Being a Huntress hadn't prepared Heather Shields for everything. She was amazed, and glad, that the world still had the power to surprise her. These two children certainly pulled the trick.

She pegged their ages at thirteen, maybe twelve. The girl was quite short, with red, almost orange hair, pale skin, and light green eyes. The boy was taller, with dark hair and eyes that were… pink? Had to be a trick of the light. Both teens wore clothes that were a small step above rags. She seriously doubted if the kids had ever washed those clothes. Or themselves, for that matter.

They were beyond filthy, both of them. They were also painfully thin, with dark circles under their eyes. Heather could see they were on a first-name basis with hunger.

But as dark as those circles under their eyes were, as filthy and downtrodden as they were, there was nothing broken or beaten about them, even with their hands tied in Huntress-grade bolas. The boy looked almost supernaturally calm; the girl's chin was up and fire was in her eyes. Heather liked that look.

"I can see that you've been in worse positions than me picking you up," she said.

At that the girl sprang up from her chair, planted one leg on the table (despite being laughably short), and declared, "You're getting nothing out of us, copper!"

Heather raised an amused eyebrow. "What do you think I want out of you?"

"Ha!" the girl said, not offput even a moment. "That's called leading the witness! I ain't talking to you until I've spoken with my lawyer!"

"You have a lawyer?"

"I see, judging us on our appearance, eh? Nice profiling, copper!"

"I'm not law enforcement," said Heather. "I'm a Huntress."

"Even worse!" cried the girl, hefting herself up so she was standing on the table. "Then you've got no jurisdiction. Huntresses don't get to just swoop in and scoop up minors! Explain yourself!"

Heather laughed at the girl and looked at the boy. "You can stop trying to wriggle out of the bola," she said.

The boy froze. His expression never changed, but somehow Heather still picked up surprise from him. Maybe she was projecting, or maybe it was because the girl frowned, dropped off the table, and sat in her chair again.

"Good tactics," Heather complimented them. "She goes on the offensive and draws all the attention while you work to free yourself. This isn't your first time in a pickle like this."

The teens glowered at her. Or at least, Heather corrected herself, the girl glowered enough for both of them.

"If it's all the same to you," Heather continued, "please put your hands on the table."

"We'll never…" the girl began, but the boy put his hands on the table, and she trailed off. Heather could see that the bola she'd hit the boy with was still intact, despite his efforts to squirm out of it. The girl pouted, then copied the boy.

"What business does a Huntress have with a couple of urchins?" the boy asked. His voice was as even as his expressions.

"None, really," said Heather. "I'm just friends with the owner of the corner mart near where I picked you up. We were chatting, and she told me the most peculiar story. About a year ago, petty theft in her shop dropped almost to zero… except for spices."

She watched the children. They didn't react, except to slip even deeper into what seemed to be their default expressions.

She continued. "Salt. Pepper. Cayenne. Half a dozen others. They were the only things being pilfered anymore. She thought it was really strange."

"What does that have to do with us?" the girl asked.

Heather reached below the table and raised a small burlap sack. That got the kids' attention; they both started forward in their seats, eyes wide with panic. Heather placed the sack on the table and opened it. Inside were small containers of various seasonings.

"My curiosity was piqued," Heather admitted. "You don't seem like gourmets to me."

The teens seemed to shrink before her eyes.

"Don't think that means you're in trouble," the Huntress added. "You were right about me not being law enforcement, after all. I have my own ideas of how to do things. Some of those ideas involve helping you."

She could tell from their expressions they didn't believe that for a second. Time for a leap of faith, then. She reached forward and pressed a button on the hub of each bola. The ropes released, snapping back into the hubs, which fell into her waiting hands.

Their hands released, both children flexed fingers and wrists before looking at her suspiciously.

"I'm not giving you over to the police no matter what happens," Heather explained. "All I wanted was to get across the idea of 'don't run away'. When this interview is over, you'll be walking out that door. This interview is to determine your destination when you do."

The girl made to stand up again, but the boy reached a hand out to her. He seemed to… flash gray? The girl shot him a questioning look. Though his expression never changed, she apparently got some message out of it. She sat. "What do you wanna know?" she asked.

Heather gestured again to the spices. "Why steal these? In a store full of food, why pick out things that have no caloric value on their own?"

"We don't like stealing," mumbled the girl. "We try to steal as little as possible."

The boy nodded and looked at Heather. "Have you ever had to eat food other people think is inedible?"

Heather hummed. "Well, there are plenty of people who joke that survival rations are inedible, but that's not true."

The mention seemed to animate the girl. She tossed her head back, a huge smile on her face. "Oh, man! One of the best stretches in our life was because of survival rations!"

Heather blinked in surprise. "Really?"

The boy sighed, as if he knew where this was going. "It wasn't 'one of the best'…"

"Sure it was! We ate like queens!"

Heather looked at the two in incomprehension. The boy looked to her. "A box of survival rations fell off of a convoy between two towns."

"I've heard that one before."

"No, it literally fell off a convoy," he said, willing her to believe. "The convoy was under attack by grimm as it travelled between villages. We were hiding off the side of the road. When the grimm passed, we grabbed the box."

"You hid from the grimm?"

"He can hide from grimm perfectly," the girl boasted.

That was interesting if it were true. "Okay. So, you found a box of survival rations. And?"

"And we ate them," the girl said with vast satisfaction. "We ate like queens."

"And after two weeks, your digestive tract was packed completely solid," the boy said, closing his eyes. "That's when we learned you can't eat only dehydrated, super-preserved food for long stretches."

"Totes worth it."

Heather tried to wrangle them back on track. "The spices?"

The children's faces, so briefly bright, turned dark again. "They're why we don't need to steal anything else," the girl said.

The boy nodded his agreement. "You can choke down almost anything with a little seasoning. If we can't find or buy good food, we eat… not-so-good food."

"You'd sooner eat garbage than steal decent food?" Heather said, seeking clarity.

"We don't like stealing," the girl replied shame-facedly. "Stealing to feed yourself just means someone else is going hungry. We try not to."

The boy reached for the spices with something approaching reverence. He touched each of the containers, one by one. "I've stretched this cumin for four months. This cinnamon's lasted three months. I can't do as well with the salt. Everything needs salt. I can barely make salt last six weeks."

Heather couldn't believe her ears. These children, willfully staring down hunger, ate garbage because they didn't want to steal, and stole only enough spices that they could choke down the garbage. It was dumb and beautiful and well-intentioned and pathetic, all at once.

"How big is your turf?" she asked.

"Two blocks in each direction, centered on the…" the girl stopped. "Which syndicate are you with?"

"I'm a Huntress," Heather replied.

"Pfft, like that matters."

"I'm not with any syndicate," Heather said.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Suuuure."

"But you have turf," Heather said. "You keep other homeless kids and criminals out of it."

The children nodded.

Heather knew what that meant, in turn: they could fight. No one had territory unless they could defend it. That almost guaranteed that they could wield aura, and the boy, at least, had found his semblance, even if Heather wasn't quite sure of its particulars.

Heather was coming to a conclusion. A plan was bubbling up. She could almost hear the scolding from her husband. You have a kid of your own, and you're off mothering others? Of course, he knew that habit of hers, and he'd married her anyway, so…

"I have an idea for you two," she said. "I think you deserve better than living on the streets."

They didn't need to say anything to show their skepticism.

"I think some introductions are in order," said Heather. "It's only polite. My name is Heather Shields. I'm a graduate of Refuge Combat School and Haven Academy, and I've been working as a Huntress in Mistral for the past seven years. I'm married and have a child who lives in the outskirts of Mistral City." She smiled. "Your turn."

"I'm Nora," said the girl. "I've never been to school, I don't have a job, and I have no family. Other than Ren, I mean."

"I'm Lie Ren," said the boy. "The only school I ever attended was pre-primary in…"

He choked on the name; from his expression, he looked shocked he'd almost said it.

"I'm sorry," said Heather, meaning it. "That's about the time you became an orphan, then."

She didn't ask for a response so that he wouldn't be compelled to provide one. He'd withdrawn into stony silence. The girl seemed to be trying to simultaneously comfort Ren with her presence and glare daggers at Heather. For her part, Heather's estimation of the children went up another notch. That was a young age and a long time to be living in the wilds.

She reached below the table again and retrieved the other item she'd stashed there. At the sight of it, both children rose from their seats, raw emotions on their faces.

Heather unwound the cloth that had been wrapped around it in a crude effort at preservation. The prize was a dagger with a wavy, jet-black blade and an inlaid gold swirl. More gold formed the hilt and extended up along the recurve. This was no mass-produced survival tool. This was a custom-forged personal sidearm, equal parts weapon and heirloom.

"That's not yours," Ren said, voice more heated than it had ever been, cracking from the strain of seeing the dagger in someone else's hands. "Give it back."

"Yeah, give it back!" shouted Nora in sympathy.

"In a minute," said Heather, tracing a finger along the blade. Her aura shimmered against its edge. Its care had been amateurish, she could see, but devoted. "Did you know that some weaponsmiths have distinctive design elements? A signature of sorts, you could say. The smith who signed his weapons like this," her finger followed the golden swirl, "was reported lost. In Kuroyuri."

Ren looked stricken, like he didn't know whether to try and rip the dagger from Heather's hand or sink into a hole. After several seconds of rocking back and forth, he plopped back into his chair, seemingly exhausted. Nora threw a gangly, frail arm over his shoulders and tucked him close against her.

"You lost your family in Kuroyuri," Heather said, again phrasing it so that Ren wouldn't have to answer. "The dagger is all you have left."

After several seconds, Ren managed a nod. "It was my father's," he mumbled, though agony was plain on his face.

Heather was certain he was telling the truth. "I'm sorry for your loss," she said. She had been in school when Kuroyuri fell, but the city's destruction had entered the curriculum almost immediately. She'd done a case study on it during her time at Haven. There had been very few reported escapees from that catastrophe, but with so many grimm swarming the area for its residual negativity, the search had been less than thorough.

The plan solidified in Heather's mind. She nodded. "This belongs to you," she said, passing the dagger back to Ren handle-first. They looked at her in suspicion and terror, as if amazed she wasn't stabbing them with it. Finally Nora swatted at the dagger, cat-like, and came away with it in her hands. The shock on her face was clear. She handed the dagger back to Ren like it was a holy relic; he received it in the same mode, cradling it with loving care.

"You'll be needing it," Heather added.

The teens blinked at her, uncomprehending.

"There is a scholarship fund at the combat schools and academies. It pays tuition, room, and board for orphans to attend. You're… what, twelve, thirteen?" she prodded. Ren nodded; Nora shrugged. "That works, you're in the right range. I'm headed in the direction of Refuge anyway. I'll take you out there, help you register, and get you enrolled for the next semester."

They looked at Heather without understanding. They were still stuck in Kuroyuri.

Okay, she thought. What do they really care about?

"How does three meals a day and a roof over your head sound?"

Suspicion flooded their faces. "Too good to be true," said Nora. "What's the trick?"

"No trick," said Heather.

"You're not just fattening us up to render us down later?" said Nora. "You're not setting us up to be someone's domestic servants? We're not going to end up in some bandit camp in a few days, are we?!"

Street urchin horror stories, Heather thought. "Refuge is a combat school. You'll be going there…"

"As practice dummies?!" Nora shrieked.

"…to learn how to fight," Heather said calmly. "So that you can become Huntsman and Huntress, like me."

"Too good to be true," Nora repeated.

Heather hid her sigh by stretching her arms over her head and leaning backwards. "Okay, you found me out. My nefarious plan has always been to haul you off to pit you against danger and death. You'll be face-to-face with mortal peril on a daily basis. There's a decent likelihood you'll die before you've doubled your age."

Perversely, that seemed to put the children at ease. "Now that's believable," said Nora. "Where is this doomtown?"

"Refuge Combat School."

It was almost worth the effort just to see the surprise registering on the kids' faces. "I'm being serious," said Heather. "Combat School does provide three meals a day and a roof over your head. In exchange, it readies you for a life of peril and hardship. Some of the skills you learn there will be transferable, sure, the math in particular. But if you're any good, if you actually learn what the school has to offer, you're setting yourself on course for the highest-mortality profession on the planet."

She smiled at herself. "Of course, I say it's the highest mortality because 'living on the streets' is more of a condition than a profession. And for all that being a Huntress has going against it, it's leagues better than where you are now." She looked at Nora more squarely. "We consider combat rations to be survival food. We eat them only when we can't get the good stuff."

The impression this left on the teens was stark. Nora put a hand on her stomach. Ren's eyes widened. They took this information in, then looked at each other. After about ten seconds, Ren looked at Heather and finally spoke.

"Really?"

"Really," said Heather.

"Really?" said Nora skeptically.

"Really really," insisted Heather.

Another glance between the two.

"And there's one more thing," said Heather, leaning in. "I can't begin to imagine what you two have been through. Surviving Kuroyuri—evading grimm—living off the streets—eating nothing but survival rations for two weeks…"

Nora sniggered.

"…but through it all," Heather plowed on, "you still have the capacity to care about other people. You're still putting value on others. You could have stolen more food, but you did only when you had to, because you knew that wasn't right. You could have sold your father's knife," Heather said, gesturing at the boy, who flinched, "and it would have bought you food for months. You didn't, because he matters to you. Not to mention you've stuck together through it all."

"Of course," said Nora, voice quavering. "We swore we'd take care of each other."

"That's what being a Huntsman is all about," Heather said. "Sticking together to protect other people. No more orphans. No more Kuroyuris. No one else having to feel your pain, or live through what you've survived." She smiled mildly. "That's why I became a Huntress, now that I mention it.

"So. What do you say?"

There was a long moment as they digested this. "Lemme get this straight," Nora said, rising from her chair again and slamming her hands on the table. "You want to whisk us away to some far-off school where we'll be strangers to everyone, and get the crap beat out of us for a few years, for the privilege of burning up our lives keeping other losers safe, and all we get out of it is room and board?"

"Sure, that sounds about right."

Once more they exchanged glances. This time, both smiled. Ren looked at Heather.

"Where do we sign up?"

End