Author's... pre-note?: For those of you that have read my previous stab at a RWBY tale, Keeper, you will find a few familiar faces in what follows. This new attempt at the idea incorporates much of what I meant for Keeper to be, although admittedly I plotted that story out as I was writing it – a trap I feel like RWBY's own writers have fallen into at times. It also incorporates plans and characters I built for Seeker, Keeper's sequel and the second of three stories I wanted to write before RWBY faded from my interest and I moved on to other things. Grist is therefore a total rebuild of Keeper, and in some ways a re-tooling of RWBY itself. More on that in a minute.
So what drew me back here?
Something about RWBY's character designs really sticks. There are beautiful, vibrant characters in this tale that are really appealing, at least to me, though for the moment I will spare you any lists of my personal favorites — that's not the point. I want to give those cool designs stuff to do. More depth than they might have gotten in the show (and I am thinking of a particular villain here). In addition, the story is a challenge to myself from a consistency and planning standpoint.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your own tastes?) this means changes. In the process of planning this story, I've had to cut characters and concepts out. Many of those characters you probably liked. I know for certain that at least two that I had to ditch are really going to piss most of you off, but I'm fine with it — because the characters I kept will have increased purpose. If I do my job properly, we will end up with a story that will be much better framed and deployed than Keeper was, with a meaningful plot and genuine stakes – and perhaps even a larger story overall than the three-part series I originally envisioned.
I admit that this type of story will not be for everyone. Not every fan of the show wants to read a tweaking of it, even if they agree with the concept, because a lot of people have their favorite characters (as I do!) and their absence here will be off-putting. Don't feel bad! I have my own favorites too, people I just couldn't bear to leave out, but I had to find roles for them. I refused to let myself keep a character just because they look cool. A lot of them had to fall by the wayside in view of this requirement. In some cases I built new characters to take their places. In others I left their roles empty. Such is the price of storytelling.
I also want you to know up front that there are characters and concepts in this version of Remnant that work slightly (or incredibly) different, but you will not feel lost. You will still see Dust, and Grimm, and Aura, and Semblances. The Four Kingdoms are still standing. Ruby will still have her silver eyes. I do not view this as a complete ground-up rebuild; instead, Grist is a look into what I think Remnant might have been with a little more pre-planning, even if that planning is carried out by a lackluster author. Know that the plot of Keeper and the plot of Grist, while maintaining many key points, is not the same. Don't think because you read the first (if you did, thanks) that you'll have a leg up on the story here. The endings, especially, are not even in the same solar system.
That's enough from me, I think. I'll let you decide whether or not you want to proceed. For those that read on, thank you. For those that don't, thank you anyway.
It had been literal ages since he felt the need to be impatient about anything, but the pace at which the old man across the counter from him pecked out words on his keyboard did wonders to reintroduce the concept.
"Easy, now," that old man said lowly, a wry smile on his face. "Don't want to get too antsy and attract the beasts, do you? I'm almost done."
After a moment, his clean-shaven customer matched the smirk. "I'm just ready to get on with it. You know, before I change my mind." He took a peek at the makings of the item for which he waited. "Wow. Remind me never to have my picture taken ever again."
The old man cracked another smile, though his attention remained focused on the task at hand. "Ah, come on, you don't look that bad."
"Oh, so your shoddy camera work is to blame."
"Heh." Now he looked up at his customer. "Spell it for me again? Need to get it right the first time."
The young man across the counter adjusted his camouflage boonie as he answered. "Opher Riese. O-p-h-e-r... R-i-e-s-e."
"That is the damnedest fake name I ever heard, son. I applaud you." The old man placed something into a complicated machine to his left, tapped four buttons on it, then clasped his hands and looked up while the device began to work. "All righty. Should be about three minutes. Shall we go ahead and settle the transaction?"
He plucked the duffel bag off the floor by his feet and opened one of its numerous pockets. "If you insist. I don't have any coinage on me, but... I do have this." From that pocket he drew a single thin ingot of gold and set it on the counter. "What do you think?"
"If that's real, I think you just became my favorite customer." To check, he used a steel file to draw a scratch across the ingot, then dropped a few beads of a clear liquid from a small bottle on the gouge. The only reaction to occur came from the person testing the metal. "Hot damn!" he exclaimed, clapping with glee.
Opher, arms folded, smiled as the old man dried off his gold and put it away in a nearby wall safe. "Do I get a framed picture on the wall, then? 'My Favorite Customer' across the bottom and everything. Make it really fancy script." He looked over as the other machine emitted a pleasant chime.
"She's done." From an out-of-view slot in the device, the old man produced and handed over what Opher had just bought: a freshly forged Atlesian passport chip, something which could also serve as his ID for most purposes. "This bad boy should fool just about any system in the city. If you can find a way around the wall without being arrested or shot, that is."
"Knowing my luck I'll manage to get arrested and shot. Thanks." A pleased Opher waved the passport once, put it into his duffel bag, and walked out of the old man's establishment. To call this place a village would be beyond generous; he counted about eight buildings in total, two of which were taverns, and four more of which were empty private residences. A few others were out and about this cloudy afternoon. A remarkably scaly-looking girl with green skin and a black mohawk walked past him as he began to move, but most of Opher's attention was on a couple arguing some distance away on the dirt street. The woman had brilliant red hair.
And seeing it made his stomach drop. "Damn. I was having a good day," he muttered. His next words were yelled. "Hey! Calm down before you get everyone killed!"
"Sorry!" was the man's sheepish reply. Their war of words seemed to die off afterward.
"Thank you. Sheesh." His good deed for the day done, Opher turned his back on them and made for the dense forest that surrounded him. Which way he was going at the moment didn't matter; he'd be able to ascertain his true location as soon as he got a little more privacy. What he wanted now was sweet, sweet distance.
The forest had it in droves. Opher found himself in the embrace of a truly ancient grove of birch trees whose branches spread out above him like a leafy wall, protecting all underneath from the sky. Birds filled those branches, and the air, with their cacophonous songs. After a few minutes of walking, he heard a few gunshots join the symphony, which gave way to a guttural roar, a series of screams, then silence. The birds abruptly lost their will to sing. "There goes another one," he muttered to himself. Now seemed like a good chance to check his compass; to his relief, north was behind him as he walked. The air around him was dead calm; for a man used to snow and tundra, the environment made him feel like eyes were everywhere. Every rustle caught his attention, only for that focus to be replaced with annoyance when nothing, invariably, proved to be around. Half an hour of this cycle had Opher fed up. "Why do I feel like a child again?" he finally snapped at himself. He ignored a subsequent rustle of leaves and continued forward.
Except this time there was movement. Quick, hard to discern against the shadows and verdant backdrop, but movement all the same. Opher dropped his bag to take a longer look around. "I saw you, you know," he called into the forest while adjusting the long sleeves of his blue shirt.
At length, a heavily accented voice replied. "Well, fuck." Out stepped the green-skinned girl from earlier, a sword a piece in her clenched hands. "To be fair, though, love, I ain't sure exactly how nervous I oughta be about someone who carries gold around when they ain't even armed."
"Ohhhh," Opher breathed, "I'm being robbed." Thoroughly unimpressed with his potential adversary's weapons, his attention went to other things about her person – namely the enormous alarm clock attached to her right hip. "Narcoleptic?" he asked while pointing it out, a coy grin on his face.
"Wh-" The girl eyed him disparagingly for a long moment. "Is… is that an insult?"
Opher's face went completely blank. "Yes," he replied, hoping to move things along so he could get on with his actual plan for the afternoon. "Yes it is. I just said horrible things about your mother."
The robber didn't buy it – although this conclusion took her a good second or two to reach. She approached on confident strides. "Funny boy, ain'tcha. Tell ya what, joker, you give me your bag there and you can be on your way. I'm feelin' right charitable at the moment."
"Ah, see, I would do that except this is my shit and you can't have it." Opher could feel the fight coming and cracked his knuckles in anticipation. A quick glance down at a few incomprehensible symbols, seared in black onto the back of his left hand and continuing up underneath his long sleeve, made him smirk. He likely wouldn't require the knowledge they represented. "You can try to take it, if you feel clever."
She cracked a grin at him, her mouth full of sharp metal and screws that gleamed in the dappled sunlight. "Issat so?"
It was after her question when Opher learned she had friends; two men stepped out into view from the undergrowth behind her. One was a blonde with a war hammer. The other had black hair and some type of machete that almost resembled a giant meat cleaver. In response to their arrival, Opher assumed a subtle martial stance with his right side pointed forward and right hand against his chest. "If we're gonna dance, can I least have your name?"
"Why not, love?" She put one of her swords under an arm in order to fiddle with the large minute hand of the clock on her hip. "I'm Jade Tock. And these..." She tapped the button on top of the clock, took up her sword again, and dropped into a fighting stance of her own as a yellowish flicker briefly encompassed her form. "...are the last sixty seconds of your life."
Tock charged down the distance between them in four or so seconds with a wide right-handed slash as her opener. Opher ducked right and back just in time for the arriving swing of her associate's war hammer to brush over the top of his head. While twirling on his heel to take the free shot at him, Opher found his machete-wielding friend, who drove a slash at his stomach. He got out of the way just as Tock tried to stab him in the back; her cutlass and his cleaver clashed with an awful sound and Opher withdrew to politely wait as the three of them tried to get untangled. Tock, the first to regain her bearings, chose to try and overwhelm him with her blades. Slash after slash flew at Opher's head, forcing him backward until she aimed a surprise roundhouse kick at his stomach and caught him square. Stunned, Opher looked up again to find Tock ducked in order for her associates to strike. He caught the cleaver's blade in one hand and stopped the war hammer's face with his closed right fist.
Halting both strikes left him wide open, however. Tock used the chance to drive both of her swords into Opher's chest. "Whew!" she snapped through a relieved smirk. Her clock started to ring as the colored field around her body came and went once more. She left her swords stuck in him to turn it off. "Dunno why I even bothered with this. He never even tried to hit me. Ah, well, safety first." While her associates stepped back to watch him stagger, Tock stayed close and kept his head up to watch the life leave his face. "Ah, I love this part the best. Watching all the lights go out. Never gets old." When he slumped forward against her, she took it as her cue to extract her swords. "Of course the new girl ran off on us. Check his bag. We're done here."
The blonde man couldn't resist a quip. "You sure know how to pick 'em, boss!"
"Fuck you, Greenwood. I chose your sorry ass, didn't I?" When she moved to yank her blades out of Opher's chest, however, they wouldn't budge an inch. His hands were on the gold guards, pulling them toward him as she tried to tug the opposite way.
"And I love this part the best. So, what do you do when you can't kill whoever you're fighting in sixty seconds?" he asked lowly. His head remained down, face hidden by the wide brim of his hat.
"What the… what the hell?!" Tock drove her boot into his stomach for extra leverage, but no amount of strain could get her swords free.
"Uh huh. Keep pulling. I'm sure it'll work eventually." With a subtle snap of the fingers on his left hand, both of her associates were enveloped by azure flames as they sprinted back to assist and fell, screaming, until that fire snuffed out their lives. A panicked Tock headbutted his skull in desperation but suffered the worst for her effort, so stunned by the metallic-sounding impact that she released her blades and stumbled backwards.
Opher drew her swords from his flesh at last and looked up with utter amusement in his smile. "No, seriously," he continued while twirling the blades in his hands. "What do you do? Do you do the clock thing again and say 'these are the last sixty seconds of your life, I promise'? Must be pretty awkward." While there were significant rips in his shirt, the pale skin underneath was completely unblemished.
"I see your Semblance is like mine! Huh. Imagine that," Tock laughed nervously. "How about a new deal? My swords for your bag and we'll both b-be on our way?" She backed into a tree trunk, hands up, completely unsure how she could deescalate the situation after trying to stab him to death. "No hard feelings, eh? Wouldn't want the Grimm to catch onto us? Right?" The unmoved expression on his face as he drew nearer only intensified her own horror. "L-love, let's be reasonable here!"
"'Let's be reasonable', she says, immediately after being hilt-deep in my rib cage." Tock chose to flee a second later; to stop her, Opher fired one of the swords toward her legs. It punched through the remainder of her drained Aura, buried itself in her left thigh, and sent her tumbling to the grassy ground. "Hey, hold on. I'm still considering your new deal." Words were beyond Tock now. She struggled to pull the blade from her leg, but it had struck bone and was lodged fast. A mottled trail of crimson spread out under her as she tried to crawl away. Opher pursued on leisurely strides until she stopped trying to escape and stared up at him helplessly.
That submission earned her a little grin. "You know what? I accept your offer. Here's your other sword back." He released the remaining blade in his hand and kicked it straight into her chest. He turned to retrieve his bag as she gurgled and writhed toward her imminent expiration behind him.
The only sympathy he displayed went toward his outfit. "I just bought this damn shirt." He flicked it off over his head with a few more grumbles before the search for a new one with long sleeves began. The sleeve of symbols that saturated his left arm, from wrist to shoulder, got a more furtive glance this time. "So much for not needing this shit. Damn. I'm rustier than I thought."
By the time he put a new shirt on, a few juvenile Boarbatusks had arrived to investigate Tock's anguish. "I'll get to you in a minute," he told them, although their number ignored him completely and seemed more interested in Tock's corpse. After a bit, the beasts started rummaging aimlessly in the forest undergrowth under the trees nearby. As their grunts and snorts mixed with the returning birdsong above him, Opher grabbed a bottle of water and a small blue Dust crystal. The latter he crushed in his hand to make a chunky powder; the former he opened while swallowing that powder so he could chase the mineral with its contents. A few uncomfortable seconds passed as the concoction traveled toward his stomach. Sufficiently prepared, he walked lazily over to the little Grimm and started to tip them over onto their backs with the sole of his sneaker. They emitted clipped oinks of protest while falling over, but the actual sight of him drew no particular reaction. Every Boarbatusk that ended up on its back received a flicked hand motion and subsequent ice spike to the throat. "One, two, three, four… and five," he mumbled, counting them off until all were dispatched this way.
Time to move again, he decided – upward, not onward. After a cursory search for Tock's missing associate, which turned up empty, Opher chose to discharge what little wind Dust he had left on internal reserve and rocketed into the sky for a fuller picture of his surroundings. To his right glittered the large sea nestled between the continent of Sanus and the unnamed land to its north. From this height, the nearby island of Patch was a verdant smear across the blue water. Directly ahead was a large plain, through which a river snaked toward the sea. Where the river and the ocean would have met sat a huge urban area, bound by a jagged wall on three sides – his destination. He reckoned the city of Vale stood about an hour's worth of Dust-assisted sprinting away as he began to plummet toward the ground. The fact that he had no more wind Dust to cushion his fall meant nothing; Opher took the impact back-first, splayed out on the forest floor, hitting so hard that he frightened away the birds in the trees above him. His Aura absorbed the contact entirely. "How am I gonna get in without raising hell?" he asked himself as he sat up. Since the coastal side of Vale was the only part that lacked a wall, it seemed like his best option for entry. He snatched up his bag and set off for the coast.
Unbeknownst to Opher or Tock was the fact that the latter's "new girl" hadn't run off at all. Her terror, rising since the opening moves of the fight and reaching its crescendo as he killed her would-be boss, was the reason the Boarbatusks went poking around in the undergrowth in the first place. Tucked behind a tree, she watched him stroll past the corpses and out of sight before vacating the area herself.
Opher's plan for an amphibious invasion encountered complications when he reached the shoreline. Vale now stood two miles, maybe less, to his left side, but every boat he thought about boarding to slip in through the port was either too small to let him blend in unnoticed or belonged to Vale's Navy, where his presence would be unwelcome to say the least. Bag in hand, he strolled idly toward the city wall and considered his options. The sight of a half-submerged, rusty old airship wreck on the beach ahead made him come to a stop. "Huh… hold on." He cast his eyes skyward to determine the thickness of airship traffic. While plenty of large passenger liners were out and about, they were all escorted by military craft that wouldn't be pleased to see some random idiot clamped to the roof of whatever they were protecting. And even if he could manage to find one to use, getting off of it in an open-air, well-guarded airship terminal would be a tremendous challenge if he wanted to get in quietly.
With a frown, Opher set down his bag and began to prepare for his original plan: becoming a submersible. To this end he ingested two small Dust crystals – wind and gravity, the latter being his first of that type in some time – and waited for their power to soak in. While that process occurred, he plotted his first moves after a successful infiltration. He'd need some kind of work. A place to occupy. "What kind of job do you think I'm suited for these days, Carmine?" he asked the gentle waves. "It's been a little while since I've been in the labor market." He knew what she'd say – any damn thing you wanted, fool. The mental picture of her derisive smirk made him smile in kind. "Your stupid face is never gonna go away."
For better or worse. He still couldn't tell which, even after all these years.
The time had come. Opher scuttled along across the sand in search of terrain that would at least hide his entrance into the water. The featureless coast denied him for ten minutes until he had to settle for a jagged outcrop of granite. Glued to its side, he waited for the passage of a small, fast boat headed toward Patch, then grabbed his bag and slipped into the water's embrace. Neither he nor his luggage actually got wet thanks to a continuous low-level discharge of the wind Dust he'd eaten earlier. The effect of the gravity Dust served to help him maintain traction as he skipped carefully along the seabed. Once he was in deeper water and harder to see from the air, he made for the continental shelf and looked up for a boat to use. Once he found one cruising in the desired direction, he shed some of his depth and clung to the bottom of its hull. His gamble paid off after about ten minutes when the seabed below him turned into flat concrete. Down he sunk again, eyes cast toward the surface as he searched for a larger ship to disguise his emergence from the water. A nearby docked freighter seemed like his best bet, so Opher propelled himself over to it with precise jets of air directed toward his rear. Tucked safely between the ship and its wharf, he ventured to the surface to take a peek around. No crew seemed to be present on either the ship or the dock, at least from his limited angle of view, but he chose to swim back under the vessel and board it from the other side instead of hopping onto the wharf directly. He skittered up the side of its red and black hull like an insect and emerged onto its deck, which he found empty of crew. In short order, he walked around the superstructure, found a gangplank leading from the ship to the dock, and walked off as if he was supposed to be there. Since he was dry, nobody in the nearby fish market paid him much attention beyond a glance.
It had worked. A relieved Opher decided to vacate the area before anyone's interest fell on him. A minute of travel became two, then three, then five, and soon he was about to depart the port district entirely. "That went well," he mumbled with a look over his shoulder. While he left one obstacle behind, another presented itself ahead of him: automated scanners that protected the residential district beyond from any stowaways that might have been aboard the ships in the harbor. This would be the first test of his false passport chip. Despite knowing that if it failed, it would only reach the level of minor inconvenience, Opher still found a sliver of nervousness in his heart as he stepped underneath the gleaming silver arch.
A thoughtful-sounding beep rang out as he passed below. There was a green light next, then a pleasant ding. It had worked like a charm.
Sufficiently emboldened, he strode into the residential district. It was comprised of gray stone buildings, variably tall, adorned with as many six-pane sash windows as their architects could shove into them. Foot traffic here increased significantly. Keen to get a feel for the city since it had been so long since he last lived in any sort of large settlement, Opher paid what attention he could to conversations as he walked. The talk proved small and vapid, without exception, but the faces of the speakers were even worse – everyone he saw wore a version of the same blank-faced, absent smile. The more he saw it, the uneasier he began to feel. "I think I missed something," he whispered to himself. After an hour, residences became businesses, big and small, of all architectural descriptions. He could pick out Atlesian companies from a long way thanks to their steel and glass constructions. Most of these were related to Dust, either the importation of the mineral for industrial use or the sale of smaller quantities directly to the public. The crowd got even thicker here than before; several people clipped Opher as he made his way down the crowded sidewalk.
"Sorry!"
Every single time. Immediate apology, immediate smile, immediate departure from the scene before Opher could really even acknowledge the contact. Bewildered by the way this sequence repeated ceaselessly without fail, he decided to take a detour into a little park just to get out of the way of the tide. It kept on going as he watched from the safety of a wooden bench. People bumped into each other. Instant smile, apology, and departure. Somehow, the reflexive quality of the exchanges reminded him of combat training; along with the idle chatter he still heard, every word spoken lacked the vibrancy he was used to from months of conversation in far-flung villages.
And then… "Fuck!"
Opher searched for the source of the outburst among the horde and finally detected the presence of a wobbly stack of metallic boxes in a pair of muscular dark-skinned arms, suspended above a gaudy green-and-white checkered ankle skirt and black sandals. "Please move," she added later, clearly frustrated. It seemed to work; her annoyance drove a wedge in the crowd which let her walk a little faster. Curious, Opher rose from his seat and fell in loosely behind her, where he got a better look at her messy, waist-length indigo hair, tugged back into a ponytail. Her outfit was topped off by a red tank with thin shoulder straps. She only realized someone was in pursuit after Opher followed her around a right-hand corner, off the main street, and into a slightly quieter part of the district. "Uh, hello?" she said over her left shoulder. "I see you back there."
Her visage punted Opher's heart straight into his throat. This swarthy young woman was the spitting image of his mother, from her button nose and bluish hair to her bright, round ochre-colored eyes and powerful build – although notably much shorter, as eye-level for this woman was probably about shoulder height for him. "You look like you could use some help," he replied.
She shrugged up at him and turned to proceed away. "I'm fine. You're already carrying a bag as it is."
He wouldn't let her get far; Opher took her appearance as some kind of positive sign about his willingness to re-enter society at last, like familial approval from beyond the grave. "Oh no, if only I had more than one hand with which to hold objects."
Again she turned to squint at him, as if annoyed, but a smirk appeared on her face instead. "Okay, smart ass, grab a few off the top and follow me." After Opher obeyed her, taking three off the stack to rest them on his right shoulder, they continued forth side by side. "Can't say I've seen your face before. Atlesian?"
Opher blinked at her directness, but ran with the assumption since he'd need to build that lie anyway. "I am new, yes… and how could you tell?"
"Because you have about as much skin color as the exterior of my shop." The fat shadow of a landing airship passed over them, providing brief respite from the potent late summer sun. "I guess I should welcome you to Vale. We get pale bastards here all the time, snowbirds that migrate during the winter and never go home. You're a little bit early if that's the case."
Her assessment made Opher snicker a little; it seemed a few things hadn't changed during his self-imposed exile. "I'm not rich enough to switch Kingdoms for half the year." The crowd got thinner the longer they traveled. "Since you did it to me, your complexion says you're from Vacuo."
"Kinda. My mom is. I guess I got it from her. My dad's side of the family is Mistralian, though." The woman came to a halt in front of a small storefront, painted white, with two rectangular windows. One of these bore a placard that stated "Official Distribution Partner of the Schnee Dust Company", right next to a plain paper sign which proclaimed "Help Wanted" in scrawled black marker. Above both stood a large blue marquee with "Diamond Dust" emblazoned across it. "We're here," she stated, setting her load on the sidewalk. "Lemme unlock the door."
"Oh, so this is Dust," Opher noted. "No wonder these things are made of metal." He followed her into the little store once its door was open. While the place wasn't much more than Dust-laden shelves – bookcase style constructions that lined both of the side walls plus eight freestanding devices in two rows on the floor – and a glass display at the back which also doubled as the register, it was well-kept and highly organized. Duly impressed with the shop's cleanliness, he made sure to scrub his feet on the doormat before his shoes contacted the pristine sky blue carpet. "Where to?"
She waddled awkwardly past him on her way to the register. "Set 'em on the counter back here. And, uh, thanks for the help. My name's Indigo."
"I'm Opher." As he set the cases down next to hers, she busted out laughing and turned away. "Yes, gods, it sounds like gopher. I know where this conversation is going. It's happened to me six damn times in the past two weeks."
"I just – oh my goodness, Opher? Your parents must have hated you." The way he walked around the counter after hearing this told Indigo that her quip had struck the wrong nerve. The glaze in his green eyes proved even worse. Her face softened apologetically. "Oh. Fuck me, why did I say that… I'm sorry. I was kidding, I swear."
"Ah, it's fine. Been forever since they died anyway." Opher shed his hat and rubbed back his short, mousy brown hair. "Can I ask you something?"
Indigo shrugged and popped open one of the steel cases to confirm its contents. "Shoot."
He cast a long look at the passersby beyond the windows before his eyes went back to her. "Is it just me or does nobody frown here? I know I'm new, but, uh, it's a little weird."
She eyed him a little more closely now and crossed her arms. That he was willing to question this openly spoke volumes; Indigo found herself quite interested. "Isn't it? It's even worse if you've ever lived outside a Kingdom for any length of time. The way things work here... it's... never mind." Every second she spent watching him process this brought her closer to a realization: his face resembled the one she saw in the mirror, weighed down more by fatigue and regret every day. "You look like you've had it rough. I mean... you can't be any older than I am but you look twice as worn out. What gives? If you don't mind my asking. It's probably none of my business."
"No, it's okay." Opher plopped his hat back on and donned a sad smile. His curiosity about her knowledge of life beyond city walls could wait for now. "My old job wasn't exactly the easiest thing in the world, I guess."
"I know exactly how you fuckin' feel, man. Are you..." Indigo glanced away and rubbed the back of her neck. "...looking for new work?"
"Wait, here?" She nodded at him. When comparing her demeanor to the muted masses outside, there was no option in Opher's mind; besides, how could he say no to that face? He decided to seize the chance. "Well, yeah. Is there an interview process?"
"Sure. It starts right now. You got some ID?" Indigo took Opher's forged Atlesian passport when he handed it over and stuck it into a slot on the register. "Damn, you ain't kidding about being new. Your entry scan was just an hour ago?"
"Fresh off the boat, so to speak." Opher could watch her read his info through the translucent holographic screen; her expression would be the first indication of anything amiss, but it never departed from the lidded ingestion of the details in front of her.
"Twenty-five years old…" She tilted her head to the side to get a better look at him. "Yeah. Heh, I got you beat by two years. Kingdom of Atlas, okay, yeah, definitely. How do you say your last name?"
"Oh, ah," Opher rubbed his chin for a moment as he searched for a decent analogue to the sounds. "Rye, like the grain, and see. Rye-see."
"Easy enough." Indigo had read all she wanted and handed back his passport chip. "I see you used to work for the SDC. What did you do in the great white north?"
Time for the rubber to hit the road. Opher had carefully chosen a lie upon which to build his latest new life, something plausible for his old stomping ground but with enough mystique to justify any necessary evasiveness. "Ever heard of the 'independent contractors' they use to escort exploratory missions? I was kind of a hybrid between bodyguard and surveyor."
"No shit?!" Indigo exclaimed, slamming her hands on the counter. There were exactly as many stars in her eyes as Opher wanted. "Why the hell did you leave that gig? Or are you still under NDA?"
He couldn't help but smirk at her reaction. "A little bit, but… like I said, change of scenery." Eye contact grew difficult, but it had less to do with his untruths than it did the heavy memories of people long gone. "Too much stuff happened. I've been seeing too many faces lately."
That sealed the deal; Indigo had finally discovered one more kindred spirit in a Kingdom full of the oblivious. "When can you start?" she asked, hands on her hips.
At first, Opher didn't quite know how to react. He pointed at himself and blinked. "Wait. Really?"
"Yeah, really." Indigo rolled her eyes a moment later. "Uh… you're kind of the first person to apply since I put the notice out. A month ago. So." She noticed the markings on his left hand as he dropped his arm. "Oh, you got ink?"
"Huh? Oh, this. Yeah, full sleeve of—" His gaze became slightly distant. "Sentimental stuff. Is that a problem?"
"Nah, I have a few myself." She folded her arms with a wry smile, though it faded quickly. "Now, answer me. When can you start? I need the help, like, fucking yesterday."
Opher hung his bag over his shoulder and frowned a bit. "If I can find somewhere to stay, I'll be in whenever you open tomorrow morning. I'd rather be busy so I don't have to think too much."
Indigo couldn't believe how much he sounded like she did. She pointed toward the right side of the shop to issue directions. "Leave here and turn right. Look for a four-story red brick building two blocks down across the street with bay windows in the front. Used to be an office or something, but they remodeled it into a little inn. Pretty cheap. I've met the owner a few times, he's nice enough. Mention my name and you'll get the royal treatment."
The usual half-smirk returned to Opher's face as she concluded. "Oho, is that right? How far does your influence spread, Miss Indigo?"
"Call me that again and I'll feed you my fist," she warned him, although the playful glimmer in her eyes indicated anything but imminent violence. "And if you must know, my best friend owns the pub next door. He gets a lot of business from her. I'll see your pale ass at 8:30 AM. Sharp."
"Very well." Before Opher left, however, he found himself with one final question. "If I may, what exactly will I be doing around here?"
Indigo patted one of the Dust cases with her left hand. "Not around here, at least not at first. You're gonna be my errand boy for deliveries to Beacon Academy. The new year is about to start and I finally got added to the designated merchants list. You are gonna help me stay on it." She got a nod from her new employee, after which, to her surprise, he turned to leave. "You're not gonna ask me what your pay is?"
"Eh, I don't care," he replied with a shrug. "Some money is better than no money."
Indigo found herself grinning yet again. "Shit, new guy, I like you already."
The amber light of the evening sun ranged itself across the polished tile floor of Glynda Goodwitch's office in the main tower at Beacon Academy. The woman herself, seated behind her semi-circular mahogany desk, had almost wrapped up examination of the files of the incoming freshman class. A copious amount of notes were already on her Scroll as she tried to sort the arrivals into appropriate sets of four.
Glynda tapped the screen of her device to call up a large projection of the next dossier. This one concerned a girl named Ruby Rose. Her presence in the class seemed to be a mistake — the admission age for top-level Academy students was sixteen, not fifteen — but a glance over her file indicated why she had been skipped ahead. Immediate promotion authorized under terms of Section D, said a handwritten note in the margin. That writing belonged to Professor Ozpin, the Headmaster of Beacon and Glynda's immediate superior. "As if we don't steal them early enough," she muttered to herself. She read on to see why Ruby qualified and discovered her rather unfortunate family history; here was the daughter of two Hunters, which meant instant placement on the Academy track, and her mother had already been lost to the Grimm. Below that sad news was transcripts of her time at Signal, where the tall blonde was regaled by notes about Ruby's tremendous technical skill. "She built her own weapon?" Not only hers, but another girl's too, someone named Yang whose file she hadn't seen yet. Glynda studied the included picture. Ruby's wide smile and bright silver eyes made her heart sink. With a frown, she signed off on the file and proceeded to the next one.
The name at the top of the next file defied belief, even after she gawked at it twice. Unlike Ruby's pleasant photo, the image of Weiss Schnee was every bit as chilly as her surname and Atlesian heritage would suggest. Her icy blue eyes were iron. No smile bent her lips. She detected a vaguely bitter quality in the pallid girl's expression. Further investigation brought more surprises. Here was a girl from arguably Remnant's most powerful Kingdom, rich almost beyond measure, with two living parents and all her siblings present and accounted for; how in the world did she end up in the Academy track? Glynda scanned her private education transcripts for her Academy qualifications and clues to this mystery. She found the former in droves, but the latter proved impossible to uncover. Like Ruby's, Weiss' dossier also featured a comment from the man in charge. Voluntary application. Approved under terms of Section K. "I cannot believe this," she grumbled. Voluntary? Why would a Schnee give herself up to this kind of life? She eyed Weiss' photo again. No amount of searching her face could bring Glynda any closer to answers. Surely her family knew the truth. Surely they would have tried to stop her.
Perhaps the fact they didn't was a sign in itself. A dour Glynda signed off on Weiss' file and proceeded to the next, where the cocky grin of a lilac-eyed blonde girl waited. Yang Xiao Long was her name; she recalled seeing a portion of it before, but couldn't remember where until a moment's thought had been spent. Her father was a teacher at Signal Academy, a Beacon feeder school on the island of Patch. How much he knew about the Academies was a thought she discarded quickly. Yang turned out to be the aforementioned sister in Ruby Rose's file; Glynda could scarcely believe it given how different the two girls looked. Her intuition was right, as it turned out that the peppy-looking blonde wasn't Ruby's sister, but her half-sister, related through their father. Another handwritten note, this one from Signal Academy's Headmistress, told Glynda that Yang had no idea about her actual parentage. She confirmed this with other paperwork from Signal which had Yang list Summer Rose, Ruby's mother, as her own.
"What happened to her mother, then?" Glynda asked herself. Death during childbirth, perhaps? No wonder Ruby had been promoted a year early; such a secret would likely get the whole family exiled if it got out. Why it hadn't already was something she attributed to the somewhat loose way things were run on Patch, at least compared to Kingdoms proper. While Ruby was a little below the usual admission age, Yang seemed to be a year too late for reasons not immediately evident in her transcripts. Not that her education really mattered for Beacon's purposes. Her file earned a signature and was set aside. She made a deal with herself — one more file and she could retire for the day. On her translucent screen appeared the image of a black-haired Faunus with ebony cat ears, surrounded by her apparent mother and father. She read on about Blake Belladonna and encountered a nightmare; the language in her application was that of well-meaning parents who wanted the finest foreign education for their only daughter, since Menagerie lacked an Academy of its own. That they chose Beacon was no surprise to Glynda; Ozpin had built up its image over his tenure to a point where it towered above the other three schools. The picture of Blake with her parents was like a boot to Glynda's stomach, so fierce that she rose from her chair and walked away to gaze out one of the grand windows. "I can't sign this," she muttered to herself, glasses off as she rubbed at her tired green eyes. "Not another one."
Her signatures meant nothing, of course. Ozpin held final say on every application to the Academy. Glynda's opinion mattered only toward determining the formation of freshman teams, four-person squads that usually broke up in the sophomore year — sometimes by choice, other times by necessity as the endless hordes of beasts picked off the weak or overly heroic children. From this height she could barely pick out the coffee-and-black clad form of one particular survivor whose team no longer existed. Glynda's eyes darted back toward her screen. "I can't…" Yet she drifted toward her desk and sat down again. "Why did I take this job?"
She knew why; despite her immense strength, coming back to her alma mater was the only other option besides death out in the wilds — a purely calculated move on her part. Better to be alive than dissolved in some Grimm's abyssal innards. Up went her stylus, to sign off on Blake's file, just as it had almost four dozen previous times today.
Even as she wrote, however, Glynda wondered how many more children like Blake she could stomach throwing into the mill.
Author's, uh, post-note: Here we go! While in my previous work I had Indigo and Opher's relationship start in medias res, I thought I'd try showing them meet because, well, why not. (For those of you that read Keeper, yes, Indigo's aforementioned pub-owning best friend still is who you think it is.) And while I'm thinking about it, unless mentioned, no canon character's designs have been changed from their appearances in Volume 1 (or whichever volume they first appeared in), because their designs are what got me interested in the first place.
I couldn't resist Tock as a bit player; her design is quite fun, and her Semblance is a good benchmark to demonstrate what makes Opher a little different.