Falling Cinders: Chapter 1

As she gazed over the edge at the slowly rising sparks and ash, her amber eye trailed, her mouth parted ever so slightly, her heels backed to the edge of the ship. It was going down, and for a minute, Cinder wanted it to take her with. There was nothing left for her now, and yet still the annoying brat was pleading with her... Ruby, she'd come to find out was her name, and behind her, the yellow one... Yang stood, a look of concern having blossomed over her face as she gripped Ruby's shoulder, trying to pull her away from the flaming wreckage of the airship as it gracefully headed toward the ground.

Mercury was dead, Emerald too, and for what had she spent her life? This sickening, towering despair that had filled her insides? The voice that now barely worked, she couldn't even use it to tell that little idiot to leave her to die. Instead, her one eye scanned over her shoulder, looking for another way out. Death... Or to answer for her crimes, that seemed the only two options. But before she could decide, Qrow decided for her, he came out of nowhere, and the world went dark...

Some time later, how long, she couldn't tell, Cinder woke to find herself in a familiar situation. Deprived of her dust-laced garments, she was clad only in a robe and her underthings underneath it, her head bandaged, wrapped... They'd taken care to leave her eye-patch in place. Thank whoever for the small graces. She lay silently, staring at the ceiling of this place, afraid to glance around for fear of finding somebody to answer to, the police maybe, the Huntsmen... An angry general...

Instead, there was only a tiny little gasp, and she heard movement, once she'd managed to open her eye.

"She's awake..."

It was that brat, Ruby. As the reality of her situation flooded back to her, the mean-spirited woman clutched up her blankets in a forceful barrier, distancing herself visibly from Ruby as she stalked over. Her concern was again obvious. Why, after everything Cinder had managed to do to this stupid brat, did she still take so much issue over the loss of her life?

It wasn't so obvious, with the one eye, perhaps, but the daggers she glared Ruby's way made Yang hesitate to let her approach. She caught the girl's wrist.

"Look, see, I told you! She's not going to thank us for saving her, so why the hell should we even be here? We should've turned her over to the feds, I can't believe you pulled all your strings to let this... Witch remain under Huntsman care!"

Once a hothead, always a hothead, Cinder thought, and Ruby's question practically fell on deaf ears when Miss Fall didn't respond.

"Are you feeling all right?" the cheerful girl questioned her, and the scowl she got, the tilt of her face somewhere, anywhere else, didn't exactly delight her. The silver-eyed huntress gave a sad frown in response.

"That bad, huh? I can't imagine how you're feeling right now... Losing so much so quickly... Even if you weren't on the right side of things." Her lacy skirt clung around her legs as she pushed her bottom onto the bed, and Cinder scooted slightly away from her, not wanting such a person to be anywhere near her physically.

After all, this was the one whom had taken her eye.

As if reading the glare, Ruby twitched noticeably and covered her own mouth with a gasp.

"OH! Oh, my gosh, I can't believe how rude I've been... Your eye... Yeah, that was me..." Now her demeanor turned sheepish, and yet, somehow, the innocence still dripped through her words as though she weren't capable of amazing power, to wound somebody such as her so extensively.

"I know you probably don't feel like talking, but... It took a lot to get you here instead of dooming you to a cold cell, considering... Well, you've killed our friends..." The ice over the conversation grew a further layer with that statement, and even Ruby felt the distaste her own words created, and ran her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Perhaps not the best thing to bring up when you were trying to convert somebody away from their tendencies.

"But look, okay, we're gunna fix that. Everything! Cuz, cuz I know that somewhere deep down in you... You were being used, and somewhere in there is that good guy we've all got. So we'll come back to them, okay? I'm Ruby, by the way, and this is my sister Yang. We heard you were called Cinder, is that right?"

The steely, hard glare didn't change, but there was an ever so slight nod that accompanied the disgusted face. Who did she think she was, acting so cliche like that? As if she, some silly girl in a frilly dress, would manage to sway her mind.

But when the door closed and she was alone in this empty hospital room... Her feelings crashed like waves against a rocky shore as the events all replayed in the back of her mind.

Mercury... Done in by some runt with a shield, Emerald, taken down by that bitch with a hammer... Slain... Just pawns in the game. She supposed, ultimately, she had her life, and theirs were taken as the price. She had to admit, she'd miss Emerald's abilities, they were so very... Useful. She looked around the place, the staff had removed everything remotely resembling a weapon. There weren't even chairs, and all the beds were bolted down. The drawers were empty, the windows didn't open, she had only one way out of this place... Through that very same door.

Her body, when she tried to stand, wasn't doing so well... She felt like she'd been hit by a dozen trains, one after another, due to the fight she'd endured just before her fall, to the hit from Qrow's annoying blade hilt across the back of her head. Her singular eye winced as she pulled herself to her feet. On the bed next to hers there was an array of clothing, somewhat similar to what she'd always worn before... A note sat atop.

"I hope you like them! -Ruby."

The twerp had even drawn a caricature of her own face next to her signature, an annoyingly vibrant smile plastered over her cartoon features.

'You've got to be kidding me,' Cinder thought in annoyance, attempting to run her hand through her hair, but when it didn't budge without loads of pain from her shoulder, she used the other one. Chancing a glance inside her robe, she saw the wound that had been afforded her this time, a nice, big hole had been shot through her shoulder, but it appeared to be healing rather nicely, though she was sure there would be some permanent tendon damage. Great, she was even less of a person now than she had been before... Again.

Heaving a sigh, which came out rather airy and breathy, her damaged vocal cords not allowing much else, she took the clothes and dawned them. No dust in the sleeves meant no blowing her way out of this place, and of course, she was far too weak to use her Maiden abilities... They weren't perfect, anyway, they always tired her more than she'd expected.

'I guess this is it. I'm finally trapped in a cage with no Master...' When this thought hit her mind, a sudden, inexplicable relief washed all through her veins, and she blinked, and stared out the window at the rays of sun filtering through the trees.

Salem was gone.

She wasn't under anyone's heel anymore. She wasn't even in jail... Why was she being given such an opportunity? What did this all mean, did they expect to use her for her abilities, perhaps? To weaponize her against their enemies...?

Cinder didn't understand it, but she needed answers, and with her voice, they weren't going to come easily...

So she supposed, to her surprise, two military men stopped her as she tried to leave in the flowing black gown she'd been given.

Just outside her door, two Atlas guard stood, their visible mouths pursed in the seriousness of business. They pointed their weapons right at her.

Cinder couldn't believe herself when she straightened up and flattened her gown down. The guards looked between each other, one read some paper, then they simply moved aside.

It was so nonchalant, in fact, that when she walked through, her cocky attitude flashed back to her. She strode right passed like a demonette casting a spell, but the moment she found herself in the lobby of a busy hospital, she blinked one lid a few times to adjust herself.

Everywhere about her gurneys turned or twisted. Something big was causing quite a few casualties. It hit her.

"Wh-dhhh..." she managed to croak at an orderly, grasping her by the shoulders. She knocked Cinder's hands aside and the woman frowned again, this time far less anger coursing through her. What happened?

It took a moment of adrenaline-fueled dragging to get her lax body into position in the lobby waiting room, where the TV blared the latest news straight to her perpetually ringing ears.

"-today as the Grimm invasion seems to be fully spreading to the outer-"

A loud cough interrupted her ability to understand the rest of what the reporter was saying, but the boxed window in the corner of the screen spoke enough of the horrors of yet another Grimm attack in the wake of her operation.

Ruby had saved her. Guarded her, kept her from jail, plopped her into a hospital...

And then she, and her sister, Yang, had left to dispatch the remaining Grimm. It was as if Cinder's powers were so tiny in comparison to the determination she'd encountered...

Her fist clenched silently. She tried to swear, but her lips moved, and only a hoarse, cool whisper breached any sort of silence near her, immediately drowned out by a simple conversation happening just behind her on the seats.

Nothing they had done had accomplished anything at all. So for now, here she was, in her fall, alone, and poor of any sort of... Well, any sort of resources. No allies, no money, no strength, no direction, no voice, no eye, and no energy... Just so very tired.

What was she supposed to do? Who was she, now?