Author's Note: 'Nother day, 'nother chapter.
Found some time to play with a buddy. He never played through Dark Souls II SOFTFS, so I'm helpin him run through the game and all the DLCs. I was STR/FTH but I switched it up and made it more faith based. My Great Lightning Spears now do somewhere in the ballpark of 920 damage, plus I have all the heals I need to make sure he doesn't succumb to a minor case of terminal death.
Other than that, I actually have two days off this coming week, so I'm incredibly happy to be able to actually get stuff done at my house instead of just looking at it in disappointment. That also means that I should have more time to write, so hopefully that will pay off.
Also, a slight note on the timeframe of things; In the show, things moved on really quickly because of need for entertainment. Having characters stand around doing nothing instead of advancing the plot would have been boring (cough cough, volume 4+5), so they made the events happen pretty rapidly. In this iteration, things are slowed down quite a bit and will change as a consequence, but I'll just have to show how things change in the story itself.
Chapter 53
"You want help with an assignment?" Carol asked, scratching his head. "Are you sure you shouldn't ask Russ? He is your partner after all."
"Yeah, but he's kind of out of it right now." Sky admitted. "His sort-of girlfriend crush thing is in a city of the dead so he's takin' it easy."
"Ah. Where is he, now?" Carol asked, pausing briefly. "For that matter, Cardin as well."
Sky jerked a thumb towards the ceiling. "Roof." Carol spared a look towards the window. It was closed, not that he'd spare Russel from the teasing. Though, he supposed that even Russel deserved a break considering the situation. He understood in a twisted way. Getting under RWBY's collective skins was a favorite pastime of his. It wasn't a lie that he told them before, but it wasn't exactly a total truth. He was getting good at that... "And Cardin? Dunno, really. If you want you can go check with CFVY if you're really worried about him."
"Why would I...oh, right, Velvet." Carol glanced towards the door. He needed to get to work pretty soon...but he felt a strange resistance to his normal habit. Odd."So you don't know where he's gone, exactly?"
"'He is your partner, after all'." Sky quoted, a goofy smile springing to life on his face.
"And he's your best friend." Carol contested, to which Sky shrugged.
"Gotta let some people go sometimes." Carol's hand twitched. "He's his own man now, lot better than when he was at Signal. I can't keep watching out for the big guy forever."
"Yeah, just like he's doing for you and Scarlet?" Carol asked, earning a red faced Sky as a result.
"Aw, man, you kiddin' me? No wonder he kept looking over his shoulder..."Sky sighed, dramatically. "Nice try, dude." Ah, so he'd caught on. "You know, you could just say no. I'm not gonna be mad." Maybe not, but even still...
"No, it's just..." Carol sighed. "Russel's a great writer, he'd probably give you all sorts of flowery languages to make your assignment great." Reflexively, he gave another look towards the doorway, the prospect of work both enticing and yet distasteful at the same time. "And I haven't done any classwork since we've started this semester. So, why me?" Sky just looked him over for a few moments in silence. A great sigh escaped him as he sat up instead of lounging lazily as he was on his bed.
"Cuz you know about a lot of different things." Carol raised an eyebrow, Sky rolling his eyes in response. "Remember way back when Russel got you on about the Color Revolution?" Come to think of it, he did say something about that when Russel tricked him into responding, the prick. "You might be pretty lame-"
"Gee, thanks." Carol muttered, rolling his eyes.
"-but you pay more attention than anyone I know. It's not just fancy words that make an assignment, the subject is important, too." Carol sat there for a moment, deliberating. It would be easy to just say no and leave, to escape to the forge. But Russel was in his own head, and Cardin was probably enjoying some time with Velvet. Considering the profession and early mortality rate (compared to other careers) Carol could hardly blame him. And besides, the project was almost finished. It was just a short couple hours of work, then painting for forty or so minutes.
"You know, buttering me up won't work." Carol said, though he walked over to Sky's desk, leaning on the wall.
"Really? Then why aren't you headin' for the door? You were eyeballin' it like it was Weiss at the dance." Carol slid along the wall slightly, eyes widening.
"How did you-?!" He recovered, teeth grinding together. It wasn't his fault that Weiss was so damn pretty. If anything, it was normal to look at her. He tucked that thought away, still frowning at Sky. "You know, I haven't even agreed to help you, yet."
"Okay, bye then." Sky replied, though all he did was move to the chair by his desk, looking towards Carol expectantly.
"..."
"..."
"...you're a dick, you know that, right?" Carol groaned, folding his arms.
"The biggest!" Sky agreed, smile wide on his face.
"So, what's the assignment about, anyway?" If he was going to help, he had to know what the work was going to be about. He had assumed that it was a writing thing, but for all he knew, it was calculus. Carol suppressed a shiver. He hated calculus.
"Freeform writing on a historical event. Just gotta choose one and write on it." Well, that told him who had given the assigment. Professor Oobleck, obviously, though it was weird that Carol didn't connect the dots earlier. Besides that, there was also the fact that he was in the same class so he should've already known. He couldn't have been that out of it from one late night, right?
"Well that doesn't sound too har-"
"That he hasn't covered in class already." Sky interrupted. Carol winced, unfolding his arms and holding a hand to the back of his head.
"Yikes."
"Yeah. Now you know why I needed some help." The lower drawer was opened by Sky, who retrieved a sheet of paper and a pencil. "So, any ideas?" There was a lot Carol could pull from. The Dust Miners' Crisis, Valean pirates and how they evolved into the modern day bandits, the Vacuan Occupation...
"A few." Carol answered. "Depends on what you're going for. Trade deals-" Sky made a face, "-advancements in weapons technology-" his expression softened a bit, though still not enough to make Carol think he was considering it, "-or...I don't know, something about the treaties that were made after the Faunus revolution."
"He's already covered that last one." Sky muttered, tapping errantly on the desk. "That's the problem, technically all of them are viable, but I don't know which one to write on." He rolled the pencil around on his hand as silence took over. "I just don't know what to..." Pausing, he turned his eyes to look to Carol.
"...yes?"
"How about something that's important to you?" Carol cocked his head.
"In which way?" Technically, there was a lot that affected him. The music from the Color revolution, the ROAR, hell, even Hunters in general.
"Something about smithing. Like, how the techniques were developed or were defined." Sky tapped the pencil against his lips. "Or, I dunno, painting. There's gotta be a famous weapon artist you know of."
"Well...there is one." Sky perked up, interested. "You ever heard of the Smith of the Bloody Blade?"
"No, but it sounds kind of badass." Carol smiled widely.
"Ain't gonna lie, it is totally badass." He held up a finger, then walked off to get the chair from Russel's desk, bringing it back to where he had been standing. "Okay, so this is something that happened just before the Color revolution really hit its major stride. Some people say that it was, in fact, one of the major contributing factors to the revolution in Mistral."
"Okay, one moment." Sky brought the pencil to the paper, writing on it. "'Major...contributing factor to C.R. in Mistral..." The scratching of the writing tool stopped as Sky looked up, expectantly. "Okay, so what's this guy's name anyway?"
"Huh? Oh, right, name. Used to just calling him the Smith of the Bloody Blade..." Carol scratched at his chin, slightly frustrated at the stubble, though the action did help to jog his memory. "It was Vasina Mointain." Sky looked confused for a moment about the name, before likely realizing his name was odd because it was before the color naming trend. "Guy was the best painter Mistral had ever seen, but he did come from Solitas, before he settled in the swamps in western Anima. They said he could paint an entire valley in a few brushstrokes, and the weapons were more art than they were blades or axes. Some people even said that one of his masterpieces, 'Kantele' was like looking upon a song from your childhood given a physical form."
"And did it?" Sky asked.
"Well, I've seen it for myself, and while I can say it's a wonderful white longsword that calls to mind the northern snow, it didn't exactly get me hummin' my mom's old lullabys." Carol said, shrugging with a small smirk. "That should take care about some of the background info on the guy. You keepin' up?"
"Of course." Sky answered, wearing his own smile. "Though I don't know how the guy's background figures into his title." Carol's brow furrowed as he stared into Sky, judging him.
"Damn kids, no patience for anything other than the bottom line." He resisted the urge to reach into his pocket for a smoke, instead sighing. "Alright then. Well, as you know, artists were pretty heavily discriminated against back in the day in Mistral and Atlas. As more and more people conveniently disappeared or renounced their ways, Vasina remained. See, he was a stubborn old bastard, and no matter what the local enforcers said, they couldn't get the old man to bend the knee." It reminded him of his own gramps, causing him to pause in thought.
"Damn. Dude sounds tough." A few more words were put on the paper. "I'm guessing it didn't last?"
"Yep. After so long of the old man just straight up not givin' a shit, they complained to Atlas and got them to send down one of their most feared enforcers. Yoke Heinen, who himself was known for his crack marksmanship and whose crossbow hunted down...like, a lot of artists. Musicians, poets...and painters." And here was where he tied it in. "So, Yoke made his way down to where Vasina was holed up. He found the old man forging a blade as he usually was, and looked around his shop. Everywhere there were works of art; Painted blades, kamas, hell, man even painted a hoe." Sky snickered. "The farming tool, jackass."
"I know, but my sense of humor is at least half of what my actual age is."
"You can say that again..." His sense of humor wasn't much better, but still. "Anyway, you can figure how their conversation went."
"Poorly?" As if that wasn't the understatement of the year.
"Yep. Vasina was making a blade at that point, and he had just finished polishing it. Yoke got his cronies to hold the old man down, and he took the sword and cut off Vasina's hands." Sky paused, looking towards Carol again.
"Dude, that's...really brutal. That why he was called the Smith of the Bloody Blade?"
"Well, almost. Y'see, Vasina was one of the most cantankerous old bastard's you'd ever meet. So, he took his newfound stumps and started to bump them against the blade, saying 'You can take my hands, but by the gods, I'm not going to leave my work unfinished!'"
"Dude, hardcore!" Sky laughed, leaning backwards in his chair. "Too bad he died, though."
"What makes you think that? I told you he was a tough bastard. Man friggin' lived even though his hands were cut off." Vasina was an inspiration to blacksmiths everywhere, Carol included. The courage and audacity of the man was something to aspire to be, and something that had given Carol some comfort in his own darkest hours. "He went on to become one of the best instructors that Remnant will likely ever know, passing down his knowledge to his apprentices."
Sky nodded, excitedly penning down that bit of information. "Damn, okay." He looked over the words on his paper, then towards Carol. "What about Yoke? What happened to him?"
"Oh, him? Well, the townspeople didn't very much like their blacksmith being threatened and crippled for life, so they sent him packin'." Carol paused for a moment, wolfish grin appearing on his face. "Right into the swamps surrounding the settlement, as well."
"But aren't those some of the most dangerous places to be on Remnant?" Ah, so Sky did remember his geography lessons.
"Yep." Carol affirmed. "Now, the villagers claimed they did nothing after forcing him out of the town, and they had no way to really check if they were lying. As far as Mistral was concerned, the job was taken care of. Vasina would never express himself artistically again. No one cared for Yoke, and the swamps swallowed him and his legacy, leaving only the story behind."
"And you said that Russel was good at flowery language..." Sky ribbed, pushing Carol slightly. "Still, that's pretty solid stuff there."
"Yeah, well, I'd still look it up online. I gave you the brief version of it, but there's a crap ton more I wasn't able to cover...or forgot." Carol admitted. While the man was an inspiration, it still had been a fair few years since he did any learning for leisure. It stood to reason that his own retelling wouldn't be the best account of the information. "Anyway, that should take care of your assigment, yeah? I got work to do."
"Yeah, yeah..." Sky murmured. "Got to say though, seein' a lot of similarities between you and Vasina." Carol raised an eyebrow, though he was the tiniest bit flattered.
"I mean, in a very vague sense, we are both blacksmiths, so I guess you've got a point." Sky shook his head.
"No, it's more than that. You're both ornery-"
"Okay, fair enough."
"-you're both work-a-holics-" That one Carol hadn't said, but in the end, Sky was still correct. "-And you both have scars from your work." Again, true, but he felt like he had to correct Sky. His previous experiences molded his work ethic, but the scars weren't the proof of it.
"Well, kind of. He had something done to him; Mine were self-inflicted." Carol stated it in an even tone, looking at the window. A crawling feeling came over his skin and he turned to see Sky looking at him, concerned.
"You did those to yourself?" Sky asked in disbelief. Carol blinked, realising what he said. Shit.
"I mean, yeah, I got angry and broke the spear, and the shards tore into my arm but that's it." Carol deflected, a touch of nervousness underneath the surface. Unfortunately for Carol, Sky was actually pretty observant. He blamed the semblance.
"I don't think that's all to the story." Sky set his pencil down, fully turning to face Carol. "I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are. But I'm going to work, I don't have time to-"
"I'll tell Cardin." Sky threatened. Cardin was a big softy in all actuality. When it came to his team, the only person who rivaled Carol in terms of trying to make sure things worked out for them was their team leader, but it just wasn't because it was his duty as team leader. If Sky told him that he needed him there, Cardin would come running and Carol would be stuck there until it would be too late to get the weapon done.
Carol didn't have a time limit, but still, he wanted to work. It was how he relaxed, after all. Sighing, he caved in. "Fine. But this stays between me and you."
"You're asking me to keep a secret from Cardin?" Carol nodded. "That's a lot to ask. I'm gonna need a reason why I should lie to my best friend."
"Because he's going to treat me differently because of it, and you know that." Sky shifted, uncomfortable. Scarlet had been grilled by Cardin, so he knew it well. "He's gonna see me as..." Carol paused, lost for words. Well, not exactly. Multiple words came to mind, but he wasn't sure which one to use. Would he see him as weak? No, most likely not. Emotionally unstable? Also no. Then what? There wasn't any one word or string of words that could properly convey the feeling that Carol was having. If he had to try, he'd have to say that it would be just the thought of Cardin taking the time out of his day to worry about him. It was an uncomfortable twisting in his gut that wasn't entirely unpleasant, on account of the strange fuzzy feeling that accompanied it in his chest. "...fragile." That would work. Sky's expression softened, and he pinched his brow.
"Fine. I still don't agree with it, but it's more important to hear you out than being comfortable." Sky admitted. "So? What happened?"
"It's not exactly a long story, or a complicated one. In fact, it's pretty mundane." Sky just simply stared at him. "Though I get the feeling you don't really care about what I think of it."
"Yep." Again, the fuzzy twisting wormed its way through his body. He pushed it away.
"Okay, so the spear shattering part was true. The bleedin' didn't stop after it, though. There were some..." Carol hesitated. "...people that said I should stop and get the cuts looked at-"
"But you didn't, right?" Carol nodded.
"I needed to make spears for the town. I couldn't just stop and leave them undefended. But I think I've said something like that to you guys already. So I took the still hot spearhead and..." Carol tucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, making a hissing sound as he pantomimed holding the spearhead to the cuts.
"You serious?" Sky asked. When Carol nodded, he leaned back in his seat, blowing a jet of air. "Sheesh, dude. That's hardcore." A moment of serious silence fell over the room, before Sky snorted. "And you said that you didn't have much in common with Vasina." The tension was broken, and Carol wanted to give some smartass comment about 'ruining the moment', but it was strangely welcome.
"Heh, I guess we do, then. He did stay up for a few days straight working as well." ... "Ah."
"Can't help but dig that hole deeper, can you?" Sky asked, smile playing at the edge of his lips.
"Apparently not." Carol groaned, running a hand across his face. "It was seven days long."
"Seven days? Like, whole ass, dawn to dusk, twenty four hour days?" Sky asked, shock clearly written on his face.
"Yeah. Only once, though." Technically true, as the last time he tried it he passed out on the sixth. "Not too keen on doing it again, if I'm honest."
"I'll say. If I knew you were doing that, I'd be following you constantly." Carol rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"Okay, Cardin."
"Hey!" Sky huffed. "At least I don't go around threatening other people's boyfriends." Sky realised what he said too late, and Carol grinned manicly.
"So you're boyfriends, now?" Carol teased as Sky flushed. "Here I was thinking he was just giving him a warning. I wonder how he'd react if he knew you were actually dating..." A fist impacted Carol's side. "Ow! Shit, at least try not to bruise my ribs!"
"Shut up." Sky muttered, face crimson. "Look, I'd like if you didn't tell him-" Carol held up a finger, silencing him.
"Nope. We're not gonna go tit-for-tat on this. You can tell Cardin when you're good and ready, and I ain't gonna hold it over your head." Relationships were serious business, after all. As much as Carol would love to have some insurance in the matter, he didn't want to have something on Sky that felt more like a threat than anything else. Sky recovered from his shock, mouth returning from an o-shape to a gentle smile.
"Thanks, dude." Again, the uncomfortable feeling returned once more.
"Yeah. Don't mention it." Carol looked towards the door, then back to Sky. "And if you don't mind, I really need to get back to work."
"Sure. I think it's kind of dumb that you're working when our mission is tomorrow, but hey, that seems to be your thing." Carol just simply raised an eyebrow, shaking his head as he made for the hallway.
"Hey, so I work hard. Since when was that a bad thing?"
'Since you working yourself into an early grave.' Carol froze as he was heading towards the door. Sky said that, but for a moment he almost sounded like the old man... He looked over his shoulder, seeing Sky tapping away at his scroll. His teammate paused what he was doing, looking up quizzically.
"What?" Carol just stared at him for a bit. He turned away.
"...Nothin'."
End Note: Wonder if you guys can pick out who I based those characters on...
C&C welcome as always!