I O N M

~o 0 o~

Chapter Eight

~o 0 o~

As Senna fumbled to explain, her great grandmother watched a falsely portrayed withering cloud of anger pervading the cramped confines of the old shed. "I wanted to see what was hid beneath the trapdoor." Senna hoped her lie wouldn't be seen through too easily.

"How did you decide there was a trap door hidden here? I know I didn't leave you enough time to accidentally stumble upon this fixed section of floor that my husband for a joke thought to make appear a trapdoor."

Senna's belief that there was an actual entrance to the archive took a hit. Obviously Jaune's subconscious had noted the markings on the shed floor and used it to create the odd dream as he had died. He must have unlocked his semblance and it pushed him back in time and swapped his gender. Did that mean she could on having her aura unlocked now gain a semblance that would allow time travel and gender swapping?

Great grandmother Fay was watching Senna closely. She'd been filled in by her granddaughter on how she was worried that someone associated with Pyrrha Nikos might have looped time in enabling to train Senna with no one able to know it had happened. Fay of course couldn't help but worry, 'had Senna found something in her old shed at the bottom of her garden?' The timing was off for that and seeing the confusion shine through on Senna's face and seeing she didn't know the trick to open the trapdoor let her know Senna didn't know what she was doing in the shed. However, there were too many coincidences. True an associate of Pyrrha Nikos could have a time looping semblance it would explain how a young girl could learn enough to be a well known circuit fighter at only twelve years of age.

However, It was just as likely that Senna used the curse her father had. That didn't answer why the first thing she did when given free reign was to force her way into the archive though. "Do I get an answer today Senna?"

"I had seen this… what I thought was a trap door, in an earlier visit. I've been anxiously waiting for a chance to see if I could open it. Now I know I can't I'll leave it alone. I didn't mean to break into you shed and I guess I got carried away thinking I could force it open."

Fay thought about how Senna's words appeared to fall barely truthfully and decided to take a gamble. "You entered the archive from a different door last time, yes?" Being rewarded by Senna's face turning as pale as hard-light dust let her know that she'd hit the nail on the head. Senna had time traveled due to the archive and needed to be warned of the dangers involved.

"Take the shed key out of the door and close the shed door, Senna."

Senna was struggling to think of how to deny her great-grandmother's accusation. She automatically exited the shed to remove the key from the outside of the door and then re-entered the shed with key and closed the door before looking at Grandmother Fay. Figuring humoring her and doing as she was told would hopefully stop her accusing Senna of entering the archive before.

"Lock the shed door. You will find from inside you can turn the key completely twice not just once as can only be done from outside. It is clockwise though and the key can't be removed from the shed door after it is double locked."

Senna held in her desire to query or argue and just did as she was told. Needless to say she heard both the door's lock click on the first turn and the trapdoor's lock click on the second. She could kick herself for not thinking of locking the shed door to unlock the trapdoor instead of resorting to violence.

"Now you will find the trapdoor, that was in this shed long before your great grandfather married me, will open. I'm sure you will agree that it is better way to open it than trying to break your leg, by punching it through metal plated wooden floor boards."

On opening the trapdoor Senna saw the same metal she recalled from the day she nearly died in Beacon. Metal steps and walls descended into the hole that as before gained some light from the very metal its walls were made from. It was however far duller than the late afternoon Ansel daylight.

"After you, Senna," Grandmother Fay said magnanimously. Senna counted the steps and had got to fifteen when she saw she had entered the tubular ring of her previous visit. She failed to count the last several steps that enabled her feet to reach the ring. Once stood on the floor a chair and monitor slid out from the wall. The Monitor clearly displayed:

"Welcome back Jaune Himbroux Arc. Please provide all noticed differences between second insertion and prime. Start first with new name and date of birth."

The comment ended with a blinking cursor and the touch screen keypad on the bottom half of the display.

"Well that answers the time loop. My Father did too many too count, never realizing he was only making things worse. I'm staggered you decided to swap gender though. Considering how hard it is to get you to act like a girl." Senna's grandmother stated. Then curious asked. "Did you just decide to live your next life as a girl as after a full life of being a man it had become boring? Please tell me it was not to erase a child as if they were a mistake you made?"

"The archive tricked me. I was not even eighteen, dying, and I could return two years or nearly seven. I had the Arc Father/Son curse that made me chase the wrong girl and say the wrong things to them. If I chose the option to understand the fairer sex, I would be freed from the curse and get more years to prepare…

Grandmother Fay cut into Senna's explanation. "Vylack Arc is actually from the AE'rck pillar. I should have realized it, and that explains your Mom's concern to how he was training you and your sisters, as he is cursed too." Senna was slightly shocked to think that her father had to be cursed too. She'd angrily lumped him into the enemy category and might have not been fair to him. Senna also nervously wondered what her grandmother would think of her now knowing she was originally male.

"Well Senna I guess you need to concentrate on the good. You've gained six plus years and hopefully the ability to not die before you're eighteen. From what I learned from my Father one must be extremely careful accepting offers from the archive. It doesn't have our best interests at heart. Do you plan as I did to leave and not return, or fill it in on what your jaunt through time caused to be changed in the ripples?"

"Let's see what has changed." Senna offered and began to type her name while asking. "So the middle name you called me, do you know its spelling?"

The next thirty minutes were spent with either Grandmother Fay or Senna being surprised. "Wait you've got your Mom's birthday wrong by a few years."

"Nope she was two years behind Dad at Beacon or do I have his birthday wrong now too?" Senna asked. Only to discover that this version of her mother never went to Beacon and that Jess was two years younger than Dahlia and not her third set of twin sisters.

"Well other than a few of us getting younger or older, and yourself being gender bent it appears there were minimal changes. Let's go back to the house eat dinner and then I'll tell you a story that will hopefully ensure you never return to the archive to repeat your life."

~o 0 o~

"Mekhi, it is not the same. We've checked and seen the 'Run' is clear of any boats run aground. Instead of spending the evening and the night here, all I'm saying is we could allow the girls one dust bike to ride to the east gate while I share a bike with Raul to ride twenty yards south of the road, and you and Vylack chose one to ride the ridge line and the other between the ridge but closer to the road and get to the east gate for tonight."

Mekhi spat the wad he'd been chewing into the fire. "We are on the books for protecting 'The Run' this evening through tomorrow morning. You know it and just wish to be able to let your new bed warmer set up her wares for sale at the weekend market." He stared angrily at Ciaran and wondered if Vylack was going to go against everything he'd said before and agree too. After a pause in which no one said anything he decided to say his piece and dare the other two to disagree. "They'll have to make do with a midweek return at the south gate as we agreed before. Either of you two going to stand-up and support going against the letter of our work order."

Mekhi couldn't believe it when Vylack did slowly stand-up. "Actually we could ride to the east gate as Ciaran suggests but at first thing in the morning and not tonight." Vylack stared down and appeased both Mekhi and Ciaran. Taking a breath he continued explaining his compromise. "We'll be both where we are supposed to be doing our watch and enable the girls Saturday evening and all of Sunday to sell what is left of their goods in the weekend market. We finish our watch by Wednesday and the girls will have readied renting the hoist, engine and wagon for the recovering of the rest of their goods. We can then turn around quickly get to the crash site and back to town for the following weekend market."

Vylack raised a hand to stop Mekhi shooting down his idea without explanation. "We are still doing everything within the letter of the contract. We camp for the night above 'The Run', we ride overlooking the ridge that though it is not in the contract, but we've proved on the outward trip that it was a valid addition to this patrol." Having appeased Mekhi he then turns to Ciaran and continues. "The girls get to the east gate leaving the bike for us and don't miss all of this weekend's market. We add a couple of hours to our patrol to ensure the refugees safe return to the east gate and complete the patrol as specified per the contract with our additions. Additions that would be allowed based on resuing citizens from grimm."

~o 0 o~

Senna and Grandmother Fay had retired to the living room following their meal and were sitting in two arm chairs across the coffee table from each other. "Senna how old do you think I am?"

"You're ninety-four. We just verified your birthday was the same, before dinner." Senna replied.

"It also looks like you didn't listen to me when we first entered the archive before dinner. You're not even in the right city state and if we classify my age from my Father's point of view you're not even on the right continent." Grandma Fay exclaimed and then added after a sigh. "According to my elder brother I initially had a pair of twin brothers as well as my younger sister. I don't however have memories of one of those siblings."

"Grandma we filled in your data as having no siblings…

"In my Father's original life I wasn't born. Meaning your Grandfather, Mother, your sisters and you also originally never existed." Fay cut across Senna silencing her. "My Father married my Mother and had a son and daughter followed by a second son. The daughter was not me. His wife died in childbirth delivering the second son, and my Father reset time to erase the second son's life and give him back his wife."

Senna gasped at hearing such a selfish reason to repeat time. However, if he really loved the woman would he think he was killing his third child? "Wait a minute he reset time right after the second son was born so the sister would be a child. How could he claim she wasn't you?"

"She was nine and he repeated those years numerous times and she behaved the same way during them and beyond as the repeat was when she was older initially. I was nothing like her in appearance or personality from day one according to my father, and from the way he described her, I agree she wasn't me."

"Father claimed he noticed a pattern. It was one where after returning a dozen or so times things started changing. Slow subtle changes at first and then events came sooner. Finally everything changed and he would have to go through several resets to find away to meet our Mother once more."

An aborted sob caught in Grandmother-Fay's throat and she took a moment to recover before continuing. "Having re-acquired his wife a completely different family of kids would follow. He knew he was approaching another major change and had determined he needed a second person to agree to the time loop to put off the major change and the looped lives without our Mother." Grandmother Fay stopped and fought back tears. "Flint told me that Father had informed to him that he had reset time with having the four children from his point of view when I and Flint were initially in our fifties and it was now down to me being in my early twenties while Flint was in his mid twenties and thus why Father knew a major change was about to happen."

"Flint was the eldest twin, and Lly'jet the younger. The two did everything together according to what Flint told me. My Father explained to Flint the need for a second person to allow stability and allow a repeat as our Mother had died but she should live for at least forty more years." A sob escaped Fay and Senna crossed over and slightly unsure tried to comfort her. It was uncomfortable and awkward but her Grandmother seemed to lean into the contact so Senna carried on rubbing and patting her back.

"Flint and Lly'jet had just got married. Their wives weren't identical twins but everyone thought they were. They were born eleven months apart. The eldest just met the cut off for a new Beacon class and the youngest within three weeks of the cut off for the following year. The four of them were a team in Beacon and inseparable…

Senna's Grandmother clasped Senna's arm looking out the window but not seeing Ansel's street but something else entirely. Senna found herself sucked into her great-grandmother's recollection of her childhood.

~o 0 o~

My first memories are of my family. Later repeats of similar lives have tainted my memories of my Father. Honestly I know I was too naïve to not love him initially. I know I loved my Mother, but that has been tainted too, though it is through no fault of hers. Lastly were my elder brother Flint and my younger sister Raven. In some ways I have the clearest recollection of them, but in reality as it's been over five-hundred years since I've seen either of them, making my memory of them in my first lifetime be likely less clear than the ones of my parents in this my last one, it is likely biased reasoning.

Raven was a joy of song, dance and laughter, while Flint was her opposite. He was prone to mood swings and lashing out, interspersed with silent retrospection. Flint was a genius and I'm sure he was born an adult. He never had any friends but he always protected me and was a great big brother.

Before he left for Beacon and while our Father was away from Ansel he showed me the secret of the archive in the shed at the bottom of the garden. There he sat down and confided in me that the imaginary friend Lly'jet was actually my brother, his younger twin. It was then that he told me how he hoped and dreaded to meet his wife once more. He was unsure if he would show her the archive at Beacon and explain how last life there'd been a younger twin for his sister-in-law to marry.

Father had explained to Flint that it was just one of the differences between lives as if Lly'jet was not something to morn as lost. It was just a price worth paying to provide him his wife once more. Flint cried while he let me know he would do anything to go back to that point in time and refuse our Father. The four of them were graduates from Beacon a well known team Falcon at the prime of their life, and he'd swapped it to live as an adult in a child's body without his twin to share the repeating childhood with.

Flint confided in me his worry of him being so different now to whom he was in his first life that he might not catch his wife. That without Lly'jet would the sisters be on his team? He then told me to never let Father know I'd been introduced to the archive already. He asked the archive to hide this visit from our Father.

Flint did one further thing to protect me, though he broke my heart while doing so. He set the scroll message he sent to me to delete itself after I'd read it, and only after that did the second held message get sent from his scroll. It was a similar one to mine but addressed to Mother and Father's scrolls.

Fae'n'lly Solae Mweayd,

To my precious previously second of three younger siblings, but now the only elder of two younger sisters. I'm sorry to send this to you, but I can't go on and know that means Father will likely go to you the next time Mother dies. Having thought about all the different children Father has had, I realize we are only important in how much happiness we give Mother. She is the one and only thing Father loves aside himself and even then I wonder if it is truly love for Mother or some twisted self love that has been reflected onto her. Both you and I were not named the typical eldest son and eldest daughter names per Mweayd family traditions because to Dad we are not. If he ever loved any of his children it would be those two eldest. His first son and daughter.

The other extreme of his emotion for us children would be for his second son, who's birth caused the first death of his wife and began the break that has I firmly now believe driven Father mad. Father hated his second son. The rest of us don't really drive his emotion one way or the other. On every reset he ensures that no birth of a child can take his wife's life. Any baby that would cause danger to our Mother's life during carrying or delivery will terminate in a miscarriage before the danger.

I should have realized there would be a price to re-gaining my youth. I stole Lly'jet's life from him when I agreed to father's plan to get Mother back. Arriving at Beacon and finding neither Amber nor Crystal I checked in with the archive here and found my Amber and Lly'jet's Crystal died in a grimm attack while I was moping around pretending to be twelve in Ansel. If I'd gone to them I could have saved them. So for a greedy repeat of childhood where I can appear a genius and see my Mother again, I have lost the three most important people in my life. Team FALC, will never be.

I've set this message to auto-send and delete after you read it in the evening after Beacon's initiation trial is run. A second message will then be sent to both Mother and Father's scrolls. I will leave my weapons in the locker room and plan to find a grimm during the trial to take me as other grimm took my wife and sister-in-law when they were only twelve this life. Perhaps it will enable me to find a way back to my original life for the archive has failed to offer me any solution. At worse I will be with them once more. I can't handle being this lonely and know that as long as you have Raven you can survive without me.

I'm sorry Fae'n'lly Solae for being too selfish to bare my lonliness any more and keep searching to find another solution I am now sure is not available in this life.

Flint D'lly Mweayd

As stated I'd just read the signature when the message deleted. Part of me hoped I'd imagined the letter, but that died when less than half an hour later Mother screamed. Father checked both my and Raven's scrolls and while ensuring Mother didn't share the information with my sister and I, he also kept trying to explain the letter to Mother as Flint's inability to live in reality, of giving life to his imaginary friend Lly'jet. Father ridiculed Flint's explanation of repeating his life and losing his twin, however I could see Mother was suspicious of Father's lies.

Confirmation from Beacon came to us of Flint's death. Two weeks later Mother slit her wrists, and that evening Father was waking me up and dragging me to the archive to repeat life from the day of my birth. I did so hoping Flint and perhaps Lly'jet would be reborn.

It was after Mother lost Raven in a miscarriage that I knew without a doubt that Flint had been right that Dad didn't care about us, children, as long as he got time with Mother. I had tried to not be the moping and angry genius Flint had been. I missed not having an older brother to protect and look out for me.

However, I was far more devastated from losing my younger sister. She was my happiness. Raven could cheer up the most miserable person, and apparently Mother could not have any more children due to complications during the miscarriage. I'd killed my younger sister so Dad could have Mother back. It was tempered in my belief that Father had most likely killed Raven as this time her birth was likely to cause our Mother's death.

I was sixty-five had raised two sons and four grand children when Mother died and Father talked me into resurrecting her. For the next several repeats I didn't see any more cost, but first one son chose a different wife, then one didn't marry and I started to question if it was acceptable or was I murdering my grand children. When the request to reset occurred before I was forty, before any of my grand-children were born I realized what Flint had meant.

My Father would reset until Mother was dying before I was born and I would lose my children and grandchildren. I either had to not marry and not have children or stop my Father. I chose to stop Father. At fourteen I went to the archive while father was out of town and requested if the Archive recalled the first time I'd joined it at fourteen years old with Flint about to be heading for Beacon. I inquired if there was any way to reset and even if not gain back Flint, Jet or Raven, ensure my Father, better yet no one else, had any knowledge of the archive. Apparently as I had visited the archive nearly a month before the time my Father showed it to me in my first repeated life, there was. Regardless that on later repeats I was brought in to meet the archive while still a toddling child. I reset time back one day with the only change requested being that no one else knew anything of the archive. I reset one day because that was the least reset amount of time allowed, and the most likely to cause the least amount of change with the current lifeline.

I hope it was the life my Father had reset and not due to the one day reset I added at fourteen that caused me to only have one son, and that son to be different of either of my prior two sons. My third son choose a different wife than his brothers had and gave me a different granddaughter. However, I often have nightmares of my younger sister first two sons, and my grandchildren that my resetting deleted their chance of life. I even have ones about my elder twin brothers that blame me too.

~o 0 o~

"After returning I locked the archive and never returned to it 'till today." Grandmother Fay informed Senna finishing explaining her story of the evils of the archive. Silence dragged while Senna tried to think of something to cheer her Great-grandmother up with.

Nearly half an hour had dragged by and it was Grandmother-Fay that finally spoke. "Now Senna let me explain why you need to start wearing dresses and act more like a girl. After you can realistically behave as a girl you can go back to being a tomboy if you must, but as you have never lived as a girl you are far more in need of learning…"

Senna, though failing to stop interrupting her Grandmother due to a gasped intake of breathe at least held back her words. She stopped herself from stating her initial gut reaction that it made no sense. Compared to the cost her Grandmother had on her conscience could she not at least make her happy by wearing the outfits she had bought her?

Her Grandmother who'd paused carried speaking once she had seen Senna was not going to say whatever was on her mind. "Senna, your tomboy attitude will always come across as an act and false because you've refused to ever try being a girl. Especially if you want to chase Pyrrha Nikos you can't come across to her as anti-female. You will need to show her your comfortable with being a girl and you're not angry over the gender you were born."

Fay thought carefully tying to ensure the words would get through to her new Granddaughter. "Two to four years of experimenting with different clothing styles that girls can choose from will enable you, if you still desire, to return to a tomboy style without it looking forced, as it currently does."

Senna figured she would have to give in some on her stance of clothing. One piece of good news was this current body would look far better in a dress than the one worn by Jaune to the dance in his last life. As if her Great-grandmother knew the second that Senna was willing to capitulate she intruded on Senna's musing "You know a good ending to a rather emotional evening is finally seeing my lovely great-granddaughter, Senna Loira Arc, in one of the pretty outfits I bought for her to wear."

Senna found the pale blue blouse and royal blue knee length skirt still on the bed upon entering her bedroom. As she got closer to pick up the blouse to pop it on she realized she'd missed the similar pastel blue coloured under garments sitting on top of the blouse. The bra was a struggle, but perseverance got it on and not inside out as occurred initially.

Feeling a bit chilly in the early evening Senna looked for some longer socks and found a pair of blue leggings that though not as pale as the blouse were lighter than the dark blue skirt. She could think of them as skin tight jeans and be wearing pseudo jeans while seeming to wear a skirt, which Senna counted as a win. She was neither as chilly nor as unprotected as she felt she was without them on.

~o 0 o~

Author's Note: Last edited Oct 11th 2021 What is mine is mine all else is from RWBY please don't post or publish this story partially or in its entirity anywhere else.