Hi again! So, I'm still not out of extra chapters yet, and I'll be putting one up this Friday! Plus I'm on break at the moment, which will hopefully mean more productivity. Hopefully.

7. A Walk in the Woods

Click. Scrape. Thud.

"Here, let me get that for you!"

Click. The crutches hit the ground. Scrape. Her bad foot dragged in the grass as she took a step. Thud. Her good foot came down. Sky scurried over to the barn door and held it open, looking everywhere but at Blake.

"Thank you?" She was glad to not have to manage the heavy door, but she wasn't quite sure what to make of the way he was acting. Bystander's guilt from the night she was shot?

It didn't matter. She limped into the barn, wincing when she misjudged a step and one crutch jammed into her armpit. They'd released her today, and she wasn't used to moving around yet. As annoying as it was to have to use the crutches, just being free to walk around campus without a crowd of people around her... to let her attention slip without worrying that every shadow might be the first sign of an ambush...

Life was surprisingly good, considering the hole in her leg.

Blake came to a stop outside Pit's stall and knocked once. His head poked out, swiveled to stare at her... then he barked excitedly and threw himself at the door. It opened without resistance—he might have broken it otherwise—and he licked her face.

"Careful," she warned, when he nuzzled against her shoulder and almost knocked her over. "My balance isn't great right now."

He pulled away reluctantly, and she noticed for the first time that there was a scrap of paper stuck to his nose.

"What...?"

Pit shoved his head into her hand until she grabbed the paper. Then he watched her expectantly, tail twitching.

"Okay, then." Blake leaned the crutches against the wall, then used it to support herself while she examined the paper.

Someone needs your help. Be at the edge of the Emerald Forest at midnight tonight and look for the tiger. Bring a friend or two if you must, but be discreet.

She read it over several times, then once aloud. Pit stared at her, then at the paper.

Blake managed a small smile. "Well. At least I'll be able to prove I've learned my lesson."

Pit cocked his head.

"I'll get the rest of RWBY," she said. "Can you round up JNPR and SSSN?"

Twelve riders. Well, riders-in-training. Weiss with pepper spray, Sun with a staff—actually a big stick he'd picked up on the way, but he figured it'd still hurt if he whacked somebody on the head with it. Yang and Pyrrha, who pretty much counted as weapons all on their own. Not to mention, twelve dragons. It was almost eleven, but after a long and grueling conversation with Sage, Zircon had eventually been convinced to follow them into the woods.

Some people might call it overkill. Some people would be wrong. Sun thought this was exactly as much kill as they should be bringing to a meeting that pretty much had "Trap!" written all over it. In bright red sharpie.

"I still think we should've told Ozpin," Neptune said, as they crossed the field the non-wind dragons had been learning to fly in. "Or at least gotten CFVY to come along."

"We're not exactly inconspicuous as it is," Sage pointed out. "Besides, Velvet knows where we are."

"But not that we're going to meet some shady criminal—what, four days? Four days after another shady criminal shot Blake. I feel like she would've tried a lot harder to stop us if we'd mentioned that part."

"Just so you know," Blake called out from where she was sitting on Pit's back, "I can hear all of you."

"Sorry, but it's true!"

"We'll be in sight of the school," Sun said, "and they're expecting maybe four people, if they figured all of RWBY would show up. Plus, I mean, Blake said the Fang only had the one dragon. There's literally no way we won't outnumber them by like three to one."

"Yeah, but why come at all?" Scarlet gestured at the approaching treeline, which Sun suspected looked a lot more forbidding to his human friends. To him it was just sort of... woods-y. Lots of leaves and twigs.

"The note said someone needed help." Sage shrugged helplessly. "Besides, the—" He glanced at Blake, who was now deep in conversation with her team, then went on a little more quietly, "—the one we really had to be worried about isn't around anymore."

"I still say it's a trap!"

Neptune opened his mouth, probably to agree, but before he got a chance Blake twisted around and signaled for them to be quiet. They were approaching the treeline.

Sun squinted up ahead. He and Blake were supposed to take point here, since they were the only ones who could actually see anything. Unless Huo or Fang set the forest on fire, which was... well, it was an option. Not a great option, granted, but—

Blake sat up straighter and pointed. Sun scanned the treeline again, but still couldn't see anyone. He frowned, confused, then finally spotted what she had—not a person at all but a simplistic carving of a tiger's head set in the trunk of a tree. They circled around it, found a note pinned to the back of the trunk with a knife.

It was covered in arcane scribbles. Sun squinted at it, then glanced at Neptune. He shrugged. "Don't look at me man, I can't even see it."

"It's code." Blake took the note from Sun, flattened it against Pit's neck and smoothed it out so she could see it better. "Just give me a second..."

"Code." Weiss narrowed her eyes. "I can only think of one group who would just happen to know a code you and only you could break."

"Yes, it's them. But if I'm right about the tiger... I don't think she'd want to kill me."

"Very comforting."

Blake hummed, mumbled something under her breath, then nodded. "Okay. It says there's a cave northeast of here, behind some bushes. And to keep everyone else away from the entrance."

"Uh-huh," Neptune said. "Nothing shady about that at all."

"There's one more line, um... 'An old friend will be there... we couldn't break the news. Maybe you'll have better luck.' What...?" Then she tensed, her hands jerking so violently that the paper tore. "Oh god, Brand."

Sun raised his hand. "Uh... are we supposed to know who that is?"

It took longer than Blake would have liked to convince the others to wait at the cave entrance. Her team sat just inside with their dragons, refusing to stay out of sight in case there was an ambush.

There wasn't. Just a dragon curled into a sullen ball in the shadows, looking much smaller than he actually was.

"Brand?"

He twitched. His head came up, his eyes opening wide. "Lake!"

Her heart wrenched. There was a metallic clatter as his neck stopped short, the chain around it going taught. It was attached to a ring welded to the cave wall, shut with a heavy padlock. She recognized the material—tungsten, one of very few metals that fire dragons couldn't melt through.

"Hey..."

Brand tried to extend his neck further. Blake walked closer so that he could press his forehead into her palm. He purred, licked her fingers. "Ad?" he asked. "See Ad?"

She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a croak. She couldn't do it.

"Pit?" she said instead. "Come here. Slowly, please."

He crept forward, sniffing curiously at the new dragon. Brand growled, louder and louder until Blake told Pit to stop.

"He's just going to try to take that chain off," she said. "Can you stay still for a moment? Please?"

"No." Brand snorted, and fire erupted from his nostrils. Blake flinched away, and she heard one of her friends take a step forward. She threw her arm out—he was wilder than the last time she'd seen him, she wasn't sure what he'd do if they all crowded in.

"Okay. Okay, Pit can move back." He blinked at her, confused, but did as she asked. Brand settled onto his haunches, but his golden eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

"Ad," he said again. "No 'It."

Adam would have had the key. Had their professors found it on his body? Blake had never asked. She might have to, now.

"Lake!" Brand snorted another gout of fire. "Ad! See Ad! Ad!"

Blake backed up a step. "I'm sorry... I can't... you can't see him."

Brand roared indignantly, rising up on his hind legs. His horns scraped the cave's ceiling.

"He's gone, Brand. I'm sorry, I'm so—"

"NO!"

Fire washed over the cave floor. Blake tried to scramble away, then yelped when she put her weight down on her bad leg. Pit caught her by the back of her shirt and dragged her back, hiding her behind one wing. He roared and Brand hissed—a noise like grease hitting a frying pan, the sound he made right before he—

"Move!"

Pit backed away with Blake hanging onto his neck, just in time for Brand to bathe the floor of the cave in fire.

"Lake lie!" Brand thrashed at the end of the chain, the metal began to glow cherry red around his neck, the chain creaked...

The chain.

Blake untangled herself from Pit. He protested, caught her scarf in his teeth. She touched his jaw, gently, tried to reassure him with a smile. It took a moment, but he let go.

"Blake, maybe you should—" Yang started to say, and Blake was sure she was thinking of all the times Fang had bitten her as a hatchling.

Brand had bitten Adam, too, until he'd started hitting him whenever it happened.

"I'm sorry," she said. Not that he was dead, but because she hadn't done more while he was alive. Hadn't been able to save Brand... had only barely managed to save herself and Pit. She limped closer, heedless of the fire.

Brand cut off the flame. He made a low, keening sound. She held out a hand. His jaws snapped shut just inches away, and she snatched it back, heart pounding.

"No! No Lake!"

It was hard to talk. "Okay," she managed, swallowing hard. "Okay. I... I'll come back tomorrow."

"NO!"

"I'll come back. Every day. I'll go if you want me to... but I'll keep coming back."

Another gout of fire. Blake let Pit drag her onto his back, and they left the cave. She caught one final glimpse of Brand. He'd curled up in that same corner, his eyes gleaming in the shadows under one of his wings.

The dragons were so subdued on the way back to Beacon that none of them spoke for several minutes after leaving the cave. Pit glanced over his shoulder every few minutes, even after the entrance had disappeared from view. Storm kept her head down, unable to think of anything except Brand's anguished roars.

It was Pit that broke the silence. "I'd do it again," he said, hunching his shoulders.

Storm had no idea what to say to that—looking around, neither did any of the others. Twiggy and Zircon had been there, but neither of them had actually participated. They'd been keeping the riders safe, not...

"Well, yeah." Huo tossed his head. "We're supposed to protect them, aren't we?"

"It's not like he didn't deserve it," Fang agreed.

Zircon whined and inched closer Sage, who almost tripped over his tail. "It's bad enough we're supposed to protect them by killing Grimm. I don't want to fight other riders!"

"Neither do I," Nymph said, nudging his side, "but we might not have a choice."

"It didn't feel like one." Pit was still walking at the front of the group, and he didn't turn his head to look at the others. "A choice, I mean. I couldn't really think about it."

Storm shivered. "I remember." She shot an apologetic look at Nimbus.

"I didn't think about Brand. I knew he had a dragon, Blake mentioned him, but..."

"You saw that chain," Nymph pointed out. "He might be better off without him."

Titan nodded. "It's like Mudslide and Cardin. He might be her rider... but that doesn't mean he makes her happy."

"So what I'm getting from this," Huo said slowly, "is that we should kill Cardin."

Nymph groaned. "Huo... Huo, no."

"I'm joking! Mostly."

Pit huffed out a breath. "Would being alone really be better?"

"Sure," said Fang. "I'd rather live wild in the mountains than deal with Cardin. Or go to the pits."

"Fang!" Specter hissed. "Don't say that!"

"What? At least I'd get to fight back that way."

"Can we please stop talking about this?" Ao Guang asked, shivering and shooting anxious glances at Ren.

"Yeah!" Storm said quickly. "We all have riders that love us, so we should focus on that instead of what could have gone wrong." Nimbus and Freya were both quick to chip in, changing the subject to their flying lessons.

Storm was just glad no one had asked her what she thought. She didn't want to say it, because she knew it would make Pit feel bad, but she wasn't so sure that Brand would be better off from now on. All she could think of was Tempest, looking into the eyes of the dragon that loved her rider almost as much as she did...

Could Brand really have been hurting worse than that when his rider was alive? Was Mudslide hurting worse than that right now?

"Are you out of your mind?!"

Sienna breathed in through her nose, slowly. "We needed Brand dealt with. Now he is."

Corsac slammed his hand down on the table. "You gave him to the deserter!"

It was a struggle, but she kept her temper down. "There wasn't any alternative."

"We could have killed him." The bass rumble came from the man sitting on Sienna's left. He went by the Lieutenant—Adam had known his real name, but the knowledge had died with him and the Lieutenant hadn't seen fit to resurrect it.

"Probably," Sienna allowed. "We could have brought a few dozen White Fang members into Beacon's backyard. Maybe Harbinger." Fennec shifted uncomfortably beside his brother. "But, there's no telling how many we'd have lost in the process. It wasn't worth the cost. Traitor or not, Blake can reason with him. The only other person who might stand a chance is Ilia."

"So she can handle the beast," Corsac snapped.

"She's still in Haven, and we didn't have time to wait." Sienna waved her hand. "It doesn't matter, now. What's done is done, and Brand is hardly going to follow the orders of a deserter if that means attacking his comrades."

"He didn't seem to have much trouble attacking us when Adam was alive."

"He is wild." The Lieutenant leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "The traitor may be able to calm him enough that he doesn't kill anyone. He won't take orders from her, or anyone else. He hardly took orders from Adam."

Sienna blinked. She hadn't expected support from him, but it was appreciated all the same. They had more important business to deal with. Brand was only one small part of the mess Adam had left behind.

"What of sister Ilia, and the humans?" Fennec asked. "High Leader Taurus had intended to break from them—"

"Not yet." Sienna rubbed the bridge of her nose. "We still need their resources. One successful hybrid won't make enough of a difference in the grand scheme of things. We've effectively lost a dragon in the past week."

"Of the four of us, only one has a dragon," the Lieutenant added. "We can't lead without strength."

"Or charisma," said Corsac. "Without High Leader Taurus—"

Sienna shook her head. "He doesn't need to be alive to be charismatic. We martyr him. He was killed by a human... the Schnee. And her designer dragon—that'll motivate people to bring that sort of power over onto our side."

"This would be easier if he'd managed to kill the Belladonna girl in the process," Fennec mused.

"We'll work with what we have. He went to reason with Blake, only to be betrayed and murdered by her teammates. Especially the Schnee. We can fill in details as we go."

"Who was it really?" the Lieutenant asked, clenching both fists.

Sienna grimaced. "Impossible to tell. He threatened Blake and the Schnee with a gun outside the earth stables. The dragons mobbed him."

"Is this from the human stable hand?" Corsac asked, his lip curling.

"Not directly. We had Perry talk to a few of his colleagues, the ones who cleaned up afterwards. Their descriptions... varied, but those were the common elements."

"Dragons don't kill without orders." The Lieutenant's voice came out low, more a growl than anything else. "The traitor... the Schnee... they killed him."

"And they will pay for it," Fennec said. "But first—"

"First, we need more dragons." Corsac smiled. "I believe the first egg will go to one of the two of you?"

Sienna glanced at the Lieutenant. His face was invisible—she hated those masks.

"You should have the first hatchling that survives," he decided. "I am not... charismatic. And I don't need a dragon to fight."

"Very well." Sienna hoped she'd interpreted the subtext correctly—was this his way of saying he'd support her taking the lead? "The next will be yours."

Too late, she noticed Fennec's ears twitching with suppressed anger.

"And the third will go to Fennec. We should make a list of those who should receive eggs after that—I'd prefer to have more than a dozen by the time we break with Cinder."

"A dozen?" The Lieutenant scowled. "That could take years."

"Successes will come more often as we improve the process." Sienna wasn't quite as confident in that as she pretended to be, but if it wasn't true they might never get out from under these humans. In that case... well. They'd have to rely on the tried and true elementals. Brand might not be as unique as Harbinger, and wouldn't be as powerful once the hybrid grew up... but he was a quite a lot more useful than dead hatchlings.

She grimaced. The benefits of the powerful hybrids far outweighed the cost, when the maximum number of riders they could trust to be loyal was limited... but she sometimes wished they didn't.

"Now," she said, "In terms of possible candidates—"

"Captains!"

All four of them froze and looked around. Perry poked his head into the tent, his face flushed. "An egg just hatched!"

They shot to their feet and sprinted towards the lab. He wouldn't have bothered to inform them if the dragon were dead or dying—this one might be viable.

Upon arrival, Sienna spotted the shattered egg first and noted its pattern—sandy yellow, with veins of dusty grey and blood red. Fire and wind. The first combination they'd ever tried, one that Cinder seemed oddly partial to.

A young boar faunus knelt on the ground next to the incubator on which the egg had been resting. He wore gloves all the way up to his elbows, and hanging from his right one...

Sienna's heart sank.

The hatchling blinked its eyes rapidly. They were a strange, murky brown, but even as she watched the color was leeching out of them. Its hide was covered with dried fluids from inside the egg, and blood from where it had cracked and split.

"I'm sorry," the technician said, shifting the infant dragon to his other hand. "She looked fine a few minutes ago."

She. Sienna decided she agreed with his assessment—the spiral of the horns struck her as feminine, though she couldn't have said why. She bent down, stroked the creature's tiny head. Scales came off on her fingers.

"Inject three more eggs," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. "One with a higher concentration of fire, one with more wind... and try using less of each in the last while keeping the balance even."

The hatchling wheezed once, and stopped moving. Sienna strode away, hoping she looked busy and not rattled. She wasn't even sure why—she'd seen the hybrids die before, many times.

When she glanced down at her hand, she saw that a few pale yellow scales were still stuck to her skin. She would have been mine...

No. Her dragon would survive its first few hours. It would grow strong, and fight to defend their people. They weren't hatching pets... they were hatching weapons.

Even so, she couldn't stop thinking about those cloudy brown eyes. Couldn't help thinking... I wish she could have been mine.