Happy Friday! This chapter, Whitley and Oscar definitely have a plan! They're just... not sure what it is. And the main cast are still working on theirs—with some unexpected help.

50. Grounded

Oscar didn't have a scroll.

Whitley asked him that first morning, after he'd gotten over the nasty shock of the other boy being there when he squirmed out from under Glacier's wing. He'd just grinned sheepishly and said that they were expensive and he hadn't really needed one of his own.

So Whitley went back to Glacier, draped the blanket over his back, and tried not to think too hard about why he felt so relieved. They walked for a long time, their direction chosen by the renegade earth dragon seemingly at random, in total silence.

It turned out Glacier didn't like to sing in front of strangers.

There were good things about this new, larger group. Oscar was nice enough, he supposed, and learned quickly not to touch Glacier. Or Whitley. He could also cook, not as well as Klein but certainly much better than Whitley. Ragnar was old, but when a Grimm showed up on the third day, he caught its throat between his teeth and killed it. Glacier would have had to run away.

Whitley didn't like it. He hadn't liked Glacier's aimless wandering either, but it was somehow worse to know that Ragnar had decided to go somewhere and hadn't bothered to tell them where. Oscar chattered incessantly at first, and even when he finally accepted the silence Whitley found that it still grated. The song he'd been on the brink of remembering slipped away again.

And then, on the seventh day, Oscar broke.

"Five lien says we're going to Shade."

Whitley stared at him, baffled. "You want to gamble."

Oscar shrugged. "It's better than just sitting here, isn't it?"

"I don't have any money on me."

The other boy grinned. "Good, because I already spent all of mine on meat."

"Why—?"

Ragnar rumbled sheepishly, and Whitley got it. They sat in silence for several long minutes.

"...Haven," he said finally.

"Huh?"

"Maybe we're going to Haven."

"Nno," Ragnar said.

Oscar shrugged, grinning like they weren't stranded in the woods with no idea what the giant reptiles were getting them into. "I guess we'll find out."

"Soon," agreed the dragon.

They really did talk—over the past few days, Ragnar had proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Whitley wondered why Glacier never did.

"So... how long have you been out here?" Oscar asked.

Whitley had lost track of the days. "About a month," he guessed.

"And you're sure we're not going to Atlas?" The question was directed as much at Ragnar and Glacier as Whitley.

"He won't go." Whitley glared at the ice dragon, who had turned his head to look innocently back at him. Ragnar was proof that he definitely understood more than he let on.

"Isn't he, um..." Oscar paused, like he was trying to find a delicate way to say it. "...Not your dragon?"

"No. He's my Father's." Glacier's ears twitched.

"It's weird, isn't it? That he doesn't want to go home."

Yes, thought Whitley, and yet...

Ragnar tossed his head and gave Oscar a reproachful look. "Rrood."

"Sorry! I didn't mean to pry or anything."

Glacier cheerfully ignored Oscar's question. He paused to sniff a few brightly colored mushrooms that sprouted from a nearby tree stump.

"Don't eat that," Whitley warned. The dragon gave him a side-long glance that was far too knowing, then trotted past his find with his tail held high.

"I wonder sometimes," Oscar said, watching Glacier sniff at every passing bush, "what Riders feel like. If it's like this, I mean. You're supposed to raise them from the egg to bond with them, but..."

"I'm not a Rider," Whitley snapped. "He's not my dragon."

He'd get one, he knew. His own perfect pearly egg. The sixth ice dragon in history, and the fourth one alive. For a long time he'd been more or less ambivalent about that. Now... the thought of a baby hatchling clinging to his wrist and demanding to be his, of spending the rest of his life with some other—

But it didn't matter. Glacier belonged to Father, and that was that.

Whitley didn't notice the way Glacier's tail hung low in response. After all, he wasn't a Rider—he'd never been taught what it meant.

Storm woke that morning confused but contented. Ruby was half-draped over her nose, she realized... and so was Yang. It was warm, and nice, even though between the two of them she couldn't open her mouth. She stirred.

Pain shot through her wing. Storm reared in alarm, and felt something constricting her left side. She struggled against it, but the jolt that went through her—like a hot metal spike driven into the joint—made her go still.

Trapped there, not daring to move, she remembered. Ice burning through her wing. The ground. Pain.

Penny blinked online. "High stress levels detected. Combat mode—"

"No!" Ruby said hurriedly. She was still bleary and only half-awake, but she stroked Storm's nose and spoke gently to Penny. "No. It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

As Storm relaxed, she realized that the bindings around her wing kept it from moving too much. She could sit up, and though it made her wince, it was nothing like the stabbing pain from earlier. Slowly, gingerly, she folded her good wing and wobbled onto all four feet.

"Storm," Ruby said, wrapping an arm around her neck. "Are you sure you're okay to stand up?"

She wasn't, until Penny piped up. "Damage to the left wing joint is severe, but it has been sufficiently immobilized. Further injury caused by sustained movement of the legs and torso should be minimal."

"What's minimal mean, exactly?" Yang asked.

"Minimal damage will not impact future strength and flexibility of the joint." Penny paused, then added, "I will warn Storm if she needs to rest."

Professor Goodwitch, who had been watching the exchange, stepped forward. "Penny. Can Storm travel without aggravating the injury?"

"On foot, yes. It is recommended that she avoid strain on the wings such as flight or the use of wing gusts for—"

"Yes," Goodwitch said quickly. "We'd guessed that much."

Storm lumbered around their crash site while the riders ate. She tried not to look at the wide, welcoming sky above her, and failed miserably. Finally, she gave into temptation and asked, Penny? How long will it take before I can fly again?

Approximately six to eight months, Penny said, in her usual cheerful tone. Storm's heart sank. As if she'd sensed it, Penny scrambled to reassure her. I will be able to provide more accurate data as time passes! It could be much— an odd noise, almost like a hiccup—a little less, if we're lucky.

Storm wasn't sure what she was feeling right now—it was like she'd swallowed a glob of something hot and sticky. She definitely didn't feel lucky. That was more than half as long as she'd been alive.

Penny kept trying to cheer her up. Not being able to lie made her terrible at it—Storm tried not to think about what that said about her wing. When pretending to feel better didn't dissuade her, she had to ask Penny to stop. That left her feeling even worse.

That was how Specter found her, when he approached with his head hanging so low his nose parted the grass. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, and moved to touch his nose against her side. Storm backed up. She could feel her own heartbeat at the tip of her tail and knew Penny was about to engage combat mode, the way she always did when Storm was upset.

"It's okay," she told them both. This time she came to Specter, nuzzling the side of his neck and breathing in his familiar smell. "It wasn't your fault." It had just been so sudden, and when he moved towards her without warning... but she told herself that would be okay, too, now that the metal plate was smashed to bits. She still couldn't get rid of that sick, bubbling feeling in her stomach, and Pit had to force her to eat a few wild carrots he'd found.

Soon enough they were all fed and ready to go... somewhere. The question of where still hung over them. No one had an answer, but a lot of vague half-ideas—Raven? Patch? Some small settlement where they could at least get some food?—were in basically the same direction. To get anywhere, they first had to get out of this wild, Grimm-infested part of the forest.

That wasn't where the argument started. The argument started with Sage, of all people. "We have to tell someone what we know, especially since—" he glanced at Storm, "—I think Cinder wanted us stranded out here. She's trying to buy time."

Scarlet nodded agreement. "If we all walk out of here on foot, she'll have weeks to figure out how to keep us from getting help."

And Yang exploded. "What the fuck is wrong with you? We're not leaving anyone behind!"

"That's not what I—"

"Then what did you mean, huh? The only reason she isn't trying to kill us right now is because there's too many of us! And you want to split up?!"

"Yang—" Ruby grabbed her arm.

"We don't need to send everyone," Sage insisted. "Or even most of us. A few Riders could carry a message."

"I can go." Weiss said, before Yang could start on him again. "It's the least I can do."

Blake's ears went back. "That's not fair. This isn't your fault."

"We shouldn't be separating in the first place," Yang insisted. "Besides, who's gonna believe us anyway? We don't have any proof."

"Dad would," Ruby said. "Or Uncle Qrow."

Jaune nodded. "So would my family. I think."

Weiss hesitated. "I don't know how much Winter could do. We're still rogues, and it's not like the military needs us to tell them to go after Cinder."

"So Jaune and Yang could—" Neptune started to say, before he actually thought about it for half a second and stopped himself. "Or not."

"We have to do something," Scarlet insisted. "Wandering around in the middle of nowhere isn't going to help anyone."

Penny's voice broke through the brewing argument. Storm? There appears to be movement in the sky to your left.

She'd been so focused on their riders that she hadn't noticed, but once she did she twisted her head to look. It turned out to be a lot more than motion—that was a dragon flying towards them. Storm bugled in alarm, and others turned to face the oncoming threat.

Except it didn't look quite as threatening, when it got closer. It was the cream-colored wind dragon they'd met in the valley. Whisper, Storm remembered, though her rider's name escaped her until Sun muttered, "Crap, that's Neo."

"And Torchwick," Yang said, her voice trailing off into disbelief. He was sitting behind Neo, both hands held up in... "Is that a peace sign?"

Sun was halfway glad for any interruption—things had gotten way too heated for his taste. Of course, from his few brief interactions with the guy, he didn't adding Torchwick to a situation had ever made people stop yelling at one another.

Whisper landed in front of them, furling her wings and shuffling a little from foot to foot. "Hello!" Torchwick called out, tipping his hat with one hand.

They all looked at each other, a little lost. Goodwitch stepped up to talk to him, her arms folded. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious? We're here to join the party!" He seemed to read the incredulous expressions on their face and turned a little more serious. "There's been trouble in paradise since you left. A lot of shouting—and it seems like our doctor friend is cooking something up. So we figured we'd get the hell out of dodge."

Neo frowned and poked him in the shoulder.

Torchwick rolled his eyes. "Well, she figures that if Cinder has a secret that scared off all of you at once, we can't work for her in good conscience unless we know what it is." He made a face at the word conscience. "I just think she's going to lose."

"So you're... helping us," Sun said slowly. It sounded even stupider when he said it out loud. "Just because?"

"Not just because. Keep up, m—ow!" Neo had pinched Torchwick's ear. She made a few quick motions with her hands. "Fine, fine. I also asked her to spy on them, and she didn't like what she saw. Neither did I. And if we're going to leave, may as well go with the rest of the pack. Safety in numbers, you know how it is."

"You want to hide behind us and our dragons," Goodwitch said flatly.

Torchwick winked. "That's right. We can pull our weight, though. Neo's been teaching this one how to hunt." Whisper licked his hand as he gestured at her. He made a face and wiped it on his coat. "We figured we could at least fly with you until we're out of Grimm territory."

Then Neo noticed Storm and stiffened. She nudged Torchwick. Pointed.

"Oh," he said, after a long moment. "Well."

"Gonna fly off now that we're not convenient for you?" Yang demanded.

He and Neo conferred briefly in sign language. Then Torchwick winced. "Sorry, but... I'm not sticking around long enough to find out what our local mad scientist is planning."

Neo glared at him. He glared right back. She signed something, and he shook his head.

"I'd like to help. I really would—Cinder has it it out for you now, which is enough to make me root for you." A lopsided grin, one that faded quickly. "But I've gotta look out for number one, you know?" His eyes flicked briefly towards Neo.

Gears turned in the back of Sun's head. The heart of the argument, as far as he could tell, was that no one wanted to split up. They'd made it this far by having each other's backs, and no matter what they did, splitting up to spread their warning meant someone would be easy prey for Cinder. Especially if Watts was planning something. But... "Can you take a message?"

"What?" Torchwick said.

"What?!" Yang burst out, at exactly the same time. "But he—" she stopped, wincing when Ruby squeezed her hand.

"It's really not that big of a deal," she said quietly. "I mean, compared to everything else."

"What message?" Torchwick was starting to look a little nervous, now.

After a brief explanation—Weiss giving him the rundown on the weird chemical she'd found out about in Watts' lab, Goodwitch explained how Cinder must have used it to cause problems in that year's hatchlings, and Ruby and Jaune telling him about their Rider relatives.

By the end of it, his mouth was hanging slightly open. "Well," he said, the cheer in his voice now obviously forced. "That's even worse than I thought."

Neo signed something. Torchwick grabbed her hand and groaned, then signed back just as agitatedly. Finally, she scowled and gave him an emphatic look. He slumped.

"Fine. Fine. But if we're going to stick our necks out like that, we're going to need a better guarantee that your friends won't go for the axe."

There was a lot of rapid back-and-forth after that. Goodwitch wanted to go with Neo, to make sure the message was delivered—Neo flatly refused to leave Torchwick with them. Eventually they wrote out a hasty explanation on a scrap of paper, and the two probably-not-so-ex-criminals promised to send it to Ruby and Yang's uncle as soon as they got to civilization.

Yang kept scowling after them long after they'd disappeared from view. "How do we know they'll actually do it?"

"We don't," Goodwitch said flatly. "But if Cinder is planning to attack us, then frankly it's the best we can do for now without putting ourselves at risk."

Sun felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He was glad when they started walking—right then, any distance they could put between themselves and that lab sounded like an excellent idea.

It got dark. They kept walking.

Not a good idea, long-term—this sort of pace wasn't sustainable. But then, they weren't trying to sustain it. They just needed to be far enough away that a dragon couldn't fly from the lab to their location in back and less than a day. Farther away than Watts expected, when he tried... whatever he was plotting. Just the thought of sleeping anywhere near him made Weiss' skin crawl.

What's left of it, anyway, she thought wryly. Her palms throbbed, so she rested them against Specter's shoulder. His cool scales soothed them, and she hoped it helped assure him that it wasn't his fault. She wasn't angry at him.

The doctor, though... Her left hand curled into a fist, which was a terrible idea. She hissed between her teeth. Fingers shook as the throbbing turned into burning. Funny how hot an injury caused by extreme cold felt.

"Let me see."

Blake's voice over her shoulder made her jump. Then she surrendered her hand, wincing slightly as the wrapping pulled away from raw flesh. "Yeah, this needs to be changed."

"You don't have to."

A quiet snort. "Someone does. This... isn't the kind of thing you want getting infected."

Weiss caught Specter looking at them, his ears drooping. "How about we climb on his back for a while?" she suggested. "It'll be easier if we sit."

Blake raised an eyebrow, but she didn't call out the flimsy excuse for what it was. They settled into the saddle. It was cramped—it had only been made for one—but she had to sit close anyway so that Blake could get at her hands.

The tension in Specter's shoulders eased a little. She still wasn't used to the kind of physical reassurance dragons seemed to prefer. Or verbal reassurance, for that matter. Not much practice before Beacon. But she thought he might be worried she wouldn't trust him anymore, and this way she could show him she felt safe sitting on his back. It hadn't been the possibility of him hurting her that had scared her, anyway.

"This is going to sting."

Weiss gave Blake her right hand and rolled her eyes. "I remember from yesterday."

Which, it turned out, she didn't. If it had hurt like this last time, she must have been too out of it to notice. She hissed in pain and tried to close her hand. Blake grabbed it in both of hers.

"Sorry."

"It's fine."

Silence descended as Blake wound a clean bandage around her hand. Weiss spent the time looking around. It was so dark that the exercise was mostly pointless, though there was enough moonlight through the trees for her to make out the dim outlines of the other RWBY dragons, and of Yang and Ruby's silhouettes on either side of Storm. They felt strangely distant despite being less than twenty feet away. Others, who she couldn't make out at all, might as well have been on the moon.

"Done." Weiss looked down, and found that Blake had indeed finished. She offered her left hand, then, and this time she was prepared for the antibiotic sting. Warm, gentle fingers pressed gauze against her palm.

"Thank you."

Blake still didn't pull her hand away. "Do you... want to talk? About..."

It was obvious what she meant, but... well. Weiss didn't want to get into that while Specter was listening. So instead she asked the first question that came to mind. "Yesterday. Before Watts came over. You were about to say something."

"Oh." The sound—a little like she just had some of the air crushed out of her—seemed to indicate that Weiss had created a somewhat more effective distraction than she'd meant to. "Right, that. It's..."

"If you don't want to say it, you don't have to."

"No, I do. It's just... now doesn't feel like a great time."

Weiss shrugged, and was suddenly reminded of how their shoulders were pressed together. "I'm not sure how often we'll have the luxury of private conversations, going forward."

She was rewarded with a tiny smile, one she could barely make out in the dim moonlight. "Fair enough."

Some time passed. Blake stayed silent. Weiss was just considering bumping her shoulder to prompt her to speak when she finally said, "It's also a little less... not less true, just..." She stopped, let out a breath. "I spent a long time feeling... I don't know. Cursed, maybe. Bad things just kept happening. Then we finally got a break, and I wanted to say something, because but you're still here even though you keep getting caught up in the middle of it and I—I don't know."

"Those bad things weren't your fault."

"Not all of them, but..."

"If you're about to try to blame yourself for what he did—" Blake winced, and Weiss went quiet. She hadn't meant to be quite that harsh.

Then, softly, "I know I shouldn't. At least, I usually do. Being around you helps."

"Oh." Weiss finally got what Blake had been trying to say all along, and it was... "That's sweet." Probably undeserved, but sweet.

"It made more sense back when things were actually going well for a change."

Weiss pondered that a moment. Then she squeezed Blake's hand lightly and said, "You'll just have to tell me again, the next good day."

Goodwitch called them to a halt soon after. They didn't bother pitching tents in the dark—instead they all just curled up with their dragons, wearing their riding clothes. Blake and Weiss slid from the saddle together. She still hadn't taken her hand back, even though it was all bandaged. Didn't, even when they were both standing on the ground and it was time to go their separate ways. Her head tilted down, towards Specter, so that her face was hidden. A single light tug.

Blake glanced at Pit. Then, when he nodded, she slipped under Specter's wing. It was cool and dark. So dark she doubted Weiss could see anything. The dragon tucked his head in with them, pressing his nose into his rider's side. She wrapped an arm as far around his neck as she could reach. Blake sat next to her, not quite sure how close she should be. Weiss still hadn't let go of her hand.

Cool turned cold. Fighting a shiver, Blake moved in a little more. Specter's eyes were open. With so little light for them to reflect, they looked a bit like holes in the pale expanse of his scales. He whined.

"It's alright." Weiss ran a hand along his neck, slow and soothing, and started to hum. Softly, so the sound wouldn't travel any further than the underside of his wing. It was the same liquid cascade of notes that had calmed even Brand.

Blake had felt bad for pushing the dragons as much as they had, but in Specter's case it might have been a mercy. His eyes drooped closed, and within minutes his breathing was slow and even. Weiss let the last notes linger. Then she whispered, "I'm sorry," in his ear.

A deep silence followed. Blake was loathe to break it, but... "You don't need to be," she murmured. It took so long for Weiss to respond that she started to wonder if she'd overestimated human hearing again.

Then, "I know I shouldn't." There was a wry grin on her face that she probably didn't realize Blake could see.

She thought that would be it. But when Blake settled back against Specter's side, wincing a little as she did so—he'd gotten even colder now that he was asleep—Weiss spoke again. "I think I do want to. Talk, that is."

Blake snapped out of the haze of drowsiness. "Okay."

"I... don't really know where to start."

Well. That made two of them. "It must have been scary. I mean... it was scary for me." She swallowed. "When you ran up to him, and I saw the mist."

She knew a thing or two about being hurt by the people you loved. This wasn't the same, it hadn't been Specter's fault, but—but Weiss was shaking her head.

"That isn't what scared me. Or... it did, obviously, but now that I understand what happened it doesn't bother me. I mean, this is a little annoying—" she flexed her injured palms, "—but that's all. I'm not afraid of getting hurt again."

Blake considered asking what had scared her... but she thought she could guess. "The device, then."

Weiss went still. "Yes."

"...You're right. That's worse."

"It's so much worse." Weiss shivered, and this time Blake realized it wasn't about the cold. "The council wanted that, remember? Wanted to just—" Her hand tightened. "It's worse than culling."

Blake was thrown. Her voice never rose above a whisper, but there was a weight to it, a ferocity that told her Weiss meant every word. She hesitated. It was monstrous, there was no denying that, but worse than killing Tornado had been?

Weiss was still shaking. Not knowing what else to do, Blake moved closer and put her free arm over her shoulders. "He's alive. It was awful and wrong, but he'll be okay."

"Because we destroyed it. If the council got their hands on something like that..."

In the best case scenario, they'd send mindless drones out to kill Grimm, and let the dragons shiver it out in locked stalls afterward. In the worst... they might never take them off.

"I'm not letting them do that to him. Not ever. I'd—" Weiss choked on the venom of her own words, and Blake finally saw what should have been obvious. This had hit on a secret fear.

"We'll keep him safe," she promised, pulling Weiss into her side. "We'll keep all of them safe." Weiss' head came down to rest on her shoulder.

The closeness had happened so gradually, snuck up on her so quietly, that Blake was a little startled to find that Weiss was now burrowed into her side. She put a palm flat on her back, rubbing in slow circles, and wished she had something, anything better to offer. Reassurance had never been her strong suit.