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Ruby's terrified scream died in a gurgle when hands closed around her throat. Silver eyes met mismatched pink and brown filled to bursting with so much pain and hate it shocked her. What could she have done to earn so much anger, so much hatred, from her? The two of them struggled, clawing and kicking and spinning through the empty air, until Ruby managed to pry the other woman's fingers apart and shoved her away. Neapolitan kicked and flailed, turning head over heel through the air until she met Ruby's hands again.
Then, Neapolitan vanished, fading away in sparks of white and pink and brown.
A moment later, Ruby felt the… Cold, rough, wrong of the darkness, too. It burned, cold leaving trails of fire all through her body as she tumbled. She screamed, but the darkness sucked the sound of it away. She'd read, once, about pitch black, sound-proofed rooms that could make people go crazy. All alone, in the dark with nothing to look at and your own heartbeat the only sound. Here, though, she didn't even get that. That one thing to focus on.
She was nothing.
Trapped in nothing.
Falling through nothing.
She couldn't even tell if she was still screaming or not…
Then, painfully suddenly, she slammed into a wall of heat, and everything came back. Hot and humid air whipped by her, and her shriek filled her ear for the moment she had before the wind stole her breath from her. All the aches and pains of the days of fighting came back, too, throbbing in her shoulder and the aching soles of her feet. Finally, she fell free of the wet thing, staring up at a rolling ceiling of dark grey, pregnant clouds that…
That she'd just come through, frozen to the bone and soaked just as much.
For the briefest moment, curiosity overcame terror. And Ruby forced herself to roll over, eyes squinting against the wind and body wracked by shivers.
Below, a massive island stretched out, from horizon to horizon. Warm blue seas lapped at sandy beaches and waves crashed against high, jagged cliffs. Over it all stood a massive tree, towering even higher than Ruby herself was in the sky, vanishing into the clouds and the cold nothing beyond she'd come through. It had leaves that were dark, more blue than green, that sparkled and twinkled like stars from where she stood, the wind blowing through them setting off rolling colors like starlight on a dark, still pool.
Its trunk was as thick as Atlas had been wide, and maybe more, with gnarled, dark wood. Hundreds of skyscraper sized trees bloomed around it on a raised sort of plateau, separated from the island around them. And great roots as thick as skyscraper crawled out from it all, spindling and winding and coiling around each other all the way to the sea and beyond, stretching like long, squat mountains that separated out hundreds of smaller segments of the island. From them, great emerald walls rose, shimmering and translucent, to vanish into the clouds and nothing above.
Where the actual frick was she…?
She had no idea…
But she was really high up, and falling way too fast. Holding her breath like her Uncle had taught her to if she ever had to jump out of a battleship or something, she started to think. And she had just enough Aura recovered to pull off what she came up with, too...
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Once she was close enough to the ground to see it, she started looking for a good tree and an open spot on the beach. The second part was easy - the beeches were wide and open, the perfect place for tourists to relax in the sun. But the trees made it harder. There weren't any of the big oaks and maples she was used to. Instead, there were only the broad-leafed, tropical kinds of trees with narrow trunks and few to no limbs she could get her hand on. Which meant she had to think quick, tweak her idea to fit.
As she came down, she used her Semblance to carry her to the curving trunk of a coconut tree and slammed into it hard enough to send pain screaming up her leg. Ignoring it she leapt to the next trunk, and then to the next one, using each one as a little speed-break until she'd slowed down enough to leap out into the open, curling up into a ball.
She hit the ground back first and grunted for the pain, rolling in the sand until she finally came to a stop, staring up at the cloudy sky and sucking in air.
"So," she grunted, "t-that was a thing… I never wanna do again..."
But hey, she was alive, so…
That was good?
And at least it was warm here… Unlike Atlas.
A little too warm in fact…
Standing up, she looked around to make sure she was alone and stripped out of her corset. She had on a basic undershirt, sleeveless and spaghetti strap but the long sleeves were wool. And wet, too. She stripped it off and turned to drape it over a coconut tree that had grown in a weird sort of sideways 'Z' shape, with a long curve in the middle that snaked down and back up weirdly. With tha gone, she pulled the rest on and tucked her hood up over her head to ward off the sun.
It wasn't much, but not having wool on was probably a good idea in tropical weather…
More importantly, "Yang fell before me… And Blake fell when I did, too. Does that mean they're here somewhere, too?"
It was a leap, assuming that everyone who fell wound up on the island, somewhere. But maybe that was why Ambrosius had warned them about falling? He knew they would end up… Wherever they were, now? It'd make sense. That was a heck of a fall.
And not one of the people Cinder sent flying would have survived, either…
"Focus!" She chided herself, clapping her hands to her face to force her mind back on track. Turning to look out at sea, she murmured, "You need to find Blake and Yang… And anyone else that's still alive down here… Aaaaand hopefully not die, either."
That would be nice…
First step in a situation like this, they'd been taught, was the easiest. Check your Scroll. Fishing hers out she flicked it open and checked the broadband. Nothing, which meant no CCT access which… Okay, that wasn't too surprising, really.
Next she checked the short-wave, Scroll to Scroll, signal… Which was empty, too. She didn't even have a weak connection to Yang or Blake, or anyone else.
Next, she checked her Scroll's locator. Even without a CCT connection, it should be able to tell her where the nearest signals were coming from. Even if they were only traces, a Scroll could detect them, if not use them. But…
Nothing.
Not even a ping off of anyone's Scrolls! Even if they couldn't connect, they should be able to detect the Scrolls signals just a bit… Or even the Scrolls from the other people that had fallen. But there was nothing.
At least her Scrolls internal compass was working, the needle on the app pointing steadily…
At the giant tree.
"Well I'm sure that's a complete, total coincidence." She snarked at the empty air, closing her Scroll with a groan. Who knew what magic, and that tree was definitely magical, did to Dust based technology?
"For now, I'll just… Use the tree as North, I guess." She sighed, turning and collapsing on the bank of sank and clay around the roots of the tropical tree. It was firm, and dry, and her shorts were already filthy, so it was good enough. Opening up her Map-App, she held the Scroll up and hit the 'map' button.
It chimed gently for a few moments before a peppy bell rang and a cheery voice said, "Local map - complete!"
The map was simple, laying out about fifteen yards in every direction, but it was a start. Most of it was coastline and ocean that she could see, and there were a few blindspots where hills or rocks or too-thick growths of trees and plants. But she did see what the map suggested as a 'possible water area', where the ground dipped and wound through a length of the map. Like a creek, or small river, would.
"As good a place to start as any…"
The walk was short, but after the cold of Atlas, the hot sun and warm breeze were… Nice. It all reminded her of Patch, of home. Of long walks with her sister and father on the beach to get fire-roasted fish-on-a-stick. Then, they'd gather wood from the woods around the house and roast marshmallows together, and tell stories. But she was a long way, and a long time, from all of that…
She shook the memories off with a frown and a sigh, "Survival first, roasted marshmallows later. Or, well, at least fish..."
Blake would love that…
She shook the melancholy off again as it came on and frowned, looking around.
"What is going on…?" It was like back with the Apathy… Memories and feelings kept just, slamming into her. But it was too easy to shake off for it to be Apathy, and she wasn't forlorn and apathetic, either.
She turned to look up at the towering, shimmering tree. Maybe…
A thunderous roar cut her line of thought off and she turned, looking into the brush beyond the more scattered and sparse tree-line along the sandy coast. That kind of roar… It had to be a Grimm. And since Grimm ignored animals, that had to mean someone had survived. And whoever it was, they were under attack. Unarmed or not, she had to look for them, try and help.
At the very least, maybe she could distract it…
Or use her Eyes on it.
Another powerful, sonorous bellow rocked the forest and she took off, ducking under limbs and trunks and leaping over and around underbrush. It didn't take long to find what she was looking for - she only had to follow the tremors that ran through the ground, and the trees falling ahead of her. Pretty obvious signs to follow, those.
Finally, after just a couple minutes of running, she found the edge of a clearing around a small pond at the bottom of a shallow basin. But…
It isn't a Grimm.
Its hide is a ruddy brown color, with a leathery texture, mostly hidden by long, thick feathers that ran down its back and thick, muscled flanks. They were dark greens and blues, mixing in strange, kind of… Swirling patterns. At its neck, these feathers shortened and turned white, surrounding its jaw and running up onto the top of its head like an old man's white hair, broken up only by a couple of little red horns. Then, they elongated into even thicker, more barbed feathers in a dozen fibrant shades of red and yellow and violet that ringed the monster's eyes and the back back end of its gaping, sharp tooth filled jaw. Its back end did the same, feathers flowing to white as they reached the base of its tail and its hips, and then flaring red down half of its tail-length, while the rest laid bare of all but a few short, stubby red feathers.
It was like a Mega-Rex, but… Not a Grimm, and covered in feathers. But somehow, it was just as terrifying.
And its target, dragging itself away on hands and knees, wasn't one of the fallen people either…
Neopolitan shattered into shards as the giant lizard's maw closed around her, and it bellowed for having been tricked. But she'd only managed to get a few feet away and to the side, and scrambled quicker as it turned to her, bass filled growl rumbling around the clearing. She wasn't even armed… Her sword lay in the short, spiky grass a few yards past the end of the lizard's tail. And somehow, Ruby doubted Neo was doing much better for Aura than Ruby herself was. Enough for a couple bursts of Semblance, or to ward off a couple hits, maybe, but not enough to fight.
For a frightening, dark heartbeat, Ruby actually considered just turning and leaving...
Who knew how many people Neo had gotten killed? Or killed herself?
But was Ruby really different if she just left her to die…?
Well… Yeah, obviously. But not by nearly enough for Ruby's liking.
"Yang's gonna kill me…" She sighed, sinking to a knee and then stretching out in a runner's stance, eyes locked on the sword. "Well, here goes stupid."
She was short on Aura, and definitely going to need it, so with a deep breath, she took off in a wind sprint. The kind you definitely didn't use in combat, because it took the breath right out of you, drained your stamina and left you vulnerable if you were caught. But it was a fast run, and that was what she needed right now.
If she tried to fight the big lizard, she'd die anyway, without Crescent Rose on hand…
Seconds later, chest burning and legs screaming, she slid to a knee and wrapped a hand around the sword's hilt. It was awkward in her hand, and nott just because it wasn't an eight or so foot long scythe. It's handle felt like it had been fitted perfectly to its owner's hands, with the slightest bit of grooving for grip and nothing else. But it would do the job.
Ignoring the burning in her aching ribs Ruby stood, turned-
Wide, mismatched eyes met hers across the little clearing, set in a confused, angry, afraid, and somehow at the same time, just the least bit hopeful. Gritting her teeth, she sucked in a breath, and pushed her Aura as hard as it would go.
The monstrous lizard roared as her borrowed sword carved into its eyes and a flurry of petals flew around its head. Ruby kicked off as the creature staggered away, shaking its head and snapping impotently at the air, as if the air itself had attacked it.
Turning, Ruby shouted, "I'm here to help you, so if you stab me, I will let the big dino-thingy eat you. Got it?!"
Neo only nodded, and that, Ruby figured, would have to be enough to trust her. It wasn't like Neo was going to tell her that she could trust her…
Sprinting over to the downed woman, Ruby shoved the sword into her arms with a grunt of 'hold, please' and then scooped the woman up in her arms and turned. Neo was tiny, she noticed first. Light as a feather, and almost frail feeling, even by Ruby's metric. And she trembled in Ruby's strong arms as the monster turned back to them, glaring down with its one good eye.
Sighing, Ruby murmured, "Here's hoping this works…"
It lunged, maw of razor sharp teeth open and ready to crush them, and Neo's hands balled against Ruby's chest. But as it came down, Ruby lit the rest of her Aura up, and carried them away. They made it a couple yards past the tree-line before she felt her Aura strain and fade away, but as Ruby's foot came down, she felt the tremors of another thundering roar shake the trees around her and knew way better than to stop.
Legs burning, chest aching, and eyes watering, Ruby ran for both their lives as fast as her legs could carry them. And maybe even faster, judging from the lances of pain crawling up her calves and thighs. But better aches and pains than an early grave in a monster's tummy...
Or, at least, so her dad liked to say.
They hit the beach, literally, a minute later, tumbling into the sand when Ruby's foot caught loose sand where she expected clay and slipp. Exhausted, she could only manage to toss Neo ahead of her as she came down. Hacking up the sand she'd swallowed when her face hit the beach, and ignoring the scrapes on her cheeks and brow, Ruby staggered up on all fours and looked for her…
Well, for her Neo, for lack of a better way to refer to her.
She was a few feet away, back to Ruby and arms cradling her leg while she hissed loudly. Wary, but worried, Ruby stood up and paced around the woman, just out of sword reach just in case.
Her eyes met Ruby's with nothing but hate, now, but Ruby ignored them and looked down at Neo's leg.
It was obviously broken, and not minorly, either. Her foot rested at a slightly odd angle and hung limp, and there was blood pooling on the woman's shin where the bone must have broken through. It was a nasty injury, and there was more blood now than when Ruby had seen her earlier. Or, at least, she was pretty sure that was the case.
Which probably meant Ruby had hurt her worse when she threw her…
That… Was very not good.
Without a word, Ruby ran back to the trees and scoured the ground for what she needed. When she didn't find it, she looked up, until she found a long, thin enough to break but not thin enough to be fragile, pair of limbs crawled up the tree to them. It was hard to get them free without something like an axe or even a knife, but after a couple minutes she'd managed it, and toted them back to the beach on a shoulder.
She dropped them a few feet from Neo and pointed at the leaves, "I need your sword to clean it. And to cut you bandages and binders."
Neo's confused head cock was a clear enough, 'Why?'
"You're hurt." She answered simply, kneeling and holding her hand out expectantly, both brows raised. If Neo chose bleeding on the beach until something sniffed her out and came for a snack, or it got infected, that was her choice.
But it was Ruby's job to give her the choice.
A second passed and Neo pitched the bloody sword to her. Ruby nodded and picked it up, setting to work cutting the leaves off of the limbs. When she was done, she used one to wipe the blood off and then used her half-skirt to get the sap off of that. Finally, she went up the beach to find her wool shirt. It was sturdy, warm, and combat-rated, not to mention expensive…
But right now, it was eighty degrees, and wool was not a good plan.
Coming back, she dropped the sword in the sand by Neo and grunted, "Cut your pants off above the knee."
Neo gave her a look, but did as she was told, pinching her tight pants up a bit and then using the point of her sword to put a hole in, and then started cutting it open. While she did that, and rolled the cloth down over the break with gritted teeth and watering eyes, Ruby ripped the sleeves off her shirt and draped the rest over a shoulder. She ripped one of the sleeves up into half a dozen smaller strips and the other into two long pieces.
By the time she was done, Neo was too, and Ruby could see the break.
It wasn't as bad as Ruby had feared, but it wasn't great, either. The leg was resting at just the slightest bit of an angle that jutted off about halfway down her shin, and she could see the tiniest head of white in the middle of all the blood. But the bleeding wasn't too bad, and the angle wasn't either. So…
"I need to straighten the bone." Ruby warned, eyeing the sword pointedly and then meeting Neo's eyes.
With a sigh, the wounded woman pitched the weapon past Ruby and Ruby tuned, smacking it with a stick. Then she stood up and paced over to Neo, and bapped her on the shoulder too. It wasn't too hard of a hit, but Neo flinched for it and looked up at her with a very obvious, 'What the hell?'
"Testing." Ruby answered simply, kneeling in the sand and taking one of Neo's hands. She put it on her shoulder and nodded understandingly, "This is gonna hurt, so… Don't be afraid to squeeze as hard as you need. Just don't move your legs. Okay?"
Neo licked her lips, flicked a look to her leg, then grimaced and nodded.
Carefully, like her Aid classes had taught her, Ruby used the shirt of her blouse to wipe the blood away and then pulled out her portable canteen. It was bad to waste water, she knew, but the wound needed to be cleaned first. So she emptied it doing that, dabbing at the wound with the wool while she did. When that was done, she wrapped one hand around Neo's ankle and rested the other on her shin, just below the break.
Carefully, over what felt like an hour but could only have been ten minutes, Ruby coaxed it straight and pushed the bone back into place. Neo's hand squeezed on her shoulder hard enough it hurt and laid flat in the sand, back arching while she cried and beat the sand with her free hand. But she kept her legs still while Ruby worked. When she was done, she wrapped one of the 'bandages' around the gash and then layered another onto it, and then measured out her legs to break the wood into a suitably long splint. With four lengths of wood half as thick as Ruby's forearm to brace it, she tied it taut and grimaced.
It was haphazard, and none of this had been ideal, but…
It would hold for a few days, while Neo's Aura went to work.
Speaking of…
The woman lay in the sand, eyes lidded and chest heaving, and covered in sweat. She was exhausted, and in pain, but still cognizant enough to meet Ruby's eyes when she knelt beside her and held up a couple pills.
Her eyes narrowed and flicked to Ruby's and she explained, quietly, "For the pain and inflammation. If your Aura has to fight both of those, too, it'll slow down the healing."
In the end, Ruby had to let Neo take the package and inspect the drugs before she would take them. And she kept it, too, tucking it into a pocket and sighing as she lay back in the sand. When Ruby's arms dipped under her shoulders and thighs, though, she stiffed and turned hot and angry again.
"I need to get you out of the sun." She explained, "My Map-App found a creak nearby, so… Hopefully there's shade and water. We can rest there while you heal."
The woman's brows furrowed, but not in anger this time. Instead, it was confusion.
"I'm a Huntress." Ruby explained quietly with a shrug and a smile, "I help people. Even, uh, people like you."
That only seemed to confuse her more, but she didn't resist as Ruby stood and turned to head the way the Map-App had said. She'd need to come back for the rest of the wood, bandages and the sword. But as long as Neo was cooperating, she was willing to count her blessings.
And maybe they'd be able to get out of here, somehow, working together.
Or at least find whoever else was out here...
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Okay, so-
This is an experimental fic. Basically, a start of an idea I got stuck in my craw. Anyone is free to take this and do what they like, including me. What will happen, I dunno, but still.
Now, a few details-
The 'big lizard' is a carnotaurus, imagined as I like. I know it's up in the air if the carnotaurus was feathered or not, but I flipped a coin and it came up feathered. So I hope you like what I did with that. There will be other dinosaurs in this, they wil have feathers. Those that don't accept they were feathered can deal with it, I like the look better AND they were, factually, feathered as far as we can know.
The other characters are also on the island. Where? How are they? That's spoilers~ And partially undecided, too.
I, at time of writing, INTEND this to be a Strawberry Shortcake fic. Adoptees don't need to do that, though. And as the story evolves, I don't know if that will end up happening.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed, leave your thoughts. If Supporters like it, or it explodes, I may continue it. But I mostly did this to get the idea out of my brain so i could focus on other stuff.