"Frost," Quinn said, for maybe third time that day. "Quinn Frost."

"Hm," Mrs. Ragwort said again. Then she turned and continued her lecture like she'd never been interrupted.

Quinn and Lily exchanged looks, before Lily let out a few giggles. Quinn just smirked, and continued taking notes.

So maybe this school thing wasn't so bad after all.

Two hours later, Quinn desperately wanted to take it back.

A/N: Filler chapters. Gotta love 'em. So we get a glimpse of Kieran in that lovely flashback. I really enjoyed writing him, he is such a teddy bear. My inspiration for him was a mixture of Joel Miller from The Last of Us, Batman, and the father from The Road. As a heads up, I'm heading to North Carolina for a vacation/graduation ceremony, and I won't be back until next Sunday. Expect an update sometime in early May.

If you enjoy the story, please fave, follow, and review! (or leave constructive criticism. That would be awesome.)