Chapter 7: The Unforgiven II

"How can a chapter be both heartbreaking and a shitpost at the same time?!"

— 14 —

Dad. My Father. Nicholas Arc. He was and wasn't what I expected. Even back on Earth, me and my father were nearly the same size, but my mental image of him was still of a giant who towered over me, whisky in hand. Perpetually easy to enrage and barely tolerant of me.

This Dad, I didn't know. We were about the same height. Same facial structure. He even had a beard just like mine, just a bit more old, with flecks of gray. It was like using one of those phone apps that tried to age you up and show what you'd look like in fifty years. That had to be his age. Fifties or something.

But where we differed was the eyes. A deep blue like the mariana trench. Eyes you could lose yourself in and find yourself trapped, helpless as they drank you in like a mosquito until you were out of blood. I felt the blood draining as they looked at me, glowing faintly. Studying me like a Huntsman would his prey, not a father meeting his son back from an academy. He didn't approve of what he saw, and even though he wasn't really my dad, he was, and I knew that look. A look like that had made me join the military just to make it go away forever, banishing that shame and disapproval to my nightmares.

Is that why I—why Jaune—left home? To escape those eyes? Already I felt my skin itch, but I was unable to look away.

"You made Joan cry," he said, voice gruff. Like my own voice haggard with age and violence. "Boy shouldn't make his momma cry. You will go back there and apologize. Now."

My first reaction was to nod, pressing my back against the sink. As if trying to escape. Just to make this man go away. To make him remove his eyes from me. But I stopped halfway through the gesture, just frozen.

"No."

He cocked a brow. "Come again, boy?"

"I said, no."

Dad took a sharp step towards me, and I flinched. He gave a short, mocking laugh. "You come to my house after what you've done, and now you try to grow a spine, boy? Be real."

"And what have I done?" I asked, trying to stand up to him. He just seemed to be getting taller and so much bigger as I stood there. Maybe I was shrinking. Fully cowling myself with my Aura didn't help. I saw its reflection in his eyes.

"You stole my sword, you made me mad, tried to ruin my holiday with my family, and made my wife cry, boy," he said simply, as if that was all to say. "I should knock you off your ass instead of trying to cook you dinner. Be grateful I let you back in my house."

I swallowed. "Me, me, my. Why's this about you?"

"Don't act big with me, boy."

"I have a name!"

He grunted. "But you'll just be my boy until you're earned the right to be a man. Running away like a coward to go kill yourself like I did once doesn't make you one. Nor do those stupid punk tattoos. Real men don't make their mothers cry. Apologize and we'll talk."

The man turned away from me dismissively, and I let out a breath, relieved to have his eyes off me. Only for him to pause, his back to me. "Are you coming? I'm not feeding you while Joan is upset."

I stepped towards him. "I ain't done nothing wrong, Dad!"

"Don't Dad me, boy," he said, sighing. "Just let me enjoy the last holiday I'll have knowing you're not dead. Already failed you enough, letting you follow my footsteps. Don't spit in my face more than you are."

"It's my life to throw away if I want to!"

Dad scoffed, looking over his shoulder. "What's your Semblance?"

"What?"

He gestured his hand at me, turning back sharply. "Do you know how you use the Aura Actuator in my sword?"

"The what?"

"Do you even know how to protect the people you love?"

I said nothing.

"You learn just one of those lessons, you'll be more than just the boy I failed to raise. All three and maybe you'll be my equal. But I don't think you can. Amazing you even got your Aura to work, all I did to shield you from this life. Now come on, boy. Fix the fuckup you made and let me finish smoking dinner. Before I lose my temper and decide against letting you go back to Beacon."

"It's not your choice to make!" I snapped. Already at the edges of the kitchen, I could see people poking their heads in. Mom and Indigo and Hazel all watching, averting their eyes when I saw them. "Maybe I want to fuck shit up. Maybe I want to fail. Maybe I want to hurt and bleed if I want to be a man worth respecting! That's my choice, Dad. My choice, Nicholas."

I saw the mirror in the kitchen. So many mirrors in this house. I saw myself there, panting, and the solemn faces of Jaune, Greg, and the soldier I was. Eyes all dark, wreathed in shadow. All that was missing was Simone to really rub it in.

Dad raised his hand to me, and I grit my teeth and stared him down. With a look of disgust, he shook his head and turned away. "You got a long life of suffering ahead of you before you can say any of that, boy."

"My name is Jaune!"

"Okay, boy. I tried. You'll see one day. You'll see and realize why I do what I do for you. Maybe even appreciate it. I'm sorry I failed you, but fuck you if you think I'm going to accept you trying to spit in my face like this."

I grabbed his shoulder, feeling my Aura welling up through every pore of my body. "I said, my name is Jaune!"

He turned back just in time to catch my fist with his face. The full might of every muscle I'd been working raw for months. Every bit of Aura I'd been training with at school with Blake. Everything all at once straight into that face that looked just like mine.

See, that's the thing about having three souls in one body. Every one of them had a hard-on for punching his own father.

Dad's Aura came up just a little too slow, a whitish color. He stumbled back, spraying spit and blood across the kitchen. Mom screamed and ran into the room. "Nick!"

I stood there, panting. My fist felt raw and hurt. Dad held up his hand to keep Mom away from him, and laughed.

"Lucky hit, boy. Didn't think you'd ever have the balls," he said, wiping his bloody mouth. "I won't give you the chance to do that again."

I stepped back like Blake had taught me, and his fist only barely sunk into my gut. I doubled over, coughing on suddenly empty lungs. I let gravity take me to the side as his elbow came down. I hit the kitchen tile hard enough to crack it, and lay there, coughing.

"Jaune!" Indigo shrieked. "Dad, what are—"

"Don't you fucking get in my way, Indie!" he said, pointing at her. Indigo just froze. Hazel fled the doorway. "Joan, you too. Boy needs to learn this lesson the hard way."

I pushed off the ground onto my knees, looking up at my Dad. He spat to the side and kneed me in the jaw. I slammed against the kitchen counter, my neck twisting at a funny angle. I dented into the sink, breaking the pipeworks. Water sprayed out, cold and metallic tasting. Or maybe that was the blood in my mouth. Using my Aura to lock my body in place, I held my form, and got to my feet.

"Fuck. You," I said, breathing hard.

Mom really wanted to get between us. Maybe to grab and shield me. But Dad kept her away with his mere presence. She just stepped back and forth, terrified.

"This is what they teach you in Beacon?" he asks disapprovingly. "They're getting worse every year. You're a fucking embarassment to Huntsmen and our family, boy. This is why I never wanted this life for you. You're not cut out for it. Not cut out for the fight or heartbreak. Should have been something simple like your sisters, who know how to live the lives I gave them."

I ducked to the side. Dad brought up his arm, and I sucker punched him under his guard with my other arm, extending the shield of Crocea Mors right into his throat. He grunted, stumbling back. I got my foot behind him and shoved. All this, the same way I'd been training with Blake. As soon as he stumbled back into the kitchen island, I hit him for all I could in the exposed stomach, blow after blow under his guard. When he lowered his hands to stop me, I went for his face. It left me open, but I knew the punch was coming. Had accepted it as part of the process.

My own father and his gay brother had taught me how to brawl. Gave me a practical education on what I was best at, and what I was worst at. Uncle Steve was a lightning brawler. Sometimes you needed to accept a hit if you wanted to get to the good stuff. You needed to get in that fight-ending blow quick, and sometimes that meant forcing their guard down by presenting a target. Dad couldn't resist the temptation to hit back, and that gave me the in I needed to make the fucker hurt.

My Aura burned as he clocked my jaw. But using my sheath as a club, I battered him across the head. He let out a shout, his face sinking into the kitchen island. I spat out the blood and grabbed his head, and smashed it into the corner of the island. His Aura shimmered as I pulled him back and threw him into it again and again. Blood spewed everywhere as Mom and Indigo screamed. Until, using both hands, I smashed his face through the marble, sending dust and blood everywhere. Pots clattered from where they'd been stored within the island, free to the open air.

I felt Mom grab my arm, trying to pull me off and away. "Jaune, Jaune, please stop! Nick, he just got angry! Nick, you both, please! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, this is all my fault!"

Dad grabbed my hand and pulled me forwards into a headbutt. I stumbled back, dazed. Until he grabbed my collar and threw my entire body over himself. Mom shrieked. I crashed over her into the wall. More of my sisters were watching from the two doorways. One of them rushed over to me as I slid down the wall, away from the Jaune-shaped indent in the wall.

Saffron? Maybe Glasses. I couldn't tell. I grabbed her arm and used it to stand back up, legs shaky like a newborn fawn fresh from a gangbang. Dad was on me in seconds, pulling Crocea Mors from me as Mom begged him to stop, please stop, oh god she'll do anything just so long as he stopped.

He removed the sword from the sheath and let his Aura flow into it. One look of concentration, and then the weapon was a burning light of fire. I could feel its intense heat from feet away, and watched his cold eyes drink it in and freeze it over.

"You don't even know how to use the weapon you stole from me!" he said, rearing his arm back. "What makes you think you can use it to save people out there? Use it to save your friends and everyone you love? That is the life of a Huntsman. This is what you don't understand."

I stepped back, avoiding the slash. Only for the pommel to bite me in the gut. Using it as a paddle, he thwacked me with the weapon. My Aura caught fire as I stumbled backwards through my screaming sister, into the living room. Burning. Sizzling. Cooking away. My Aura depleting in an ethereal sensation that was nearly tactile. Seeping my will to fight and my energy with it. I patted and slapped at myself, trying to remove the fire. To prevent it from breaking my Aura.

I wasn't paying attention to the slash. The sword was wreathed in a shroud of ice. My arm burned with cold as I brought up my wrist to block. It hit the armored padding, freezing it and the joint solid. I screamed in pain, just in time for him to spit more blood and raise his leg. With a solid kick of pure Aura, everything went black for a split-second. My body crumpled, sent flying across the room. Straight into the roaring fireplace.

The frozen elbow hissed and popped in the fire. The charcoal logs pressed at my very soul as I fought to keep my Aura up, half-rolling, half-crawling out of the fireplace.

Dad was above me, the sword crackling with yellow lightning. He kicked my teeth in. I barely held myself in place as he stomped my face into the coals. My nose shattered. He grabbed my collar and brought me to my feet, just to punch me in the stomach and bring the sword down on me as I stumbled.

"You can't even beat an old man decades out of practice!" Dad shouted. "I was a piece of shit Huntsman. I did everything I could to save them, and I failed. Everything I had, everything I did, it was to prevent you from trying to lead the life you're living. Your sisters learned. You can't beat me, boy. You're nothing compared to me, and I was nothing compared to the evil out there."

He reached down, threw the sword away, and punched my face. The will to even get up fled me as he punched and punched. I coughed up blood and charcoal. Until my Aura shattered and he didn't stop. I felt my clothes burning as he kept hitting.

"Think, Jaune, think!" he screamed, punctuated with punches. "Think for just one fucking minute why I did what I did! Because of the things I've seen, and how I've spent my whole life of regrets trying to protect you from becoming me! You. Piece. Of. Ungrateful. Shit!"

He backhanded me hard enough that I felt my cheek break. The fire burned at the outfit Coco and I had so carefully chosen.

"Who do you think you are? What the hell do you think you are? Do you think you're some kind of hero? Some kind of warrior Huntsman who's going to save the world? Well I've got news for you, you're not, you're nothing! You're just a scared little boy who's going to end up all alone in this world."

I made a noise, a gurgling from the back of my throat. He leaned down to hear me, the blood from his face leaking off him, mixing with the gory mess that was mine. Our blood running together.

"What was that?" Dad asked mockingly. "Oh, so you still have the energy to disagree? Let me fucking solve that."

"You," I said weakly, through a mouth and jaw that felt broken. "You called me Jaune."

Dad looked at me for a long moment, before gritting his teeth in disgust and shoving my head back into the coals. He grabbed Crocea Mors, the blade lighting up with white energy.

"Know your fucking place, boy," he said, pulling the sword. He flipped it around so he was holding the blade, the energy not affecting him. Dad was using the crossguard like a hammer.

"Nick, please!" Mom cried, grabbing his arm. "That's enough! I'm so sorry, please forgive me, please forgive him!"

"Dad!" Indigo sounded, grabbing him too. As did Saffron, Terra, Hazel, and as many other of my sisters as could grab onto Dad.

"Let me go, Joan!"

"I won't let you hurt another hair on his head, so help me God!" Joan said, tears running down her face. "If you touch him again, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to leave you and kill you and—and—oh god, Nick, please just stop!"

Breathing heavily, he just looked at her, teeth grit. Trying to decide what to do. To call her bluff or back away. It was a very long moment. One filled with heavy breathing and crying. The blood leaking from his face and mine.

Crocea Mors returned to being regular steel. "All of you are ungrateful. You don't know what I've done to give you this life." He threw the sword down towards me, not as a weapon, but just letting go as if it made him disgusted. "Get the fuck out of my house, boy."

And as the blood seeped into my eyes and rendered me blind, I watched him turn and leave.

— 15 —

Consciousness never truly left me. But there was a point, like being exhausted in bed unable to sleep, where it was hard to tell being awake from being asleep. Everything ran together. I kept trying to wonder why everything looked so red, before I realized no, the red was my eye. Stinging blood and a mixture of vitreous fluids. Something hot kept poking me. Everything hurt so much it was hard to really distinguish one pain from the other.

Until Mom gasped, and the even tic tic tic of the pain stopped. What was left of my eyes opened as I reached up, grabbing her wrist and the sewing needle she was using. I felt my Aura burning in the core of my body, dulling the pain, from the wounds she'd been trying to stitch shut. I was lying on the couch, my head propped up on a pile of bloody towels.

I sat up, and a lightheaded blackness swam across my eyes, mixing with the red. I saw Indigo sitting on the corner with a bottle of wine. Hazel was trying to fix the broken, shattered fireplace, putting chunks of broken masonry into a black garbage bag

"Jaune, Jaune, please," Mom said, putting a hand to my chest. "Lay back down. I need to stitch those cuts closed."

"Wha'," I said, and went quiet. My tongue felt swollen. One of my cheeks poked too far into my mouth, grinding upon my teeth as I tried to talk. My nose stung like it'd been broken, one nostril clogged with scabs. I coughed and spat out blood into my elbow. "What, you a nurse now or something?"

"I've always been a nurse!" she said seriously, worriedly. Her eyes wide, starting to breathe heavier. "You know this! I used to patch your father up after all his missions. Gods, how badly did he hurt your head? Are you concussed? Gods, I—just, let your Aura down so I can fix you."

My thoughts went back to the night of the Dust store robbery on Eishundo. You'll probably be fine and recovered in a week, being a Huntsman, the EMT had said after patching me up, dosing me up to the eyes in morphine. I looked down at the scars on my knuckles from the shrapnel that had scored my hand, the buckshot that furrowed my arm. Neat white scars from Croaker's work.

"Jaune, let her," Hazel called out.

I swallowed the metallic taste down my throat. My hair felt wet, slick with sweat and gore. Parts of me stung all over. So much hurt and pain that I couldn't focus on any of it, ironically making it all fade into the background haze clouding my mind. I felt groggy, sleepy. Couldn't breathe through the nearly sideways shape of my broken nose.

Aura flowed into my hand. Shattered into a thousand pieces, but recovering quickly like the ability to walk after running a marathon. I grabbed my nose and twisted.

Mom covered her mouth, screaming into her hands.

The nose snapped back into place with an audible pop of cartilage and fractured bone. It felt like inhaling a hornet, seeping a bloody roar of agony so deep into my skull that I could physically taste it. But in the haze of so much pain and the dull throb of Aura, I couldn't even find the willpower to gag.

The blood flowed freely out as the air came in. It felt like I was drowning. I needed a pick-me-up to make use of this ruined thing on my face.

I glanced over to Indigo's purse by the floor, where Mom was kneeling. I fished into it, pulled out a cigarette, and lit up.

"Fuck," I said around a cloud of smoke.

"Hey!" Indigo said, slurring slightly. "Those are mi—I mean, how'd that get into my purse?"

I gave her a dull look before standing up.

Mom stood up sharply and pressed her body against me. Her arms on mine like some kind of hug. "Jaune, please just sit down," she said with a desperate, frantic edge. "You're hurt. I mean, really hurt. You need time to rest and let me finish helping you."

I pushed her away. My Aura made what should have been a simple push into a hard shove. She stumbled back towards Indigo, who caught her. I regarded her for a moment, and decided my mouth hurt too much to try to apologize. All I could do was drag myself on surprisingly fine legs towards Hazel and the fireplace.

"Uh, hey, little brother," she said nervously, pressing herself back against the wall. "You, uh, you okay? Please just stop. You don't have to get near me, for real. I'm good. I'm okay. Jaune? Jaune!"

I blew smoke at her and leaned down to grab Crocea Mors from the floor where Dad had left it. I flexed my fingers. Hurt, a little singed, but worked just fine. Wordlessly, I strapped it back into the arm-mounted sheath. I ignored the protests from Mom as I walked into the kitchen.

Saffron and Terra and a couple other sisters I couldn't name were trying to clean up the blood and water. One was just in the corner, crying her eyes out. I grunted and pulled out two bottles of amphetamine cola from the fridge. Full sugar version, of course. Pushing Aura into my thumb, I popped the cap off and took a long, greedy drink. It tasted too sickly sweet, burning my mouth and settling unhappily in my stomach. Caffeine and dextroamphetamine mixed with what remained from breakfast with Ruby's family, churning into a messy froth of protein and chemicals.

I tossed the empty glass into a garbage bag a pair of twins were using to clean up the broken island, and slumped against the fridge. Breathing heavily. Waiting for the stimulants to kick in and give me the energy I needed. I screwed my eyes shut until it happened, focusing just on the feeling of energy, the background haze of my savaged Aura knitting me back together.

My sisters were talking, but I couldn't hear them. Couldn't tell any of them apart. It was just so much noise to me. Someone tried to touch me, and instinctively I ducked away and reached out in a counterattack maneuver, like training with Blake. Until I realized I was grabbing my mother.

"Jaune, please," she said. "Let go. You're hurting me. Jaune!"

"Stop following me," I said, releasing her. I set the other bottle of cola into my belt alongside my ammo for later. My cigarette was down to the nub and I just let it fall from my mouth. "Dad kicked me out, remember? Just—just stop, woman. Please."

"Woman?"

I compressed a sigh, only to cough it back up. What was I supposed to say to that? I shook my head and just left, trying to find my bedroom and racecar bed. Needed to find my stuff. Mom didn't follow me after that. The only thing that did were my reflections. Why was this house so lousy with hallway mirrors?

Pausing outside my room, I just stared at one reflection. No normal Jaune. No soldier. No cowboy. And certainly no fucking Simone. All there was a kid that was more bruise than boy, face torn to shreds, one eye half-swollen shut. The broken, dented cheek gave me an unpleasantly asymmetrical feeling. That fucked blood-caked little beard that looked so much more like dad than me anymore. I'd grown it out of laziness and then just accepted it, seeing how far I could take it. Once upon a time, before I joined the Army, I'd had long curly hair and a beard to match. Girls on Tinder used to ask if I was Seth Rogan, of all people.

What was I doing with this, this thing? What was I trying to say with it? What was I pretending to be or get away from? This beard, these tattoos, the way I dressed and talked and carried myself and everything.

I found my old straight razor in my bag and went to the bathroom. Dry shaving it off hurt, the hairs prickling and poking in protest. Cutting myself along the bruises and swells. But I could barely feel it. It was just so much more pain. More pinpricks to sink into the background. Until I was done, and I looked like myself. A bloody, destroyed, ruined version of Jaune Arc.

Once I'd tried to use this very razor to try to cut off my face. Just drunk and laughing and crying into a public bathroom. Trying to wonder why I was here. I had killed Simone and myself to make it all go away. I wasn't a real person. I was some weird thing who thought he was other people. Who always tried to be something he wasn't, because he didn't know what he was.

I was half-tempted to do it again. Let the blade sink in and start carving. The face I'd long ago accepted as mine and the name attached to it were just so deeply tied. But I wasn't Jaune. I wasn't anyone. I was just someone wearing him as a sleeve, ruining his family, ruining Beacon, ruining this fucking world in one giant, pathetic pity party.

I didn't do this woe is me shit. I ignored those thoughts. Bottled them up with a smile and soldiered on, dammit. No one cares about me, least of all myself.

I was done. Finished. I gathered up my things, letting the burn of amphetamines carry me downstairs to the front door. Mom actually let me get outside before stopping me, yelling at me from the open doorway.

"Jaune, where are you going? Come back! It's cold out there!"

"Aura and amphetamines make it nothing," I said evenly, too tired to get excited or upset, or fight back in any real sense. "Plus I put on my good coat. I'll be fine."

"Stop talking like that! Just, just come inside. We'll talk. We'll fix things with Nick. We'll fix the holiday and it'll all be good. Copacetic, y'know? Like a family!"

"Like your family," I said, sighing. My breath misted into the snow. There were still a few hours of daylight, not that it was easy to tell under the clouds. "Better off without me there to fuck it up. Sorry I made a mess of it. But I'm not sorry I left, then or now."

"That's not true, Jaune! What did I do wrong?"

I turned to see here, slumped in the doorway. The light behind wreathed her in shadows. The tears poured down around her, ugly crying. She just looked so old, so harrowed. Indigo was behind her..

"You didn't do anything," I said.

"Then why don't you love me anymore, Jaune! Gods, but what did I do wrong? Please, let me fix it! Please!"

"I…" I swallowed a lump in my throat.

"You're different, Jaune! You're cold and you're hurt, and it's all inside, and it's all my fault! That's why you don't love me anymore. You can't hide it from me! But it's like you don't know any of us anymore. I don't even know you anymore." She stood up straighter, her smile almost deranged. "Do you even know who I am?"

I stood there in the snow, silent for the longest moment. "Yeah," I croaked, throat so dry it hurt to even try talking. "I know who you are. Was born knowing. You're Joan Arc."

"I'm your fucking mother!" she screamed, and just hung her head and cried. Covered her face as tears and snot soaked through her fingers. Her entire body shook, wracked with sobs. I couldn't do anything to make it better. Could only make it worse with every single word I said. Every single thing I tried to do. "What did I do wrong, Jaune? You haven't called in months; what did I do to make you hate me? Please just tell me. Please just let me be your mother, not Joan. Please let me figure out how to make you love me again. Please!"

I whiteknuckled my bag and shook my head. "I… can't do that, Mom."

"Why?"

What was I supposed to tell her? You're a stranger to me? Or I don't know you period? What the hell could I tell her to make it better? To fix this mess I made. To make one of the few people in this world who did love me feel better.

But of course, I couldn't. I couldn't lie to her. I couldn't do anything to make her feel better. Couldn't tell her the truth, either. What would be the point? Sorry, Mom, your baby boy is dead, and I'm just the monster wearing his face.

No.

There was no future for me here. There was no future for me anywhere but dying as a Huntsman at Beacon. Where no one knew who or what I really was. And I couldn't hurt anyone by trying to pretend to be something I wasn't. Where the name Jaune Arc just meant the alcoholic asshole trying his best to undo the damage to people he hurt.

I had hurt Mom and Indigo and everyone here. And nothing I could do would ever make it better. Would ever make the pain stop for either of us, so long as I was here. This was what I did. All I was fucking good for.

"I… I can't answer that."

She cried. And cried. Until the tears and snot started to freeze over.

I turned and left.

— 16 —

"You didn't make it very far," Indigo said softly, sitting down on the other swing. The light of the house didn't reach this far. Only the smell and smoke of the smoker did, sweet meats and barbeque.

I was sitting down on the swing someone had built under a great oak tree, arms folded over my lap. "Needed to do some thinking first, I guess. Before I leave for good."

She put her gloved hands on the chains. "Figured you'd do it here. You used to love this thing. You saw a swing set at the hardware store once and you begged and cried until Dad decided not to buy them, and instead build this for you. Used to go here all the time as a kid, to play, to think, and just where you used to run away to when Dad got mad."

"Couldn't just leave me to be miserable in peace, huh?" I asked with a little smile.

"If you think for a minute I'll make it that easy on you, let you just think we all hate you so you can run away, nah." She punched my shoulder, which stung way more than she probably intended. "You're still the little dumbass I saved from drowning drunk in the pool. Same little doofus I accidentally kissed on the mouth that one time when I was trying to hug you and was drunk myself. Same asshole who kept getting taller than me even as we all had to share a shower to save on water bills, who had to teach himself how to shower with his eyes closed once he realized we were getting boobs."

I laughed, shaking my head. I felt like something my sister on Earth, Amy, would say somehow. That sort of complete familial irreverence. Not letting me stew in myself for any period of time for any reason.

Until I ran away from home and joined the Army.

"Do you love me, Indigo?" I asked.

For the first time, Indigo really seemed to stop and think. Her blue eyes studied me for the longest moment, like she didn't know what to say. Or was trying to find the perfect way to express it.

"You changed. You're not my Jaune."

I folded my arms over my legs, just staring out into the cold. All this white snow. "I tried telling you. Time and time again. You never listened. Never let me confess for real."

"Yeah. You said it yourself. Jaune is dead. Maybe you are just something wearing his skin. My little baby brother lost himself in a world of bloody evolution out there. But maybe you're trying to carry that sword everywhere, maybe you're dressing different, maybe you even got that stupid tattoo, but…"

She rubbed her hands together, her breath misting.

"Does that really change anything between us?" she asked.

I looked forwards into the snow, past the trees and hills the house overlooked. "What if I don't love you?"

"Then… you're a stupid, selfish asshole. Which just proves you're still the same little punk who tried running away from home to become a Huntsman." She made herself smile. "It means we've got a lot in common. I don't love myself either."

Indigo reached out to take my hand. Jaune's hand. Not really mine.

I shook my head. Instead, I just stood up, letting my Aura shine in the evening. "And if I walk away anyhow? From this, from you, forever."

Indigo didn't stand up. She sat on the swing, her hands white-knuckling the chains. Ones Dad must have built in happier times for her and everyone. When the Arcs had been a real family.

"Then I'll let you," she said softly. There was nothing happy in her smile. "Because you're my little brother with a room temperature IQ, and I trust you. Even if I could totally give you a ride back to Fives Wives or wherever so you don't just walk out into the snowstorm like a retard. But, wherever you go, whoever you choose to become out there, it'll be alright, yeah? Ça ira."

We shared a look for a long moment, the wind buffeting us. I let out a breath, closing my eyes. "Tell Mom I wish I could have been the son she wanted. And tell Dad I'm glad I'm not. Goodbye, Indigo."

Smiling the best I could with my ruined face, I disappeared into the Long Night.