Chapter Eight: I Will Always Love You

Kuroyuri

Jaune eventually awoke, finding himself in an unfamiliar bed. He sat up and glanced around, waiting for his memories to come to him and the events of the previous night to return and clue him in. Gradually, it all returned to him as he took in the setting of the command tent and his clothing piled on the floor beside Raven's bed.

He wished he'd been dreaming. But he knew better than that by now.

Jaune rolled out of bed and set to dressing himself. His new wife had mentioned someone might try to assassinate him, so he kept glancing around as he donned his attire, though it seemed no one was in any hurry to kill him. Maybe they'd try after breakfast.

Speaking thereof, Raven said something about sending out a foraging party… that probably meant there wasn't much food on hand in the bandits' stockpile, wherever they were keeping that. Did they gather together for meals? Did they have to perform certain chores before they were allowed to eat? Jaune suspected there were a bunch of new rules he'd have to learn.

When he finally managed to step outside Raven's tent he took in the setting of Kuroyuri. Even in the light of day the village seemed dark and gloomy, with the tall buildings casting deep shadows over the courtyard and the dead trees and dilapidated ruins giving the place an air of decay. There were a handful of uninitiated bandits moving through one of the circular entrances to the town, carrying heavy burdens of wheat or pulling carts of other assorted grains. It didn't seem like they'd ransacked anyone –seeing as the only city close by was Mistral- but rather uprooted the food crop root and stem. That'd take longer to cultivate… did these bandits know anything about agriculture?

The guys in Atlesian armor seemed like they had no clue what they were doing, just carting around the wheat without even stacking it into bushels. Those wearing Vale green seemed to have a slightly better idea, as they at least carted the grains around rather than try and carry a bunch of stalks on their shoulders.

One such cart was being pulled along by a younger boy, and it was brimming over with grain. The child moved the cart over an uneven patch of pavement and the wooden contraption began to tilt over.

Jaune moved to intercede at once, taking hold of the cart before it could topple over onto the boy trying to pull it over its hump. Grain spilled over the side and scattered in the dirt and stone, but at least the child wasn't crushed under the weight of his own contraption. One of the red-armored bandits stepped over to assist Jaune in righting the cart. Jaune reached down towards the boy, but he'd already dashed away to hide behind another uninitiated bandit wearing Vale green.

Amaranth -the hulking brute of a captain directly subordinate to Raven- stormed over. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"The boy, he was in danger," Jaune frantically pointed after the child, but Amaranth took hold of the back of Jaune's head and pushed him down, rubbing the blonde boy's nose in the grains spilt to the ground.

"Do you see what you cost us?" Amaranth asked him. "If the boy had failed, the failure would've been his and his alone. Yet you intervened, and robbed us of much needed provisions. If you hadn't stepped in, we'd have lost a mouth to feed, and we'd have lost a bandit too stupid to see the ground beneath his feet. All you've done is made us weaker… and leaner."

Once, Jaune would've tolerated such bullying and taken it without complaint. Now, he had a very specific promise to honor, and nowhere in that promise did he agree to comply with what Raven's subordinates demanded of him. Jaune turned his head slightly in Amaranth's grip and said up to the brute: "I don't think that's all I've done."

Amaranth hoisted Jaune back up, tightening the grip of his fingers on the back of Jaune's head. Jaune continued to glare at him, still defiant. Amaranth snorted and relaxed his grip, stepping away from Jaune and directing another uninitiated bandit to take over transport of the grain. Jaune watched them take what they'd collected to one of the moats of the town, a handful of the uninitiated bandits setting to work with what had been harvested and what water they had collected to soak legumes and seeds. The raw wheat stalks were trimmed and ground up by simple stone machinery to make flour. It seemed the bandits had at least a basic understanding of cultivating food.

"This is not typical," came Raven's voice as she stepped over to join him, seemingly appearing from nowhere. At once, the uninitiated bandits dropped to one knee. "We don't normally have to perform such labors ourselves. But it's a useful skill for us to have."

"If you worked on that skill, maybe you wouldn't need to steal other people's food," Jaune dryly suggested.

"If you're not strong enough to hold onto something, does it really belong to you?" Raven asked. "It doesn't matter what you can grow or what you can buy; the only thing that has ever mattered is what you can take. What would it matter if we planted our own crops if others came to steal them from us? What do crops matter when the Grimm come seeking to claim your life?"

"I saw what happened in Shion," Jaune noted. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"They had resources we could use," Raven flippantly replied. "And they weren't strong enough to hold them."

"Yeah, I guess you have to be strong to hold onto some things," Jaune agreed. "Was their Dad –your husband, right?- not strong enough to hold onto you?"

Raven didn't answer him, clamping her hand down on his wrist. Jaune felt awash with the burning red of her Aura, wrapping around his arm like a length of taut rope. He felt her pulling his energy into herself, greedily sapping at his light, bit by bit.

"No one is strong enough to hold me," Raven told him flatly. "You are only here because you have a use to me. Do not ever mistake that for more than it is." She released her grip on his wrist, then pointed back to her tent. "Wait for me to return. Don't poison anyone else with your foolish notions."

She hid it well, but Jaune had struck a nerve in her. She wasn't just asserting her authority and independence, but trying to discourage his presence and undermine his opinion. She wanted to see her bandits on bent knee rather than reach out and help them in their time of need.

And more than that, she didn't want to think about the past… about that time she hadn't been quite so strong…

Mistral

Ruby slept late into the day, with Yang keeping a careful watch over her. Qrow was nearly back to full health and up and about (when not drinking, anyway) and Ren and Nora had mostly kept to themselves in their room, with Ren stepping out long enough to bring up food for the sisters before disappearing again.

Yang took stock of her belongings while Ruby slept, though she was still a bit unsteady on her feet. Her new tailcoat had a big hole poking out the back, though Raven had been kind enough to stab her midsection below her shirt line, so Yang had only ruined one piece of clothing so far. Her pants were bloodstained and probably in dire need of a wash, but things could be worse.

She glanced down at the bed she'd been sleeping in. It was the one she'd shared with Jaune that first night, after they'd split the bottle of gin now sitting on the nightstand beside it.

It was the same one Raven had lay in when she recuperated from her trip into that other dimension. Yang recalled staring across at her, trying to understand why the woman had abandoned her.

Now Jaune… and Raven…

Yang looked down at her right hand, still squeezing her fingers shut, reaching for a warm hand to hold. She hoped that wouldn't always be the case: her memories asserting themselves and compelling a physical action she hadn't instructed. Was that just the way the machine worked? Did it just assume she wanted to take hold of a hand and kept trying to achieve the task, even if there was no longer a hand to hold?

It wasn't wrong to do so. A few days ago, she'd have never wished to hold Jaune's hand. She wouldn't know the feeling of his warmth or miss holding it in her hand. She wouldn't long for something if she'd never known it.

Yang turned her attention to her hair. It was a right mess from lying half-matted in bed after a brutal fight that saw her land hard in the dirt after sweating hard into it. She didn't want to leave Ruby's side, so Yang didn't rush out for a shower, but she did comb it obsessively, trying to pull out the errant shards of dirt and to straighten the more uncooperative strands.

While running her left hand over the top of her head, she took hold of a particular clump of blonde hair that just didn't want to stay down, and while jostling it, she recalled running her fingers over Jaune's blonde head back at Beacon, encouraging him not to give up his pursuit back when he'd been chasing Weiss. Then she thought of a more recent instance when that same left hand –the one that hadn't insisted on keeping hold of Jaune's fingers- ran over his shoulder and down his chest.

She had to stop thinking about this. Ruby needed her now. Yang had to be strong enough to explain things to her sister and not let the pain of this loss deter her. She had to be the rock again, to take care of the life that had always been precious to her. Whatever Jaune had been to Yang, he'd only been that something a few days. For Ruby's entire life, Yang had been a constant. Yang recalled a time before Ruby, but only briefly… and it had not been a time that filled her with joy the way her sister had.

There would be time to be sad later. There would be time to think on her own loss once Yang was able to restore Ruby's smile. It may have been too late to save her sister's innocence or to completely repair her understanding of her place in the world, but Yang would not let Raven change Ruby any more than she had already, and would mitigate as much damage as she could. It wasn't just about denying Raven the chance to do more damage; it was about safeguarding the most important person in Yang's life.

Her right hand kept trying to clamp down, to find a grip… to not feel so cold…

Ruby took her hand too. It helped make Yang feel at home on this strange continent, to know that no matter how much she'd changed, no matter how far she was from her home, Ruby's love was still there, waiting to accept her as she was.

Yang hoped that was still the case. Yang hoped that Ruby would understand why she'd kept this secret, and believe her sister when she said she'd done it to protect her, and not complicate the simple –even idyllic- life she'd had before.

"Yang…?"

Ruby rolled over in bed and looked up, blinking those big orbs of silver up at her. Yang pulled up a wooden chair from the desk beside the twin beds, nearly falling over into it, reaching her right hand down to gingerly hold the wound in her stomach, figuring she'd put that gripping motion to some good use.

"Hey," she greeted fondly, reaching over to take hold of her sister's right hand with her left. "You feeling better?"

"I should be asking you that," Ruby argued, her voice groggy and slurred a bit. "Ugh, how long was I out?"

"Don't know," Yang admitted. "Qrow dropped by to fill in for you. I don't know how long he was here or when you nodded off."

Probably not very reassuring to hear, but it was the truth. Yang intended to tell Ruby nothing but that, if she could.

Ruby sat up in bed, still holding onto Yang's hand. Where before she'd looked up at her sister, now her gaze was downcast, her eyes pointed determinedly at the floor. For a long time they sat across from each other, silence hanging in the air between them.

Yang really didn't want to start. But she was the big sister, the rock, the example to follow. She had to be the strong one, even when it was hard for her to play the part. Especially when it was hard.

"I don't know if I ever would've told you," Yang admitted. "I didn't ever want you to think any differently about Mom or Dad or… or me. I wanted you to remember things the way they were, and never make things any more difficult or complicated than they had to be."

"But you were looking for her, weren't you?" Ruby asked. "Whenever you'd disappear on the weekends and days off, or go outside the kingdom, or went to places like that one guy's club… you were looking for Raven?"

Yang closed her eyes, counted silently, and nodded. "Yes, I was. I wanted to know why she'd left me, and I… don't know, to meet her, to understand her, maybe even at one time to try and persuade her to come back. You were still so young when Mom died you didn't see the affect it had on Dad, and…" She was making excuses. "…and I was so desperate to find her, to make any change at all, that I nearly got us killed when I took you out into the woods with me when I went searching for her. After that night, I knew I couldn't bring you along. They weren't answers you needed. They'd only make things harder for you."

"Maybe," Ruby agreed, "but then it wouldn't have been the truth, would it? You'd have been hurting all by yourself and I'd never know. Do you really think I wanted that?"

"And you'd have been a little girl thinking your big sister was busy chasing after a different mother than the one you knew, maybe even thinking she cared more about chasing a woman she didn't remember than she cared about you," Yang fired back. "I wanted to tell you. More than once, I nearly did. After we got to Beacon I kept coming up with reasons not to… I kept saying there'd be plenty of time for you to grow. I thought we had all the time in the world before… before the tournament and everything that happened."

She didn't want to mention Blake. She didn't want to think about Blake. That was another wound that hadn't yet finished healing, and though Yang was committed to telling Ruby the truth, she desperately wanted not to say it.

She had to be strong. She had to remove all doubt from Ruby's mind. She had to take all of her sister's burdens on her back and see that Ruby still looked up to her; still believed Yang would be on hand to protect her.

Yang steeled herself. "I talked to Blake about this before the dance; I was trying to help her through all the stuff she was dealing with and not let it stress her out too much. I reminded her that she couldn't let her personal obsessions ever get in the way of the people you cared about. I went out searching for Raven, yes, but it never bothered me that I couldn't find her." Yang squeezed Ruby's hand tight. "Not when I had you."

Ruby finally looked up at Yang, removing her eyes from the floor. "What you said last night…"

"You are my sister," Yang firmly repeated. "I love you, and I will always love you. Please don't ever think anything but that… please don't think that'll ever stop being true."

Ruby nodded. She pulled Yang over onto the bed and hugged her tightly. Yang was only too happy to reciprocate, at least until Ruby put a bit too much pressure down on her stomach wound. "Rubes…"

"Little longer," Ruby requested, apparently unaware of where she was positioned.

Yang adjusted herself a bit so that Ruby wasn't putting quite so much weight down on Yang's stomach, than eagerly indulged her little sister, still squeezing her right hand. "Okay."

Across the Hall

Ren busied himself fixing the damage done to Ember Celica. Whether Raven meant to permanently destroy the twin bracers or not, she'd managed to sever quite a bit of the internal machinery. Only one of the gauntlets still had its firing mechanism intact, with the other basically holding a bunch of explosive pellet rounds for nothing but decoration. Still, at least one of Yang's weapons could be fired, and with time and the proper parts he'd be able to fix the other. It was some small measure of assistance, but it kept him occupied and provided a service to his friend in her time of need.

Unfortunately, Nora had no such means of busying herself, and she'd done little but sit in her bed looking out the window. Normally she'd be upbeat and enthusiastic, but right now she seemed to devote all her energy to moping. Ren thought he should find some reason to help her, to offer some reassurance, to just hold her for a moment and help force all the sorrow back below the surface, but he couldn't give her what she wanted: to feel complete again, or at the very least, to feel less incomplete.

Perhaps once Ren had been all she needed. And in time, that may well be true again, allowing Nora to return to her usual self. But when they lost Pyrrha, she'd gone through this same process, moping in her bed and looking out at the world in case it decided to try and take something else from her. It had been some time before she was upbeat and bubbly again, and almost as protective of Jaune as she was of Ren. She'd latched onto him and adopted him as her family, and apparently had never once allowed herself to consider the possibility of losing him.

Ren knew she was tempted to march right back to Kuroyuri and demand Jaune's return, winning out over the bandits through sheer grit and determination. Whether she respected Jaune's wish or not, Ren knew that she wanted to drag him back and convince herself everything would work out and they could all remain together for the foreseeable future. She was optimistic that way.

It fell to Ren to be the realist, to drag her back down to reality. That meant he couldn't sit beside her and take hold of her, lest she do all she could to convince him to follow her and do anything and everything they could to bring Jaune back to them. He had to respect Jaune's wish and keep Nora focused on helping Ruby, even if it meant having to endure the sight of her in pain once again.

He hated to abandon his comrade –his brother- to this fate, but that was the task Jaune had entrusted him with. Ren was the rock now, holding the fragments of JNPR together, carrying on their legacy and fighting beside their friends in Team RWBY.

Yang would need her weapons, and Ren could fix them. Nora needed not to hope for another outcome and accept the reality that had befallen them and –hard as it was for him to stay away from her side- Ren could do that too.

Kuroyuri, Evening

Jaune had wiled away one maddening hour after another in Raven's tent, pacing, searching for a signal with his Scroll, or even practicing his form as best he could without knocking anything over. When Raven finally returned, she presented him with a small plate of beans and a slice of wheat bread, each dry and crusted and equally unsatisfying as a meal. Then, having given him something to keep his energy up, she promptly put that energy to use.

Jaune didn't fight her, going along with her wish… again and again… to the point he started to wonder what had come over her. Raven just did not stop, even when she was panting hard and clearly exhausted, she still tried to keep the act going.

"Again?" Jaune asked.

Raven didn't answer him then. She just kept going.

"Raven?"

She didn't hear him. She just kept going.

When at last she fell beside him, stained with sweat and gasping in desperate effort to catch every breath, Jaune looked at the back of her head as Raven pushed her face into her pillow.

The previous night she'd been aggressive, but this… this wasn't just her asserting dominance over him. This was Raven pushing herself, and needlessly so. At least, so it seemed.

Jaune reached a hand towards her shoulder. He was genuinely curious when he asked: "Are you all right?"

"Shut up!" Raven snapped, still struggling for breath as she shrugged her shoulder away from his grip. "Just… just don't talk. Just do what I tell you to do."

It wasn't like her to lose her composure. Jaune had seen it only once, when they were surrounded by monsters and she'd gone to secure him before one finished ensnaring him. Why was she so discordant now, in a setting like this?

Jaune may not have been thrilled to share Raven's bed and hated what she'd done to Yang, but seeing her like this… seeing her frustrated and disheveled without knowing exactly why…

He'd never wanted this. If circumstances had been different, he'd never have seen this. But he was there now, and honorbound to remain there, and this woman who'd decided he was her husband… this was his life now, and whatever Raven's faults, he didn't wish this strange suffering on anyone.

"What's wrong?" Jaune asked her.

"I told you not to talk," Raven snapped again, rolling over and pushing her hand down on his chest as she moved back to position.

Jaune was silent as he watched her motions. She didn't meet his eye, always averting her gaze from him or burying her head in the pillow of her bed or against his shoulder. It wasn't simple exhaustion –Raven was well past that- but a deliberate effort not to let him see her face. When her head wasn't obscured by her long mane and he could see glimpses of her red eyes, Jaune saw her eyes unfocused and glazed over. Either she wasn't thinking about all she was doing, or trying very, very hard not to think. Based on her actions, Jaune suspected the latter.

When she rolled off him and fell into the bedspread again, she landed flat on her back, staring up at the canopy of her tent. Jaune glanced her way, searching her eyes for some other emotion, some other hint to why she was behaving so, to why she didn't want to think.

Raven was quiet for a long time, save for her haggard breathing, and though aware Jaune was staring at her, she did nothing to avert his gaze this time. Perhaps she'd simply worn herself out too much to even turn her head.

"Why did you ask that?" Raven finally inquired.

"Ask what?" Jaune wondered. He honestly wasn't sure which question he'd posed would be on her mind.

"My husband," Raven snapped. "Why do you care?"

At the time, Jaune had intended only to show a bit of defiance. He'd perhaps indulged himself too much in being smart with Raven, in undermining her a little bit by reminding her of a time she hadn't been bossing a bunch of wayward bandits around.

It had clearly affected her, though not in the way he'd intended. "I care about Yang," Jaune flatly replied. He opted not to mention Ruby.

"And you think I don't?" Raven blurted out at him.

For a long time Jaune was quiet. Raven quickly came to realize her misstep, turning her head away from him, not letting him see whatever gamut of emotions ran through her face.

"I… didn't get that sense, no," was all Jaune could manage to say.

"Of course not, of course you didn't," Raven mused. "What have you ever known of loss, Jaune Arc? When have you ever had to let go of someone you loved because you'd put them in danger if you stayed?"

Jaune hadn't performed that exact action… but he knew the feeling. He knew what it was to let go when he hadn't wanted to, or to have his hand forced away for his own safety and well-being. It hurt either time and for each reason.

He didn't say it. He let Raven speak.

"I couldn't even say goodbye to him," Raven bitterly muttered. "I didn't want to leave my daughter's side, so I just… I just…"

She slapped her hand down against the fabric of her mattress, suppressing her voice with the sound. She turned towards Jaune again, pulling herself back atop him. "Forget it," she flatly instructed. "Just… just forget it…"

Was it Jaune she was telling that to?

Maybe, but it sounded less like a command… than a mantra. Raven wasn't merely trying to turn Jaune's attention from the weakness she'd inadvertently shown him, but she was doing all she could to bury the pain he'd unintentionally dragged to the surface. She was running from a memory that refused to leave her, and doing all she could not to think.

Did she regret then what she'd done the prior day? Or did she feel more guilty about what she'd done seventeen years before then? Or both?

Did it matter to her which memory she put out of her mind? Did it matter what pain she forgot so long as she forgot?

Amaranth stood sentry outside his chief's tent: grunt work for a captain, but a demonstration of loyalty from a would-be usurper. He played the part of the enforcer of the chief's will in the morning, and now he played the stalwart guard of her quarters in the night. All pretense, but a better role for him to play than his co-conspirator: Amaranth appeared loyal, even if he discreetly alerted an associate that their leader's attention was elsewhere.

Debian slipped out in the night, careful to avoid the attention of any loyalists or new recruits. Some might be inclined to back his coup, but he didn't want anyone less certain to join in before all the players were in place. Instead, he'd turn his eye outward.

It was a violation of their laws to seek help from outsiders, but their dear chief had already seen fit to break the rules all on her own, allowing her brother to live even when he'd willfully abandoned the tribe. So long as Debian kept the others alive and fed, he very much doubted they'd care what ancient codes he'd had to violate to get them there.

He hesitated outside the inn, but did eventually will himself to enter, searching for the room Raven had been staying in. When he went to knock at the door, he heard a familiar whoosh of metal cutting through the air, and felt the broad side of a sword slide under his chin.

"Come back to finish your work?"

Qrow Branwen. It seemed he was feeling better. Debian put up both his hands, showing he was unarmed. "I didn't come to fight," he offered.

"I didn't think you did," Qrow countered.

He wasn't wrong… but Debian had anticipated this response. "I came with an offer."

"What makes you think I want anything from you?" Qrow snarled at him.

"It's not you I came to see," Debian answered. "It's the girl the chief bested- Yang, was it?"

Qrow narrowed his eyes. "If you think for one second I'm letting you near my niece-"

The door opened. Yang glanced out into the hall and saw Qrow holding his sword to Debian's throat. Qrow cursed under his breath as Yang turned her attention to the wispy bandit, glaring at him and harshly inquiring: "What do you want?"

"To lead my tribe," Debian answered. "To take it from that unworthy woman and tear her down before she kills us all fighting those monsters."

"I thought you needed Raven's Semblance to move the tribe around," Qrow pointed out.

"We didn't need it in the years we went without her," Debian reminded him. "We'll find another way."

"And why should we go along with this?" Qrow asked, pushing the blunt side of his blade a little firmer to Debian's chin.

"Because I can give you back that boy she took," Debian assured him. "And more… I can give you the chief, for whatever information she has to offer you, for whatever strength she has to contribute to your war with the witch and her Grimm."

"Why should we-" Qrow began, but Yang intervened, taking hold of either flat side of Qrow's sword and pushing it away from the bandit's chin.

"Tell me your plan," Yang told him. "Tell me how we get Jaune back."