Chapter 11 — Studying
"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."
― Friedrich Nietzsche
With the knowledge that she was still alive, Serena decided that she needed to learn more about the world she now lived in. She had to learn about their history and anything else that might be important. So she went down to back again and looked for a book store.
Luckily, she found one that had just what she needed, so she bought a book entitled "The Complete History of Remnant". Upon her question what Remnant was, the shopkeeper gave her a look before explaining that it was the name of the planet. She was sure he thought her stupid for not even knowing the name of her own planet. She spotted another book that had all known herbs and their uses enlisted as well, so she bought that one too. Finally she would be able to cook more various food, maybe even use them to heal wounds should she get injured.
She started with the book about Remnant's history. It was a marvelously beautiful book, several inches thick covered in red leather and pages smelling of parchment. It started by explaining that — although human origins were rather murky and no archaeological remains older than eight-thousand years were known to exist — it was known for a fact that humans in this world had been formed from "Dust", a sort of energy source that had a vast myriad of uses.
Humanity, however, was born into a dangerous and callous environment and almost succumbed to the Creatures of Grimm until they discovered (or rather, rediscovered) Dust and used it to create weapons. Thus, mankind could survive and thrive.
They built many large and prosperous cities, many of which rivaled Tokyo, Beijing and New York in terms of sheer size and population, but almost all of them got destroyed, some lasting only half a century before being wiped off the map.
Only four cities withstood and became home to most of the population. She learned that she was near one of those so-called "Beacons of Hope": a city called Vale, the capital of the Kingdom of Vale. The other three kingdoms were Mistral with its capital Mesda, Vacuo with its capital Valya, and Atlas with its capital Altara. All four kingdoms had two combat schools — one analogous to middle school and another to high school — that trained their students to become what were called Huntsmen and Huntresses.
Huntsmen? That name… I think Ruby mentioned it when she was here, but I forgot to ask her, Serena remembered, reading on curiously.
After learning some information about the government of the kingdoms (she was very relieved to find that the government of the four kingdoms operated similarly to Great Britain, with a moderately powerful monarch and council that acted similarly to Parliament. God only knows what would have happened to her if she had ended up in a world ruled by dictators...) and some other moderately important things, she finally saw what she was looking for.
"Huntsmen and Huntresses, as the name might suggest, are men and women trained at combat schools in order to protect the people of the world from the Grimm. Their duty is to slay the creatures that threaten the existence of mankind and uphold the peace of the world. While in training, they learn various things from basic combat to the use of Dust and their Aura in a battle. It is customary, though not mandatory, that every student chooses their own weapon or make one themselves," she read aloud.
Wow. So Ruby's actually a fighter. Figures since she had that giant scythe with her and wielded it like nothing, Serena thought, awed that the younger girl was a skilled warrior.
It took her an entire day to read about some other things when she suddenly got to a part that was titled "Other Races".
Interest piqued, she read it through and was surprised when she read that there were people called "Faunus" — humanoid people that possessed the physical traits of animal such as cat ears or a tail. While they had the same rights as humans on paper, many humans disregarded those rights, treating them as inferior beings. A group called the "White Fang" had created itself, and although at first peaceful, their demonstrations for Faunus rights became more and more violent to the point where they were now attacking supply depots, army bases, and other important places. They even went as far as murdering people to attain their goal.
Serena noted that their goal was actually a noble one: they wanted to be seen as equals to humans. She could understand and agree with that. What she could not ever agree with were the methods they used. Similar things had, of course, occurred in her world and it had never ended well for either of the involved parties. But she also wondered why they suddenly started to resort to such methods. If they had been protesting peacefully until just a few years ago, why did they start attacking now, and not right from the beginning? Something drastic must have happened that caused such a shift in ideals.
She read on, learning about the Grimm and their different species and about her current location — Forever Fall Forest — which contained a large majority of the Grimm in Vale. The forest was huge and covered the entire kingdom of Vale, except for the city of course. Serena learned the names of the Grimm and their abilities by heart, and when it was getting dark she was so tired that she didn't even want to eat anything. She just crawled into her bed and fell asleep, dreaming of Grimm and Faunus and all the other things she had read about.
The next day she continued with the book about all the different herbs and memorized each and every one of them, their shape, color, and what it could be used for. She went out and gathered some Satoshira — a pink flower that grew near water — riced and combined it with some water and olive oil that she had to cook, thus creating her own shampoo. She had used normal shampoo the past two weeks but since she didn't have a shower with a drain, she had to bathe in the pond behind her cave. She didn't want to pollute the water any more than necessary, so she was quite happy when she read that she could use this flower to make hygiene products such as shampoo. It had a nice fragrance and Serena was quite happy with the outcome. She could use that now instead of the chemically fabricated shampoo that she'd bought.
She tested it the next morning in her 'bathroom', though it was hardly fitting for that title. The pond was decent sized with a small waterfall flowing down on one side, and only a few bushes and trees hid her from curious eyes — though she doubted anyone would venture so deep into the forest. Surprisingly, the water that came down from the waterfall was cool, but the water in the pond was quite warm, allowing her muscles to relax after a hard day of training.
She figured that there had to be some kind of volcanic vent or geyser underneath it that heated the water as soon as it flowed into the pond. Another thing she had noticed was that there seemed to be a constant exchange of water. Whenever she had bathed, the water would be clean when she came back in the evening or during the day to get some of it to drink or cook with. The only logical explanation that she could come up with was that the pond was connected to some stream underground that led the water away.
She studied the herbs and history of Vale vigorously, and was fascinated by the people they called Faunus. She would never have imagined that they had people who possessed things like cat ears and monkey tails here in this world. She'd only seen such things on TV, but here people like that actually existed. She wondered what they were like, and if she would perhaps meet one someday. It would certainly be an interesting encounter.
She ended her thoughts when she went back to training and then, reading the book about the history of Remnant again and looking up some more herbs that she might use in her dinner tomorrow, she went to sleep like she usually did.
Her life may have not been as interesting as someone else's, but she had Ajax who always kept her company and slept while she studied, and she was quite content with things as they were.
Thing was, all of it was about to change abruptly in a few days. It was only a question if it was a good change or not.
Edited 29/12/2016
Not really happy with the quote, but it was the best I could find, so I guess it'll have to do.
If anyone has a better one, feel free to propose it.
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or any of its characters. All I do own are my OC and the idea and plot of the non-canon parts of the story