Hello again! I'm back with another chapter, this time starring questionable coping mechanisms.

37. Rebirth

"Shh... easy, it's alright..."

Sage crouched down, hunching his shoulders a bit to make himself look smaller. He put both hands flat on the ground. Stayed very, very still.

The pit dragon didn't move from where it had wedged itself into an opening between two rocks, one that was much too small for it. It was a water dragon, with sleek dolphin grey scales that faded to white on its underbelly. Wide sea-green eyes peered at him as it squirmed, trying to back further into the cave. It was trembling from head to toe.

Sage wasn't exactly sure why it had chosen to come with them—it had been skittish since the battle at Shade, and half an hour ago it had been startled so badly by one of the older pit dragons that it had hidden in this cave and refused to come out. Raven and Cinder had rapidly run out of patience. The rest of the group was still moving, as quickly as they could with the pit dragons that had decided to stay with them, and they had to go soon if they wanted to catch up.

"You need to come out of there, sweetie," Scarlet said urgently. "We're still too close to Shade, they'll find you."

A terrified eep, and the dragon ducked its head behind one wing. Scarlet put a palm to his face. "I'll just leave this to the expert."

Sage lay down on his back with his arms tucked under himself. "Look. I can't hurt you like this."

One eye peered out from behind a wing.

"Do you want to smell?"

The head poked out slightly, just enough for sunlight to fall across its face. Livid scars stood out on its muzzle—recent ones, by the look of them. It looked about the same age as Zircon.

A cautious sniff, and it retreated back into its shelter... though it seemed a little less eager to squish itself into a ball, now.

"Scar?"

"...You want me to do that too, don't you?"

Sage nodded.

"These are my only clothes. I just want you to know that, because I'm lying on the ground for you right now."

Even their dragons took on the most nonthreatening postures they could, folding their wings and lying on their bellies. Zircon barked occasionally, like he was trying to help coax out the frightened water dragon. Slowly, it crept out from its little shelter and sniffed the air.

Zircon wagged his tail. The other dragon approached... and hesitantly touched his nose before pulling back and wrapping its wings around itself.

"Are you ready to keep going?" Sage asked.

The pit dragon hesitated, pondering the question... but before it could decide, Sage heard frenzied barking. He barely kept himself from swearing out loud—trying to force the pit dragon out of its shelter was what had started this whole mess in the first place. But the brick red earth dragon that bounded towards them was riderless.

As it approached the trembling water dragon froze, wide-eyed. Then the earth dragon pounced, and the two of them rolled onto the ground. "Stop!" Sage shouted. He'd already seen a few of the pit dragons brawling with one another in the past hour, but this one was too—

The earth dragon licked the other's face. It rolled off and to the side, then ran in excited circles, still barking. The water dragon sniffed it a few times, its eyes going even wider. Two more emerged from the woods. A cloudy grey wind dragon, and a fire dragon with scales that faded from pale blue to gold.

Four different elemental dragons. All about the same age as Zircon... and all from the pits.

When the earth dragon bounded off in the direction the main group had gone, the other three followed—even the shaky water dragon.

"Well," Scarlet said, after a brief, shocked pause. "I for one wish they'd decided to do that before we spent half an hour trying to coax it out of there." Then, he seemed to notice the look on Sage's face. "What's wrong?"

"I think they're siblings. Those four."

Zircon let out a low whine and nodded.

Scarlet inhaled sharply. "The whole team?"

"Must have been." Sage dusted some of the dirt off his back. "We should go before something else holds us up."

As they walked, Scarlet bumped their shoulders together. "Zircon's lucky he had you."

Sage tried to smile, but it didn't come. Zircon shouldn't have needed to be lucky.

Glynda silently took back every unkind thought she'd ever had about the unruliness of teenagers. Beacon had been so very simple to manage—at least compared to this.

"Let. Go," she snapped. "Now."

Pink eyes glared at her in open challenge as the grey wind dragon kept her jaws firmly shut. Tank whimpered and pawed at her, trying to get her to release her grip on his tail. A red earth dragon paced around the pair, whining in distress, and Russel was only barely keeping Barracuda from jumping into the fray.

Glynda did not want this to turn into another fight. There had been three of those already—two involving this same little hellion. The third had been worse than both the others combined. It had involved two of the biggest and oldest pit dragons, and had taken the combined efforts of Pepper, Strike, Phoenix, and an earth dragon that looked nearly as old as Ragnar to break up. The massive fire dragon had refused to let anyone close enough to treat the scratches on his shoulder, afterward.

The wind dragon hissed through the mouthful of Tank's tail. She hadn't broken skin yet—the situation was still salvageable. Glynda gave her the same stern look she would have used on a young fire dragon. She certainly had the temper of one. "If you want to come with us, let go of him now. If not, I'm sure we can find somewhere else for you to stay."

And if Raven or Cinder objected, Glynda would take the damned troublemaker to a broodery herself. She wouldn't have much difficulty convincing them to let her go, useless as she was without Nautilus.

But the instant the threat left her mouth, the earth dragon yelped and pawed at his sister's side. She glared at him for a moment, then reluctantly released Tank. Glynda let herself soften. "That's good. Thank you." A wary glare was the only response she got before the wind dragon slunk away.

Russel muttered venomously under his breath. "Seriously? That's it?"

"Is there something else you'd prefer we did, Mister Thrush?" she asked dryly, crouching to examine Tank's tail. It looked slightly bruised, but otherwise fine. No need for disinfectant, which was good—the older two had used half a bottle between them.

"I don't know." He kicked at the ground, frustrated.

Dove busied himself with Tank, stroking his head and murmuring softly in his ear. Then he looked up. "I don't see why we're bringing them with us when they keep doing stuff like this."

Glynda grimaced. "I'd prefer to rehabilitate them at a broodery, but we don't have the luxury at the moment." And Cinder wants them to help her fight. That thought soured her a little.

"Okay, but can't you get them to stop biting each other? And us?" Russel demanded.

"Mister Thrush, I am a teacher, not a magician. It's going to take more than a day to help them unlearn all those aggressive behaviors."

"I guess. But if we had more time, could we like... tame them?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Not if you mean the fully grown adults that have been forced to kill each other, no."

Hours later, when they were finally forced to stop and rest, they'd covered only half the distance they'd intended. The council's army couldn't pursue them, though—they were still moving faster than footsoldiers, and the enemy didn't have enough dragons to attack them head-on.

So they made camp as best they could, and Glynda resigned herself to a sleepless night. A few of the pit dragons fell asleep quickly. Most... did not. They paced around the camp, clearly agitated. Maybe they wanted to be further away, or maybe they couldn't sleep comfortably in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by unfamiliar humans and faunus. Whatever the reason, she didn't think it was a good idea to let them roam without at least keeping an eye on them.

She walked a slow circuit around the camp, keeping her eyes and ears peeled. When she heard a low bark, she struck out to investigate. A huge square head loomed over a clump of trees—the scales so dark that it looked like a dragon-shaped cutout. Tar.

When the stepped around the trees, she found more than just Tar. Mudslide was curled on her side, her eyes half-lidded from sleep. Glynda was slightly startled to see both Sky and Pyrrha leaning against her side.

"Hello, Professor."

"Miss Nikos. Mister Lark." Glynda glanced at Tar. "What are you all doing out here?"

"Jaune and Twiggy are asleep," Pyrrha explained. "I couldn't."

Glynda glanced at Sky, who shrugged. "I sleep okay like this. But this one came to say hi."

"Yes. Hello, Tar."

The dragon greeted her with a low rumble. She held a hand out, palm-up, keeping it very still. Tar hesitated. Then she sniffed it cautiously, and pressed her nose against it. Glynda felt the small shudder that went through her, and pulled away.

"I don't understand," Pyrrha said softly. "She's from Beacon?"

"She is. She can't control her powers—they go haywire whenever she tries to use them. Ozpin hid it as long as he could, but she and her rider graduated a few years ago. The council found out, and they went rogue. As to how she ended up here... that, I don't know."

He'd never have let her go to the pits willingly. Which meant...

"Professor?"

She snapped back to herself. "Yes, Miss Nikos?"

Pyrrha's expression was understanding. Compassionate. Glynda shut her eyes to blot it out.

"Would you like to sit with us, if you can't sleep?"

"There's no need."

"We don't mind." Pyrrha glanced at Sky, who shrugged.

"You are the last people in the world who should feel that they owe me anything." Her voice was sharp. "I failed you—all four of you."

"Yeah." Sky's jaw clenched. "You kinda did—"

"Stop it!" Pyrrha glared at him so fiercely that he scooted a few inches away from her. And when Glynda opened her mouth, she shook her head and held up a hand. "You didn't. I saw you, when Beacon fell." Her shoulders curled inwards, and her gaze fell to her lap. "You saved Twiggy." And, left unsaid—I know how much it cost you.

"You didn't let me finish," Sky said, giving Pyrrha a wounded look. "I was just going to stay that I'm still pissed about how they handled Tornado. But there were so many dragons his age at the pits, and it made me realize... If we fuck this up, that's what Beacon will be like without you. Which would suck. Obviously."

She almost cracked, right then—but instead she drew herself up and nodded to the pair of them. "Anything you need, I will do my best to help with. And the offer is appreciated, but I really should keep going. I don't want another brawl to start."

Tar crooned softly, bumping her nose against her shoulder. Even Mudslide lifted her head, looking at her with mournful green eyes. And Glynda walked away—ran away, really. She didn't have time to break down, now, and it certainly wasn't going to be their responsibility to deal with it when she did.

She squared her shoulders. There was, as always, work to do.

For the first time in almost a year, Weiss sang with an audience.

It started with a young fire dragon that looked about Specter's age, with a gold stripe running from the tip of her nose down her neck. Weiss vaguely remembered Professor Goodwitch telling them that this one was female. She was also eerily calm as she nosed around their camp, snorting softly when she poked her head into Blake's tent.

"Um... hi?" Ruby offered a hand. The dragon drew back in an instant, her ears pinned back in fright. "Okay! It's okay, you don't have to."

Weiss tried humming to calm her down. She sat there, entranced, her tail flicking back and forth in time with the beat. A water dragon watched them from the distance. Her scales were a dark blue, almost black, with streaks of white. Slowly, she wandered over and draped a wing over the other dragon.

Their last visitor showed up minutes later—the enormous dusty-brown earth dragon with the missing foreleg. He'd been at the pit Blake and Weiss had broken into, and had done a lot to help calm the others down.

It was... oddly soothing. Their own dragons were already asleep. Weiss kept her singing quiet to avoid waking them up—and hopefully avoid drawing too many of the pit dragons at once. The earth dragon sniffed Pit and let out a small snort of surprise. Then he settled down on his belly next to Yang, and even let her pat his nose. The fire dragon sat motionless, as if hypnotized. The water dragon squinted at Weiss, and extended her neck towards her as if she was trying to get a better look. She leaned back unconsciously, until she almost fell over and the dragon backed up.

When she stopped singing, the earth dragon made a disappointed rumbling noise and the water dragon's ears drooped.

"Hey," Ruby said softly. "Do any of you want to tell us your names?"

The earth dragon flicked his ears. "Tum... tum..." It took several minutes—he spoke haltingly, as if he hadn't practiced in a while. Eventually, though, Yang managed to guess. Tumbleweed.

"Inn-kwuh. Uhll." The water dragon managed. That went a little faster—Inkwell.

"What about her?" Ruby asked, nodding at the youngest dragon. When Weiss had stopped singing, she'd turned her stare to the night sky and was gazing at it like she'd never seen it before. She might not have.

"Nno." Tumbleweed's tail drooped sadly.

"No?" Yang looked from him, to the fire dragon, then back again. "You mean, she doesn't have one?"

One of her ears flicked. She flexed her clawless paws and made a long, inquisitive noise. Tumbleweed tensed and responded with a low growl. She hissed.

Then, reluctantly, he spoke for her. "Guh-lorry."

"Did she pick that herself?" Blake asked.

Inkwell bared her teeth. "Nno."

Realization dropped into the pit of Weiss' stomach. "She didn't have a name... so they gave her one. At the pits."

Ruby hugged her arms around herself. "You're sure you want to keep it?"

The dragon made an affirmative noise.

"Okay..."

"But—" Yang started, and Ruby smacked her shoulder.

"It's her choice, isn't it?"

Glory kept her head tilted back, still drinking in the sight of the stars overhead. Tumbleweed left a few minutes later, padding off to find somewhere to sleep. Inkwell followed, with Glory still tucked under one of her wings.

Weiss slumped where she sat.

"You okay, there?" Yang asked.

"Not really, no." She looked up, imagining what it would be like to spend her whole life locked away from the sky. "Is it wrong that I still can't feel good about what just happened?"

"No." Blake drew her knees up to her chest. "I think it would be a big red flag if you could."

"But..." Ruby glanced towards where the pit dragons had disappeared. "They're free, now. They wouldn't be if we hadn't gone to Shade."

"I know. And I don't regret that. I just..." Weiss trailed off, looking for words.

Blake spoke up, hesitant. "Maybe... this is one of those things that we shouldn't feel good about, even if we needed to do it."

"Why shouldn't we?" Yang ran a hand through her hair. "I mean, yeah it was a mess, but... honestly? We didn't start keeping dragons in cages. We didn't force them to fight each other as babies. This had to happen sometime."

"People died, Yang," Blake burst out. "Dragons, too. That's not..."

"I didn't mean it like that. But we didn't start this. We're just trying to fix what already went wrong a long time ago."

"I feel better now that we're at least doing something," Ruby admitted. "I couldn't stand waiting."

There was a tense silence. Weiss struggled to articulate what she wanted to say. "I don't regret what we did, but I can't help feeling like there was some way to do it better. Maybe if we'd gone to Shade first, and released the pit dragons after..."

"Weiss, stop." Yang reached out to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Then she glanced towards Blake. "Both of you. Yeah, maybe it would've gone better if we'd done that, but maybe we wouldn't have been able to free the pit dragons at all. Either way, we already did it. If we don't do anything unless we're sure it's the perfect thing to do, we're not gonna get a whole lot done."

A little of the tension left her shoulders. "I suppose you're right."

Off to the left, a twig snapped. All four of them jumped—but it was just Emerald. "Hey."

"Hi," Ruby said, sitting up a little straighter.

Emerald glanced between them, before eventually settling on looking at Yang. "I thought I'd tell you—we took injection equipment and stuff from Shade." She grinned. "We found formulas."

Ruby's eyes went wide. "For the elementals?" she asked, still cautious.

"Nope. Hybrids."

"What?" Weiss was on her feet in an instant. "They kept them?"

"Some of them. They were locked in a safe, but one of the pit dragons helped me melt it open."

"Wait." Yang put up a finger. "So, the fire...?"

Emerald winced. "Yeah... but I saved most of the papers! There's one that had an illustration, I think it's for lightning and water."

Weiss' head spun. "I'd never have thought they'd... everything was supposed to be destroyed."

"I'm not exactly mad that someone didn't listen."

"No! No, of course not." Her brow furrowed. "It's just... odd. That's all." Who would have the authority to do that? One of the Dragonmasters? Why? It didn't make sense, but if they could bring back the hybrids... The council had been afraid of them for a reason.

Scarred hands splayed over the shell. It was dark, with swirls of deep blue and copper that were only a few shades away from black, and webbed with gold.

"There you are," he murmured. "Go on. Come back to me."

Inside the egg, the hatchling stirred. Tyrian cooed and stroked the shell, talking to her in a sing-song voice and tapping with his fingernail. His beautiful dragonet tapped back. He crouched, his nose inches away from the shell as the egg tooth broke through.

Gently, so gently, he stroked her nose. She struggled, tiny forelegs emerging into open air, dripping with goo. Her scales were the same color as her egg—dark and glistening, like a copper mirror reflecting a stormy sea. Fine gold lines traced across them, forking like lightning.

"I like your new scales," he said, scratching her just under the chin. Her favorite spot. Her eyes blinked open—they were a vibrant shade of blue. They used to be yellow... but they were still bright, electric. Finally her gossamer wings emerged, and she shook herself.

"My Goddess," Tyrian whispered reverently. "Come to me. Come here..."

She butted her head against the towel as he dried her. Her gills opened and closed reflexively, and the odd spark jumped from the tips of her horns or the end of her tail. It was as flat as a water dragon's, but so long that it draped over the edge of the incubator and hung several feet towards the ground. Her clawed feet were webbed.

Tyrian picked her up, cradling her against his chest as she warbled uncertainly. "It's alright, Ozone. You've been reborn."

She cocked her head to one side, confused, and licked his nose.

"That's right." He stroked his thumb along the ridges on her brow. "A Goddess could never die."

As you can see, Tyrian is a very reasonable and well-adjusted person, and the absolute king of healthy attitudes.