Chapter 7 (Interlude)
"I'm not interested in anyone's guilt. Guilt is a luxury we can no longer afford.
-?
Ghira didn't want to think that one of his people was capable of not only sending a bomb but doing so knowing that they could be killing innocent people if it ever did go off. Nevermind that the person it was intended to kill was Jacques Schnee, a man who was notorious for his dislike of the faunus people and borderline slave labor practices, but the blast size of the bomb was apparently strong enough to kill just about anyone within half a mile; having been strongly enhanced by both fire and earth dust to cause maximum damage. It left Ghira with the strong urge to both flip his desk in a fit of rage and vomit his guts out at the same time, an experience he wasn't eager to explore and thus settled on drinking a nice cup of tea made by his loving wife.
There was a growing number of supporters for more violent actions within the White Fang, those that believed the only way to make people listen to them was to drag them from their homes and burn everything they owned. It wasn't many, not even a full quarter if he was being honest with himself, but the head of the group was a man by the name of Scar Khan; who himself was the father of a young girl named Sienna Khan. Ghira didn't want to point fingers, but Scar was the most likely culprit; or knew the culprit at least. It also didn't help that Scar's wife, Sienna mother and to whom she shared the most physical characteristics, died in a mining accident that was swept under the rug with all benefits being denied to her family.
The motive was there, Scar had expressed on numerous accounts how he longed to make the S.D.C. pay for the death of his wife. The weapon of choice was clearly a modified blasting charge used to clear large rocks, something of which Scar was more than able to get his hands on. The means by which he could even do such a thing was quite evident. The opportunity came in the form of Scar taking a break from the White Fang, supposedly to raise his daughter and give her the attention she deserved.
All in all, Scar was at the top of Ghira's suspect list.
"Could one of our own really be behind this attack?" Ghira stroked his beard in thought, trying to think of any other person that could do this kind of attack and have the motive to blame it on the White Fang.
"Is that a rhetorical question, or do you want me to answer," sitting on the bed across from Ghira, wrapped in only the thin silk sheet from their bed, was a very naked Kali with a glow about her that made him smile.
"Sorry," Ghira closed his scroll and moved to climb back into bed with his wife, the towering form of his muscled body easily dwarfed her own and strong arms pulled her tight body close, "I don't mean to bring work home with me like this."
Kali snuggled deeper into her husband's side, long nails raking through the patch of hair on his chest, and let out a humm of approval when his meaty hands grabbed a handful of her rump. She still felt the fullness from when he was inside her not an hour ago, the evidence of their attempt at making a baby warmed her in a very special kind of way.
"You think it was someone trying to frame us, make everyone think we're some kind of terrorist group?" Kali asked, peppering her husband's large muscles with soft kisses, looking up at him under a veil of long eyelashes.
Ghira let out a weary sigh, "I'd rather it be someone trying to frame us than the alternative."
"The alternative?"
"That the White Fang aren't as united as I thought, that some of us have become so desperate that we're sending bombs to people's homes, and that I'm only just now noticing it. If what Mr. Potter is insinuating turns out to be true, if one of us really did send that bomb, then we've lost almost all of the moral high ground. I hope this isn't true," he slumped down even further into his large and very soft bed, Kali taking this opportunity to all but curl up on top of him.
"Well you won't figure it out tonight, so relax and let your loving wife do what she does best."
When it comes to having a baby, Kali Belladonna was quite the determined woman.
People in general, be they human or faunus, have an almost universal ability to take a negative experience and apply it to an entire group without any logical evidence to back it up. If a human is robbed by a faunus then evidently the entire faunus race is nothing more than a bunch of low life thieves. If a faunus is discriminated against by a human, then it's very logical to believe that every human in existence feels the exact same way and there can be no exceptions. The phrase, "A person is smart but people are dumb" fits the situation rather aptly.
For Harry was now experiencing the unique perspective of being an outsider in a land filled with the downtrodden and abandoned; seen as the universal face of the people that put them in this position. He could see it in their eyes, the way they tracked his movements like a wary wolf. They all but refused to engage in even the smallest bit of conversation, their ingrained anger towards his species made them tense and just a bit rude.
As such, as dubious as it may sound, Harry had no sympathy for them at all.
He could understand where they were coming from, emotions often clouded his own mind in his younger years and got him into a tremendous amount of trouble, but he wouldn't feel sympathy for people that acted in the same manner as those they accused of treating them unfairly. He'd help them of course, everyone needs help at one point or another in their lives, but he refused to feel sympathy for them.
"The people here don't like us," leave it to Cinder, a child, to blatantly point out something that others would have been cautious just whispering about, "Why?"
Casually they walked deeper into the market, Harry's cane clacking against the stone with each step he took.
"Ignorance," Harry said first, not breaking his stride as he continued to guide Cinder, "Fear, anger, a misplaced sense of vindictive retribution. If you can think of a negative emotion, something so base that it's almost primal, then you've got your answer."
Cinder's eyebrows scrunched up, "Like how people in Mantel feel about people up in Atlas?"
"In a much deeper and more wide spread way, yes," Harry motioned Cinder over to a small bench, pausing for a moment to let a stampede of fun loving children pass by before they trampled him.
He sat down with an ease that would have painted him as a young man had the grey in his hair not told a different story, Cinder claiming the spot next to him with a small jump considering her height. Her new dress, something more suited to the warm climate they found themselves in, wrinkled up just a bit but was quickly smoothed out.
"Is that why we're here, to make them like us?" Harry glanced down at his little companion's question, the right words proving hard to find when the wrong ones so easily jumped out.
"Not...not in the sense you're thinking, little one. You can't make someone like you. You can put on a mask, play to the things they like and side with them to gain their trust, but that's not real," Harry reached over and put a hand on Cinder's shoulder, the light wrinkles on his face smoothing out just a bit, "In the end it's best to just be yourself and let people decide for themselves if they like who you are."
"Then why do you pretend to be friends with Mr. Schnee?"
"Why do you think?"
Cinder opened her mouth to answer…
In the Land of Darkness, where the shadows lie and the Grimm are birthed, there sat a tall and lonesome tower surrounded by not but desiccated earth. Like the fairytales of old, this tower also held within it a queen that had once been rescued by a valiant warrior. Yet now this queen was dark, angry at being that no longer truly mattered, and sought to remake their creation in her own image.
An old soul.
A spiteful woman.
A witch.
Salem.
"Well well, it seems a new piece has joined the game. Now which side will he choose, I wonder? The Liar White King or the Evil Black Queen?"
I've got to say, it was hard to find the motivation to write RWBY after whatever that thing that the latest season was. Sure some parts of it were enjoyable, I liked the big bad wolf all the way up to the point it got taken out like last night's spoiled chinese food, but the bad outweighed it by a lot for me.
So, bitching and excuses aside, here's the latest chapter and I hope at least someone enjoys it.