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Cover Art: Mystery White Flame

Chapter 77

Jaune wasn't entirely surprised to see Salem leave the safety of her army and approach him. There was nothing she had to fear from him or anyone in Vale and given her believed superiority over them all she probably didn't see any risk in assuaging her curiosity.

Or she's hoping to stall so we can find a way to kill her.

He still wasn't entirely sure about that. It made sense, but `sense` and `logic` was based on understanding and only really applied among similar species and peoples. For instance, humans might say a pet cat loves them because they feed and pet them, but who really knew what a cat thought. Maybe they did love their owners, maybe they saw them as slaves, or maybe, just maybe, cats believed themselves born into some utopic society that lived for no other purpose than to serve them, that life for a cat really was zero effort and pampering.

Or maybe they saw themselves as dancers performing on a stage for some geriatric musical death battle royale, but that sounded so stupid he had to shake his head. It was easy getting distracted when you were sat on an armchair in front of around one million Grimm with nothing but a copy of `Therapy for the Criminally Insane, Vol II` in your hand.

The point he was in his own head making was that wanting to die because you'd been trapped in your body watching the world grow old around you was a very human thing, and even though it made sense given the circumstances, it relief on the idea that Salem's mental thought process was still mostly human. That was a big assumption to make in a situation like this. Jaune hated assumptions. They usually led to embarrassment, and as Nicholas had always told him; "That's the thing about assumptions. They tend to make an ass out of u and mptions."

Or something like that. Man, was it cold out or was it just him? Probably him. Or the Grimm army looking at him like he was a juicy fillet steak. Jaune tugged at his collar and fixed his usual `had the fear scared out of him ` expression on his face, the one everyone mistook for charismatic calm. Salem came to a halt ten feet away and tilted her head, red and black eyes looking him up and down inquisitively.

"Jaune of Arc."

"It's Jaune Arc, actually. Is that an old dialect?"

"The of?" she enquired politely. "Yes. You were most commonly of a family or house, with the average commoner being of a village, city or town. Jaune of House Arc, or even just Jaune of Vale, Jaune of Beacon – sorry, Jaune of Ozpin Sucks - or Jaune of Ansel."

A bead of sweat ran down his face. "I don't remember telling you where I'm from."

"Oh, but Cinder did. My, that girl." Salem cupped her cheek. "Research, she called it. Stalking, more like. I couldn't so much as mention the weather without it somehow being your fault. Or a scheme on your part. How charismatic you must be to convince even the raindrops to help you."

Jaune laughed nervously. "Yeah. So, you'd be Salem of…?"

"Salem of the Lonely Tower was my name for the longest time." Her hand reached for a cupcake. "May I?"

"Of course. Take a seat as well." He gestured to the low-backed recliner, the stereotypical one seen in every therapy movie either, and which he still didn't have a conclusive answer for its worth or purpose. Other than to sleep on. It was great for that. Maybe that was the goal. Drone on, let the client fall asleep and charge them for the hours. Genius. "I thought we could have a chance to talk."

"Hmm." Salem hummed as she munched on a strawberry cupcake. He'd hoped for simple joy over something so sweet that she couldn't easily get hold of in the Grimmlands, but what he got instead was a, "Not bad. A little too much sugar on the icing, but acceptable."

"You cook…?"

"I think anyone living alone must know how to cook."

Right. Yeah. Takeaway probably wasn't much of an option in the Grimmlands. He waved Salem down and watched her sweep an arm behind and under her long dress, bunching the material up so that it didn't ride high as she sat, twisted and then laid down on the seat.

"This is rather comfortable. A little odd to be laid down when someone is talking to me, though. It feels quite rude." Salem had no idea what a psychiatrist's chair was. Excellent. If she did, he had a feeling she might launch him and it back over the walls via her Grimm-a-pults. "And talking during a siege. I always did wonder what Ozma got up to when the enemy commander would call him out."

"Did that happen a lot?"

"Oh yes, often before a surrender or – in rarer cases – a doomed last stand. And it was always doomed. I never understood the mentality of some people, do they not realise Ozma wouldn't be assaulting them if he wasn't one hundred per cent certain in victory? Such a waste of life."

Compared to, say, what she was doing here!? Jaune kept silent. The first rule of therapy… okay, no, he wasn't a therapist so if there were rules then he didn't know them. But his first rule, made up by a few clumsy interactions with the students, was not to point out flaws in their thought process. He wasn't sure that was the right thing to do, but when he'd tried that before, his guests tended to get defensive, either deflecting or clamming up.

People came to him for help, not criticism. It was a hard thing to learn, but what they wanted was someone to open up to, bounce ideas off or get some confidential advice from. Salem wanted none of those things, obviously, or at least she didn't know she did. Maybe? Again, it was all a risk and a desperate effort, but he was sure that insulting her in the first five minutes would be a bad move. She needed to be relaxed around him, so maybe the past was a safe topic for that.

"Ozpin has been pretty cagey about his past-"

"Call him Ozma. I really can't be bothered to keep up with all his names over the generations. Oswald, Ozimides, Osbourne, Ozpin, Oscar. I mean really, are you cursed to like minded individuals, or just like-named?"

"Ozma, then. He's only really started to open up about his past to us recently. He mentioned he was a knight, but I didn't realise he was a commander, too."

"Most knights were back then. To be a knight was to be a noble or prestigious landowner, and to own land was to be tasked to protect it and the people who lived there. To do that, you had to fight, and in efforts to not die and with the wealth implied by owning said land, you commissioned armour of the highest quality and a steed to ride on, and suddenly, give or take a generation, you have a culture based around knighthood. The gallantry was very much optional," she said in a conspirational tone. "Most of them were fat, lazy and greedy beyond belief. Of course, they paid people to sing their praises, and thus the myth of the chivalric knight was born."

"Was Ozma fat and lazy?"

"Goodness, no!" Salem laughed. "Ozma was the other kind, the young and easily swayed type that grew up with the stories of chivalry and assumed that was what he was meant to be. Why else do you think he would randomly seek out a maiden trapped in a tower?"

"That's… That's a good point actually. Were you, like, well-known for being stuck in a tower? Why didn't anyone help you before that point? Why were you stuck in a tower?"

The more he thought about it, the more it didn't make sense. Had her father locked her there? Why? Did Ozma and no one else know about her? Why? Did the Lonely Tower just exist on the outskirts of the Kingdom and everyone was like `oh yeah, that place, yeah there's a person trapped in there. Someone should do something about that" or something?

"It was a succession thing," Salem explained. "A case of a ruler with one too many children in line for the throne as he grew into old age. My brother stood to inherit, but naturally my father wanted me to have my own duchy."

"And your brother didn't?"

"Oh, he was fine. His new wife was not. An absolute witch."

Jaune's pen paused over the paper. "Metaphorically or literally?"

"Both. This was a time of magic."

"Ah." He scribbled. "Fair point. So, this witch locked you up?"

"Married my brother, killed my brother and then told everyone I had locked myself away in grief. The tower was magic and kept me alive, the better for her to show evidence I hadn't been deposed. How Ozma found out about me, I'm not sure-"

"You didn't ask him!?"

Salem shot him an almost embarrassed pout. "I had been stuck in a tower on my own for ten years! Excuse me for not demanding to know the exact method by which my first visitor climbed through my balcony. I was a little busy crying my eyes out in joy."

"A-Ah. Sorry. And Ozma saved you?"

"In time. I had to re-learn many things, and I couldn't leave without the witch knowing. We took our time planning the moment, with Ozma gathering allies among the Knighthood and those deposed under mysterious circumstances by the late King, my brother. Together, he rallied the Kingdom, deposed the witch and instated me as Queen. Naturally, I took him as my King and the rest, as they say, is happily ever after."

"Huh. That actually sounds like it'd make a cool story."

Salem chuckled. "Thank you. It was less `cool` living it, but I'll take that as a compliment. Is that to be our purpose today, me telling you of the past while you write it down?"

Jaune winced. He hadn't thought she'd heard the pen and paper. The notes were useful for him now, but he also planned to go over them later with Oobleck, several books and as many actual therapists as he could get on speed call. He wanted them to be as detailed as possible.

"Y-Yes." The lie came quickly. "I thought it might be an idea to transcribe your story, if you're going to rule over Vale, that is. Everyone is going to want to know about you before they're… uh… processed."

"Hmm. Odd." Sweat ran down his face. He couldn't have her figure out what was going on yet or she'd clam up worse than Blake and Yang with their hands in his underwear drawer. "But then again I suppose I'm outdated on human culture. It's been such a long time…"

"We're very big on anthologies at the moment. Female empowerment, too."

Salem raised an eyebrow. "Being rescued from a tower by a man is empowerment…?"

"Uh. Taking over a Kingdom and single-handedly waging war against all of humanity as a single mother…?"

"Hm. I suppose that fits. Alright. I can at the very least take the copy from the ruins of your home and grant it pride of place in my tower. Ask away. And hand me another cupcake if you will. Do you have anything to drink? I'm rather thirsty."

"I have tea."

"Thank goodness. I cannot stand coffee."

/-/

"What are they saying?" Ironwood demanded.

Looking through a pair of binoculars, Glynda snapped, "I don't know! I'm not a mind reader!"

"Marrow!"

"Sir!" The faunus on one knee beside her rattled off, "She is talking about her first husband. Someone called Ozma. I think he… wait, she's laughing. He's asking her about their fate – date. Asking about dates. Oh, now he's explaining what a date is? I think…"

Glynda rolled her eyes, entirely unsurprised that James would have someone who knew hot to lip read on his staff. They'd decided against a microphone in case Salem noticed it and assumed the worst. In this, they would just have to trust Jaune.

"I don't like this." Ironwood said. "It's a desperate gambit…"

"It's fine. Even if it doesn't work, it buys us time."

"It's confusing the men, Glynda. How are we going to explain this to the huntsmen on the walls? Lisa Lavender is either recording this or is going to hear about it second-hand, and the information will get back to Atlas. He may have a way with bullshit, Glynda, but even I can't see a way for him to work his way out of that one."

"It'll be worth it if he gets through to her."

James scoffed. "You can't think that he will!"

"Can't I? He's helped others before. Miss Nikos, Miss Rose and Miss Belladonna…"

"Child's play."

"Miss Belladonna is not child's play!" Glynda pressed. "That girl has more issues than a New Year's Day Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. If Jaune can weave his way through that tangled mess of contradictory decisions and teenage angst, I trust he can sort out an immortal witch bent on world domination."

"Your judgment is compromised. Just because you and he slept-"

"My romance life or lack thereof is of no concern to you, James, and for what it's worth my faith in him is born of what he has accomplished within my school, not between my legs." Frostily, she narrowed her eyes behind her glasses. James' Specialists slowly edged away. "Mention it again and I shall show you just how compromised I can be when I launch you off this wall."

James grunted and closed his eyes. "My apologies. It's difficult to have faith this will work…"

It was.

And yet she had it.

/-/

"-and then he came back slumped over his horse with a great big wound in his backside from where the boar gored him!" Salem said, giggling uncontrollably. "Sir Ray had to lead him through the centre of the city like a sack of meat. I never let him forget it."

Jaune burst out laughing, Salem quickly following. Her body arched under it and he slammed his own hand on the table they'd set out, rocking his mug back and forth.

"He never told us that story." Jaune said, wiping an eye. "I guess I'll have to remind him."

"Oh do. Please do. That `I've made many mistakes` nonsense he goes on about; I tell you now that half those mistakes are stupid things like walking into the kitchens naked for a midnight snack and forgetting we run a castle. The kitchens are in use at all hours."

"Did he actually do that?"

"More than once. I had to assure one poor girl that I didn't think she was trying to seduce my husband out from under me. To say nothing of the guards who had to drag my naked husband back to our chambers."

"He sounds like he was an idiot."

"Ozma was a character for sure," Salem said wistfully. "There wasn't a dull day-"

Jaune's scroll buzzed, interrupting them. Salem looked back as he turned it off with a quick, "It's just an alarm."

"An alarm for what…?"

"To say your attack is commencing again in two hours. The end of the agreed ceasefire."

Salem looked shocked. "But how-? That wasn't until toni-?" Her eyes looked up and widened. The sun had begun to set.

"We've been talking for four hours." Jaune pointed out.

"W-We have…? I didn't even realise…" A curious mix of embarrassment and disappointment flashed over the woman's face. It was amazing how much the laughter had humanised her, and how much the coldness that came over her undid it. "I suppose this was a pleasant diversion if nothing else. That is all it can be, however."

Jaune slid his notebook away. "We can do it again tomorrow if you like?"

Her eyes flashed. "I won't be delaying my attack."

"Oh, I know. We agreed the battle would start again and it will, but like you said, Ozma would often meet with the enemy commander during battles. We can meet again as well. You know, just to chat like this. I'll bring more cakes."

Salem frowned. "What is your angle with this…?"

"No angle." he lied. "You've already said your victory is assured, right?"

"Yes."

"Then what does it matter if we meet up again, say, noon until two tomorrow? Just two hours. What will it really cost you?"

"Time."

Jaune smiled ruefully. "Isn't that the one thing you have an abundance of?"

"No, that would be idiotic henchmen," she said with no sarcasm whatsoever, "but you're not wrong. Very well. I shall meet with you again tomorrow and we can talk." Her lips curled upward just a little, softening her fearsome visage. "This was not unpleasant." Her eyes hardened. "So long as you don't get it in your head that attempting to befriend me will make me cease this invasion. It won't."

"I understand completely. Tomorrow, then? Should I wave a flag at the time or will you have the Grimm back off so I can come out?"

"The latter." Salem rose from her seat and stretched her arms above her. "Until tomorrow then, Jaune of Arc. Try not to die before then. It's been a while since I've had someone I could speak to so candidly."

/-/

"Well?" Ironwood, Glynda, Ozpin, Oobleck and Nicholas said at once.

Jaune sat at his desk, letting his notebook flop onto the table. Rather than make them read it, he summarised. "Salem is clinically depressed and lonely."

"Y-You figured all that out from just one meeting!?" Ironwood gasped.

"Nope. I figured it out from how she wouldn't stop talking once I got her started. Literally, I think I just sat through the first five years of her and Ozpin's marriage. I couldn't so much as get a word in, and she didn't even realise how long she was talking for."

They considered that for a moment.

"How does that equate depression?" Glynda asked.

"Salem's thoughts were on the past," he said, watching Ozpin's face. Or Oscar's, but it was Ozpin in control and the man looked like he'd been stabbed in the gut. "It was all she could talk about. How happy she used to be, how happy she was, how perfect her life with Ozma used to be. It's not like she said that, but the fact she kept talking about that, well, it kind of suggested it."

"Nostalgia is a potent drug," Bart said. "And one we often dip into in times of pain."

"What about the people she has with her?" Glynda asked. "How can she be lonely?"

"Cinder, Tyrian, Watts and Hazel. Are you telling me you wouldn't be lonely and depressed if you only had them for company?"

Glynda blinked. "Hm. Fair point."

"Insults aside, they're all self-serving interests," he went on. "Cinder wanted power, Watts wanted something – glory, maybe? Hazel wants revenge and Tyrian is insane and wants to worship her. There's no one there that actually cares about her, so I can't imagine she's had anyone to talk to for a long time. That's what it felt like. Once her guard was down, she just went on and on, like I was the first person she's been able to properly chat with in a thousand years."

It fit. Salem wouldn't have been able to infiltrate normal society looking like she was, and the eternal war with Ozpin precluded any chance of them meeting up to talk. How happy could you be, really, if your life was like that? Even if Salem was married to her goal and genuinely did want to exterminate all life, there wouldn't be any emotional payoff until after that was done.

If your existence was just one long slog toward that goal, lasting hundreds if not thousands of years, then he wouldn't be surprised if you started to look back on happier times and wish you could fall back into them, or just fall into dreaming about them over and over.

"Maybe this is why she's been so passive before," he said. "Losing herself to the memories, sitting around for years at a time lacking the energy to move, let alone wage war on Ozpin. Have there been quiet times?"

"Yes." Ozpin sounded and looked stressed. "There have been the odd year, even decades, where I don't see or hear so much as a peep from her. I always assumed she was planning something big, but… it seems so obvious now. There have been quiet periods without any action, without any culminating plan. Just empty spots where she does nothing. That is a symptom of depression, isn't it? A lack of energy."

"One of many, and not everyone has every symptom." Jaune tested the next words before asking, "Have you ever felt depressed?"

"Excuse me…?"

"I'm not trying to psychoanalyse you. I just want to see if the Gods put in some kind of failsafe against it that would blow my theory for her out the water."

"Ah." Ozpin licked his lips. "There is no failsafe, and yes, I have felt… I have felt times where I wish I could give up. Please do not read into it," he said, or practically begged. "There have been good times as well as bad. There almost has to be when you live this long. For every ten years of happiness, there are years of grief as friends grow old and die around you."

"At least you had friends," Glynda pointed out. "As painful as that might be, it must be better than feeling nothing."

"Yes. Yes, I think that's true. The years of happiness and the memories I have are worth more than the pain I felt at their passing. A hundred times over. Why, it's their memories I think back on when the stress becomes too much and-" Ozpin paused suddenly. Whispered. "Oh…" He sounded so unsure that Jaune felt the urge to place a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, that is what you believe she feels, isn't it? Why she is thinking back to me in our better years, even though we are enemies now."

Silence reigned for the longest time. No one knew what to say or that whatever they might say might not come across insensitive. It was hard to be too sympathetic when your home was being attacked by said person, but they had to remain objective because getting angry and telling her to piss off was only going to get them all killed.

"It sounds reasonable enough." Ironwood finally said. "But where does this leave us? I'm no therapist, but depression is one of the most common problems for a reason. It's not easily treated. We could prescribe her drugs, but I doubt they'd work on her."

"Jaune will have to continue meeting with her." Ozpin said. There was a firmness to it, like he was afraid Jaune might refuse. He wouldn't and nodded to Ozpin to show that. The man sighed, relieved. "I will help however I may. I do not… despite all this time trapped at war, and how we parted, I do not hate her. I would see her happy if I could."

In the distance, the sound of gunfire and explosions began, signalling the Grimm charge and the first battery from Atlas' artillery stationed behind the walls.

"My question is whether this is fair to anyone else," Nicholas said. "I'm all for helping someone in need, but that someone is currently attacking us. People will be deprived of loved ones thanks to her. Should we be focusing so much on trying to help someone like that? It's a kind message, but unfair to those who have reason to hate her."

Ozpin looked furious, but Jaune stepped in to calm them both. "It is unfair, but what people don't understand is that she's immortal. I'd choose the option of killing her if it was available, as I'm sure Ozpin would, but since that's off the table it's either be insensitive to those who have lost people and help her, or don't help her and grind out a long siege to whatever end comes."

There really was no other option.

/-/

Ruby waited impatiently at the foot of the ominous tower, sweaty, smelly and with her skirt ripped in three places. Her mood wasn't much better, especially after hours and hours and hours of fighting Grimm, slogging through the worst terrain and generally fighting for her life, all while dealing with Cinder's constant criticism.

There were here now, though. They'd reached the tower.

And what a tower it is. Sheesh. It's like a big middle finger to the world at large.

Most towers, at least she assumed, were part of other structures, like a lighthouse tower attached to a home or Beacon's tower attached to a school – even towers on castle walls in fantasy stories. This was just a tower. That was it. In a place where there was no discernible reason for needing one, someone had thought `hey, a tower would look real good here` and had then made it so.

Ruby kicked a stone out her way. As the last one on the ground, she felt more than a little vulnerable.

Which was when Cinder came floating back down. "That is the other three inside. Your turn."

Ruby cringed as she approached Cinder's back and clambered on in a piggy-back position. When the woman offered the idea as a way into the tower, no one had been excited. Letting Cinder Fall take you high in the sky where she could drop you wasn't on anyone's list of most favourite activities. In the end, Blake had gone first, and then Yang because she had to put her money where her mouth was, then Weiss.

"Don't drop me."

"Don't squirm, then, and I won't. This is hardly fun for me either."

Cinder began to ascend quickly, flying on a wave of blizzardy wind shot out below her. Ruby's arms tightened, knees tucking into Cinder's sides and eyes closing as the black tower flashed by. Heights had never been an issue for her before, but then she was usually approaching heights from the angle of having actual ground to stand on.

Their trajectory lurched suddenly and then Cinder landed. Ruby jumped off and shivered, falling to her knees and hands on a balcony. The balcony was attached to an open doorway from which she could hear Weiss, Yang and Blake talking. Ruby charged in to make sure they were okay, only to find them shamelessly staring at one wall of what appeared to be a large bedroom.

"We can rest here for tonight," Cinder said, stepping inside. "I know it seems strange to rest when we're this close, but it could take us days to find where the Relic is hidden, and the tower isn't safe. We need to be rested for tomorrow-"

"Whose room is this?" Weiss asked suddenly.

"It is mine. Why?"

Weiss stared at the wall. "No reason…"

Yeah. No reason. Just the absolute wall of the room taken up with newspaper clippings, pictures and magazine articles about Jaune Arc. His face smiled, stared and laughed out at them from over a hundred different pictures, some sellotaped to the wall and others driven in by pins. There was a dartboard with his face in the centre and several arrows pinned into it, a web of string attaching his face to various pieces of paper like a brainstorm diagram.

There was an article on sword and shield fighting, several drawn sketches of the emblem on his shield, more lines coming out from that, some leading to question marks and one to a handwritten note suggesting that Jaune might have been drawing his power from the moon itself.

"From the moon?" Yang had to ask. "Isn't there a crappy Mistralian cartoon about a guy in a tuxedo from the moon?"

"It's a classic," Blake said distractedly.

"Sure it is. So, this is… this is a thing. Do we call this a shrine? A worship wall?"

Cinder flushed angrily and ran in front of them, spreading her arms out in a very futile effort to hide it from view. "You can call it none of your business, though if you must know it is to help me understand my enemy!"

"Yeah. Snrk. His moon powers."

"Out! Get out!" Cinder pushed Yang toward the door. "This floor is free of Grimm and is the safest place for us to stay. There are four rooms and four en-suite bathrooms – and yes, there is water. Divvy them out how you wish. Stay out of my room."

Yang gasped excitedly. "Is that a Jaune Arc body pillow!?"

"NO!" Cinder shrieked, face blood red. "It – It is a full-length training dummy!"

"It looks like a body-"

"Get out! Get out! Get out!" Cinder bodily kicked Yang out the door, shoved Weiss after her and then stabbed a hand out, letting Blake and Ruby hurry through the door with a nervous giggle. "You do not speak of what you saw here, you do not think of what you saw here, and I swear that if a certain someone finds out, I will make ice sculptures out of you!"

The door slammed in their faces. Yang cackled loudly, earning an indignant shriek from within before they drew her away. Better not to drive Cinder any more insane than she already was.

"So," Weiss said. "We're here. Finally. As much as I hate to say it, she's probably right that we should recover our strength before pushing on. I could really use a hot bath as well." A quick look around showed three nearby rooms, each with a nameplate. "I suppose these are for Salem's trusted followers."

"Cinder. Hazel. Watts. Tyrian." Blake read off out loud. "Ruby and Yang can share."

"Fine with us," Yang said. "So…" She let the word drag on. "Whose room do you think is the least insane out of everyone's?"

"I claim Watts," Weiss said quickly. Opening the door, she immediately cringed. "A full length portrait of himself above the bed. That is… exceptionally tacky, but I can deal with it. I think."

"Wake up in the middle of the night to find Arthur Watts watching you sleep?" Blake asked.

Weiss swore loudly, stormed in and then carted the painting out, tossing it in the hallway with a loud crash. "There. Problem solved." The door slammed shut after.

"Hazel!" Blake snapped.

"Not Tyri- ah, crap." Yang tutted angrily. "Balls."

"Your loss," Blake said slyly, slipping into the room marked with his name and sighing in relief. There were a few scratch and weapon chips in the walls like someone had been playing with weapons inside, and a chemistry set with some rather ominously labelled syringes, but aside from that the large bed, dresser and cupboard were all fairly normal, if in desperate need of a dusting down. "Nice. Guess I scored the sane member of her team."

Setting her pack down at the side of the bed, she checked the windows to make sure they were locked, drew the curtains so no Grimm would see her and took to airing the bed by flapping the sheets to get rid of the dust. It wasn't the nicest bed she'd ever had the pleasure of sleeping in, but it was a bed. After so long in the Grimmlands, it might as well have been heaven. Deciding to save a bath until the next morning, she slid under the blankets and sighed happily.

Not twenty minutes later the door creaked open and two shapes crept up to her bed, pulling up the covers on either side of her and sliding into bed with her. Blake sighed, ears twitching and eyes perfectly able to see in the dark. No one could really ambush her.

"Do I want to know…?"

"We're sleeping with you," Yang said firmly.

"Why? You have a room."

"His room… It… I can't…" Ruby whimpered and suckered herself onto Blake's side like a barnacle. "The tweezers, a-and the pictures. The hair. A jar of toenail clippings, Blake, and not his! Salem's! A-And he collects them? He rates them? Ewww. Hold me, Blake. Hold me."

Blake glared up at the ceiling as her first peaceful night became a case of laying flat on her back while two sisters spooned into her sides, squashing her in what was quickly turning into a furnace of body heat, Ruby murmuring in her sleep and Yang's wild hair constantly tickling her nose as they drifted off, claimed by exhaustion.

She would have liked to join them. If only her arms weren't being used as teddy bears, she might have been able to scratch the itch driving her face crazy. Her nose quirked and twitched instead, face contorting in an effort to itch itself before she gave up with a frustrated sigh, slumping back trapped between her two clingy teammates. At least it couldn't get any worse.

"Mmm. Jaune…" Ruby giggled sleepily into Blake's shoulder. "You're so soft and squishy, and you taste like cookies. Mmm, taste you? Don't mind if I do. Nom."

On her other side, Yang started to snore.

Loudly.

One cannot comprehend the depths of Tyrian's depravity.

Next Chapter: 24th September

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