Hello and happy Friday! Here's another chapter, starring pitch darkness and the many headaches of Sienna Khan.

Like Giant Geese

The flap of Sienna's tent ripped open, and she stormed out with Corsac hot on her heels.

"Don't say it," she snarled.

"I haven't said anything," he said, in an infuriatingly mild tone.

Justice was gone. He'd refused to come back to the camp after Ilia had vanished, and now... maybe she'd come back for him, or maybe he'd run off to look for her. Either way, it was painfully obvious that the others had been right.

She should have known. To think she'd believed someone who'd spent that much time around a deserter was above suspicion...

Sienna caught herself groping for other possibilities. Surely Ilia wouldn't have killed one of their own... but there wasn't anything in these woods that could kill or capture her and Justice. Nothing except the Grimm—which wouldn't have bothered hiding the bodies—or maybe Brand.

That was a thought. Could Hazel...?

No. She had an easier time imagining Ilia assassinating one of their guard patrols than she did Brand turning against them. Dragons were loyal.

Usually.

"Sienna?"

She looked up, and met Perry's nervous look with a flat glare. "What."

"There's a problem at the lab."

Her left eye twitched. "A problem."

"Well... somebody got in."

"What?"

Perry winced. "There's a hole in the side. They cut through the canvas."

Corsac raised his eyebrows. "It's quite reckless of our former sister to linger in the area."

Sienna shook her head. "That wasn't Ilia. A few days ago she could have walked right in—it doesn't make sense for her to run and come back."

It still wasn't over. There was a traitor and a deserter. She didn't like this new trend.

"Regardless." Corsac waved a hand. "We'll need to post more guards outside."

"As soon as we can find people to spare." Sienna feigned a grimace. "But that might take a few days. Everyone's busy getting ready to move camp."

Corsac looked at her sharply—but, to his credit, he saw the slight widening of her eyes and nodded agreement. "I'll find my brother. The four of us ought to meet to discuss the scheduling."

Perry—who would have been considered unquestionably trustworthy a month ago—left looking confused, but none the wiser.

They did not assign extra guards to the lab that night—instead, the Lieutenant entered through the breach in the side and stood guard where no one would see him.

Sienna waited in her tent, along with the Albains and Harbinger, and the dragonets. Flux and Gigas were still reeling from Justice's disappearance, and didn't like to be left alone in the old storage tent. Between them they'd chewed through over a hundred feet of rope.

Gigas wouldn't stop pacing and letting out distressed croaks. Sienna reached down to soothe him. He butted his nose against her palm and twanged anxiously. Odd—usually Flux was the jumpier of the two.

They tried to pass the time talking logistics. Sienna started planning another raid to replace the ice Dust they'd lost, but Gigas kept whimpering for attention, and every time she pet him she had to scratch Flux behind the ears so she wouldn't be jealous. Eventually they gave up the pretense and sat in a circle, playing with the dragonets and Harbinger.

Midnight came and went. Sienna scooped Flux into her lap and watched the hatchling twitch and spark. She reached out to stroke her snout, preparing for a shock.

An shout split the air—and cut off so abruptly that it left a ringing silence in its wake. The bottom dropped out of Sienna's stomach. She lurched to her feet and sprinted for the lab with the Albains right behind her.

They weren't the first to arrive. People crowded around the entrance, kept at bay by one of the regular guards. The other was inside, kneeling next to the fallen Lieutenant. He was on his back, one arm thrown over his head—it had been mauled badly enough that it was hard to make out his tattoo.

Sienna froze in the entrance, staring blankly down at him. It wasn't the shock of seeing blood—there was a lot of it, but that was hardly new for her. It was the cracked and split skin, gone paler than normal and slightly shriveled. She knew those injuries. She'd dealt with them, on a much smaller scale, dozens of times before.

Oh.

His head turned towards her. "Gods... damn... hah... hatch..."

"I know," she said, so he'd stop trying to talk. He did, though not by choice—a fit of coughing demanded all of his breath. He'd probably breathed some of the desiccated air when he was attacked.

Sienna swallowed. She kept staring at the prone Lieutenant, but she hardly saw him—instead, two sun-yellow eyes swam across her vision, gleaming in deep shadows. She'd thought she'd died in the woods when they left her. She'd thought...

She must have been stalking them through the woods since she ran away. Attacking whenever they let their guard down. Dragons were supposed to be loyal, but she'd killed faunus that helped raise her as a hatchling.

The room spun sickeningly, and Sienna crouched down next to the Lieutenant so she wouldn't lose her balance. It didn't make any sense, none of it.

Why? Sienna wanted to scream. Why is it always the ones I trust the most?

Blake knew she had better nightvision than humans did. Better than dragons, even. That was the whole point of moving at night—she would be able to look where they were going, but the pit dragons couldn't spot them from the air.

What she hadn't known was how bad human vision got at night, under tree cover, with clouds mostly obscuring the moon. How far could Weiss see, right now? A few yards in front of her? A few feet?

The answer, it turned out, was absolutely nothing.

"Root," she whispered, gently guiding Weiss around it before she tripped. Again. She slipped on a small rock instead. Blake helped her keep her feet while she got her balance back, muttering darkly under her breath all the while.

The thing about Weiss being more or less blind was that it forced her to cling to Blake's side, for balance and so that she could be nudged around obstacles wherever possible. And she was hanging on a bit tighter than was strictly necessary, probably because stumbling around in a pitch dark forest knowing that mind controlled pit dragons and Grimm were about was, in her words, "Unnerving."

A twig snapped. Blake glanced to the side and watched a startled doe melt back into the trees. Weiss' grip on her arm tightened even further until she murmured, "Animal."

Pit and Specter were only slightly better off. At least, they seemed to be able to walk without tripping every other step, though they still stuck to their riders like big scaly burrs. Pit butted his nose against Blake's back to reassure himself every time he heard a noise in the distance. Specter grabbed Weiss' sleeve in his teeth and refused to let go.

It was slow going. Awkward, since they were all tangled together, and since they had to keep Weiss under Specter's wing so that she wouldn't be so visible from the air. Blake wasn't sure the pit dragons' night vision was that good, but she didn't want to take the chance.

No one was talking. Aside from Blake, when she warned the others about some snag on the ground or reassured them that the latest odd noise was nothing to worry about. That meant she had nothing to focus on except watching the woods around them... and the warmth at her side.

She kept sneaking glances and then scolding herself—it felt too much like taking advantage of the situation, since Weiss couldn't tell she was doing it. Although she had initiated earlier...

Blake shook her head. Later. They could talk about it more in the morning, once they'd found someplace to sleep. She doubted they'd go the whole night anyway—Pit was half asleep on his feet, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open herself. She'd gotten used to sudden shifts in her schedule in the White Fang, but it had been a while since she'd pulled an all nighter.

She caught her mind wandering again and forced herself back into the present—and just in time. A flicker of movement in the trees made her stop and whisper to the others, "Wait." It might be an owl, or...

A dark shadow passed directly overhead and collided with a sturdy oak. It creaked and shuddered under a sudden immense weight, then settled. At the noise Weiss squeezed her arm, and Pit's nose pressed against her side.

"Don't move," she breathed. The dragon had landed only about fifty feet away. If they moved, and one of them tripped, or stepped on a twig, or made any noise at all... but there was no reason for whoever was controlling the pit dragons to land them unless it was to let them rest. They'd been flying for hours, after all, and there wasn't much point patrolling the skies when it was this dark. It would probably stay here until morning—and once the sun came up, it would find them. Their only chance was to leave now, even if she doubted they could sneak past it without making a sound. It would probably come to a fight.

A gust of wind shifted some branches aside. Blake couldn't see color when it was this dark, but she did catch the glimmer of pale streaks along the dragon's black scales. It was Inkwell, who had never been able to see them unless they moved.

Blake told Weiss, whispering into her ear so softly that she could hardly hear her own voice. Weiss gripped her hand and touched her palm.

She shook her head in confusion, remembered Weiss couldn't see her, opened her mouth to say she didn't understand—and realized that she was tracing letters on her skin. Stay put?

Best bet, she wrote back.

Explaining all this to the dragons as silently as they could, they settled in to wait. Weiss leaned her head against Blake's shoulder—something she really wished she could properly enjoy.

Later, she promised herself. They'd be safe once Inkwell left. Relatively speaking. As for how long it would be before they were really safe... She grimaced. Now that they were opposing the White Fang and the Council and Cinder, they might never be able to relax completely.

Blake let her own head rest on top of Weiss'. It was going to be a long night.

Glynda watched the sun rise to the sound of Pepper's rumbling snores. It was one of those moments, with the sky streaked with vibrant colors and the trees glistening with morning dew, that it was hard to believe that anything was wrong.

Nautilus always slept like a rock—with her head turned away from the others, she couldn't sense his absence.

She felt the pit open up again, the surge of a tide that threatened to knock her off her feet. So she breathed, and watched the sky, and forced her mind to go blank. She couldn't break down yet... but the cracks were starting to show.

Motion caught her eye. Dark spots, flying in formation.

"Up!" she snapped. The two students were on their feet in an instant, their eyes still muzzy with sleep. Peter took a few seconds longer, but he saw the same thing she had without her needing to explain.

They were closer now. She could see the sunlight glinting off the lead dragon's scales. "Ren, Neptune, take your dragons to the lake. If they spot us, I want you to hide underwater."

"But—"

"Pepper?" Peter touched her nose. "Can you fly?"

She shifted from paw to paw. Winced. "Fffly," she decided.

"Peter, at this point I don't think it's wise to let her carry both of us," Glynda said. "I'll—"

"I'd be a poor friend if I let you give up."

Exasperated, Glynda opened her mouth to argue with him—but the words died in her throat. The formation was closer now. The lead dragon was silver and lacked the wide tail of a water dragon. An ice dragon? Their students hadn't learned about flight formations, and besides it was much too big to be Specter.

Ah. Winter Schnee. Not her first choice of ally, but at this point she'd take just about anything that wasn't a Council rider or a Grimm. How and why were questions that could be answered later.

"They're friendly," she said. "We need to hail them."

"Wha—"

Pepper flicked her tail—the draconic equivalent of a shrug—and let loose a booming bellow. All four humans clapped their hands over their ears. The dragons above them shifted course.

Glynda had expected riders from the Flight Squad. She was pleased to see her students instead—though not quite as pleased as Neptune, who collided with Sun at a dead sprint. They hugged. The moment stretched.

She cleared her throat. They jumped apart—Neptune beet red, Sun grinning from ear to ear. "Hey, Pepper! Glad you're okay!"

"Tank 'oo."

"We should keep moving." Glynda glanced up at Winter, who hadn't bothered to dismount, and caught a flash of disappointment in her eyes.

They went. Glynda chose to ride on Quake, so as not to strain Pepper too much. Tai gave her a sad, understanding smile, and offered her a granola bar out of his fanny pack.

This whole too-dark-to-see-your-own-feet thing? Nora hated it.

"So... we definitely can't make the light brighter," she said, already knowing the answer.

"Increasing brightness would also increase the likelihood of discovery," Penny answered.

Ruby tripped over a root and went down with a little yelp. Nora helped her up, while Storm fretted and licked her face. "I'm okay!"

"How much further again?" Nora asked. "'Cause I think the sky's getting lighter."

"Nine point eight four miles."

Nora made a face. Even after hours of walking, they were only halfway there. And even when they got there, Ren probably wasn't with this group. He was off somewhere with their professors. At least he was probably safe.

They walked. Endlessly. Through dark forest that all looked exactly the same, and was full of creepy noises that made them jump. Nora had been in spookier places before... but you never really got used to the atmosphere of the woods at night.

But eventually, the sky lightened. Penny turned the light off, and the colorless darkness turned into deep greens and warm browns. The air had that crisp, clean feeling it only got right after dawn.

Penny blinked yellow. "The signal appears to have changed trajectory."

"What?" Ruby demanded. "Did they take off?"

"Its speed indicates that it is traveling on dragonback."

Nora's heart sank. "There has to be a way we can catch them! Or... you're sure you can't send a message or anything? Like make her gun beep in morse code?"

The light went yellow for a moment before Penny finally replied. "You will travel faster if you run with your dragons."

They jumped into their saddles in a heartbeat. Once they were mounted, Penny told them to turn a little to the left. Storm surged forward in a dead sprint, with Freya lagging slightly behind her.

"I would advise a more sustainable pace," Penny said. "The signal is traveling in our direction—we only need to intercept it."

"Oh." Nora pulled back on the reins, feeling a little sheepish. "Right."

"I will warn you if we are falling behind."

Ruby sighed and rested her head against the back of Storm's neck. "What would we do without you, Penny?"

Penny didn't seem to know how to respond to that. So they moved at a trot—which was soon all their exhausted dragons could manage. A few times Penny had to urge them on, until she finally called for a halt.

"The signal is two point nine four kilometers away, and will arrive in an estimated four minutes and thirty seconds."

Four minutes and twenty-four seconds later, dragons appeared overhead. Nora counted six of them, flying in a neat V shape. "They look like giant geese!"

Ruby squinted. "I guess... oh! The one in the front is silver, just like Steele!"

Maybe a coincidence... but this seemed like one of those moments when it was better to do something impulsive than to not do anything at all. (To be fair, most moments seemed like one of those to Nora.) She looked around for a jumping off point, and found a small rise she thought Freya could probably manage.

"I'll flag 'em down, captain!" she called out, raising two fingers to her forehead in a sloppy salute.

A wind dragon erupted out of the woods.

Winter yanked hard on the reins just as Steele banked to the left, narrowly avoiding a potentially fatal collision. The dragon's startled squawk, and the wide eyes of its rider, were just enough for her to tamp down on the instinct to draw her pistol.

The rider stood up in the saddle and waved her arms. Winter recognized her—Nola? No, Nora.

When Nora noticed Ren, she almost jumped right off her dragon. There was a moment of confusion, as the rest of their formation mingled in the air and the students shouted greetings.

"Quiet!" Winter roared. It was something that they practiced in the Flight Squads—sometimes you had to make yourself heard over the wind.

Finally, they quieted down and spiraled to the ground, where another dragon and rider waited. Ruby hopped up and down on the spot. "Dad! Uncle Qrow!"

Tai vaulted out of the saddle the instant Quake's paws touched the ground, and wrapped her in a hug that looked like a genuine suffocation hazard. Winter was left sitting on Steele's back, scanning the woods around them long after she'd confirmed that Weiss wasn't there, as if she'd suddenly appear on a twelfth glance.

She can handle herself.

Not like Whitley, who had no dragon and no idea how to defend himself. Who had been missing for weeks now with no whisper of a ransom. Presumed dead, as far as the SDC was concerned. But as dangerous as a White Fang kidnapper was, that was nothing compared to a battle-scarred pit dragon controlled by a malevolent person.

"Let's go," she snapped. "We need to cover as much ground as possible while it's still light."