Hello again! Here's another chapter, starring a cat flap, a blueprint, and a new face.
85. Getting to the Root
"You're joking."
"I rarely do," Glynda said. And Ilia couldn't really argue with her. Not when was standing right in front if it, staring at the... well...
It was a giant cat flap. In the Lieutenant's cell.
Gigas poked his head out experimentally. Then he made a gleeful twanging sound and went tearing out of the barn. He tripped at the door and tumbled nose-over-tail down a small hill, only to scramble to his feet and take off running again.
"How did you get Ironwood to put that in?" Ilia asked, awed despite herself.
She shrugged. "He's been running loose since Vacuo without doing any harm. It's his rider we need to worry about."
Ilia didn't know what to say to that. Fortunately she didn't have to figure it out—Gigas bolted back in through the other door, his tongue lolling out as he panted. Then he threw himself back through the little door and, judging by the noises from inside, pounced on his rider.
There was a sad smile on the professor's face that made Ilia feel like she was trespassing. She turned to go, but Glynda followed her out of the barn, and away from the joyful barking of the dragonet.
"Have you spoken to Justice?"
Ilia's throat went very dry. "Yeah," she said, trying to look nonchalant. "I asked him if he wanted to fight when we got to Atlas. He said yes, obviously." She didn't mention the part where she'd offered to sneak away, if he wanted. He still hadn't taken her up on it.
Glynda hummed. "It's a start."
"What?" Ilia demanded. "What else am I supposed to do? He wants to go back, and they'd kill us."
"You were quite right not to return to the White Fang, yes."
"But you—" Ilia cut off in mid-sentence when Glynda raised an eyebrow. "What."
"It's important to ask how he feels and what he wants. It's even more important to listen. Even when what he wants is impossible. Even—especially—when you don't particularly want to hear it. Otherwise, he may start to feel that it's a wasted effort to express those things, and you'll find it very difficult to understand him."
"I can't—"
"Try."
Ilia swallowed. If she'd done it before they left the Fang, maybe... but she'd left him alone, even if she'd come back. Even if she hadn't meant to. Could she really—
"Don't." She looked up, startled. The professor's eyes flashed. "It is not too late."
Her skin turned a sickly greenish-grey. "I know! I just..."
"Go. Now."
Ilia found him curled up behind the fire stables. She slowed as she approached, her insides churning uneasily, but she made herself walk up to him and put her hand on his neck.
"You ate?" she asked.
Justice snorted and put his head back down on his paws. Ilia sat by his shoulder, leaning into him, letting herself relax against his warm scales.
"How... how are you feeling?"
It came out awkward and unsure. He stared at her, his ears twitching in confusion.
"Right now. Do you... like it here?"
Justice huffed. "No."
Ilia flinched. "I'm sorry."
Again that look, like he thought he must be missing something. She cleared her throat and forced herself to say, "Why didn't you want to leave the Fang? I thought you hated it there."
His ears drooped, and Ilia added hurriedly, "I'm not angry! It's just... I never asked. I should have."
"Guss," he said. "Ffluck. Harr...rrn... grr." Justice stopped, annoyed that his tongue had completely failed to wrap around any of their names.
And just like that, she felt like an idiot.
"You like them a lot, don't you?"
"Gud," he said, and curled his tail a little tighter around himself.
"And that's why you want to stay here? Because it's where Gigas is?"
Justice bobbed his head.
Ilia frowned. "So... why not leave Haven?"
He hesitated. Then, reluctantly, "Rrud."
Her heart lurched. Rudder, the one with the trained assassin for a rider. In retrospect, she was kind of glad she hadn't known about that while it was still going on.
"It's okay," she assured Justice, who had hunched his shoulders miserably. "It's alright, it's just... his rider is dangerous. That's all."
"Nno talk," Justice said. "Sat. Sstars."
"Okay. So you missed him? But there were other dragons in the Fang, why not—"
"No talk." Justice's tail started to twitch back and forth. "No talk. No..."
"I know. I know you didn't talk to Rudder. But Harbinger the others—" Ilia stopped. Justice made a low keening noise, and... oh.
"No... want... lone," he mumbled. "Bad."
"You're not," Ilia promised. "We're staying, this time. You can make friends, and—I'll be here. Okay?"
But Justice kept coiling himself even smaller.
Ilia threw herself around his neck, flushing pale yellow with shame. "I never wanted to leave, I swear. I just—they were going to kill us if we didn't go, and I didn't know what to do, and I thought you'd follow me. And I tried to go back, but there were people everywhere and I couldn't find you." Her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm sorry!"
A shadow fell over her, as Justice folded them both under his wing. "Nno?" he said.
"No!" She wiped her face furiously. "Why would you think—?"
His ears drooped. "Hurt... 'oomans."
"Oh." Ilia stroked his nose. "That's not... I wasn't angry with you. I was just scared. In the Fang, we see the worst of them, all the time." She tried to smile, but it came out twisted. "I guess I can't really speak from experience, but not all of them are like that. Those hikers? They couldn't have hurt us. And it felt like I'd messed up, like I'd dragged you into so many fights that you thought..."
Justice nuzzled at her side. She hugged his snout, and let out a shaky breath.
"Is that... did that help?"
He hummed deep in his chest, a sound she could feel right down in her bones. "Gud," he purred, and shut his eyes.
"Pyrrha? Have you seen—"
The sound of footsteps stopped.
"Uh... I could come back?"
Pyrrha blew a lock of hair out of her eyes, just long enough to see Sun standing awkwardly in the doorway of one of the dorms. She didn't get a good look—Harpy's head and front paws were resting on her back, which made it difficult to see much of anything aside from the paving stones of the courtyard.
"No need," she said, though she wasn't sure how well he could hear her. "Did you want something?"
"Just looking for Huo..." He walked around Harpy to get a better look at her predicament.
She sort of wished he wouldn't.
"Glad you two are getting along," he said, his voice shaking a little with suppressed laughter.
"As am I."
Sun snorted. "You're a bit of a handful, huh?" he told Harpy.
She hissed at him—which also meant that she raised her head, so Pyrrha could finally get back to her feet. Or at least that was the plan. Somehow she ended up sitting against the dragon's chest, pinned under one foreleg. Her hair was still in her face.
"I was hoping to get up soon," she said, twisting her head to look at Harpy.
A little huff. Then, finally, she was released. She scratched the hybrid in her favorite spot, just under her chin. With Sun there, Harpy tried to pretend to be disinterested, but one of her back legs started tapping against the ground.
It felt... odd. Her scales were always warm, as if she'd just spent hours baking under the sun, and rough as sandpaper. Not like petting Twiggy at all.
"You're doing okay?" Sun asked. Then, with a smirk in Harpy's direction, "She seems like she'd give Huo a run for his money."
Pyrrha frowned, confused. He'd looked at her hands—and when she glanced at them herself, she noticed that her knuckles had split again. "Oh, this. It's fine, just dry air."
It was a bit irritating, she had to admit, but as far as she could tell Harpy wasn't doing it deliberately—the air was just drier around her, like a little patch of desert had followed them to Atlas. Usually harmless, but she was developing a problem with chapped lips and the occasional nosebleed.
"Here." Sun tossed something at her, and Pyrrha caught it instinctively. She looked down and frowned at an unopened tube of Vaseline.
"Oh. Thank you? Why do you...?"
"Don't worry about it!" he said, and wandered off.
Harpy sniffed at the tube in her hand—but it was plastic, and she got bored of it almost instantly. Cautiously, Pyrrha backed up a step.
The dragon's head snapped around, and her tail curled jealously around her. Pyrrha sighed and patted the nose pressed against her side. "Let's go find the others," she suggested.
Harpy was distinctly unimpressed.
Pyrrha folded her arms. "They're my friends. I won't start avoiding them."
Harpy pulled away. She coiled around herself, her wings slightly hunched, and fixed her gaze on the distant sunset.
Deep breaths. "You don't want to come with me?"
Silence. Then, slowly, in spite of herself, one of Harpy's ears rotated towards her.
"We could bring Gigas."
That sold it. Pyrrha honestly had no idea what she would have done if Gigas wasn't around. He seemed almost as friendly as his rider was belligerent, and so excited by all the new sights and smells of Atlas Academy that he could never keep still. Pyrrha never saw him speak to Harpy directly—but she liked having him around, and he'd go with them if she told him Guang would be there.
It was already something of an effort for Gigas to squirm through the smaller door in the stall. Before long he'd be even broader at the shoulder than his rider was, and she wasn't sure what the General planned to do then. He greeted them as coldly as he knew how—with one back foot on his stubby tail to keep it from wagging, and doing his best to pretend he wasn't smelling them.
Justice also joined them on the way. Pyrrha didn't plan it, exactly, but they ran across him and Ilia half-hidden behind a building, and the fire dragon caught Harpy's smell and picked his head up. He hissed at Harpy, shot Gigas a frustrated glare, and pointedly ignored them both... while following a few dozen feet behind them. From behind him, Ilia winced and spread her hands helplessly.
"Um, hello!" Pyrrha called out. Her teammates were in a familiar arrangement, with Freya and Ren lying in the grass and Nora and Guang racing across the lawn—but Jaune and Twiggy stood off to one side, not participating.
"Ruh!" Twiggy barked.
Harpy started to growl. "Just try," Pyrrha murmured, and patted the side of her neck.
"Pyrrha!" Nora raced over to her, with Ao Guang hot on her heels. He trotted a little past her, though, and yipped in delight when Gigas made a flying leap onto the top of his head. Ren and Freya followed much more slowly.
And then, finally, she reached Jaune and hugged him. It was the first chance they'd had to be together all day. So she buried her face in his shoulder and relaxed into the warmth of it. Pulled back, just enough to kiss him—only for Twiggy to take that as an opening to lick her face.
Pyrrha saw a flash of her own disappointment on Jaune's face, before they both turned to lavish attention on Twiggy. Then Harpy was slinking towards them, her eyes narrowed, and she had to spend the next several minutes scratching under her chin.
Ilia chose that moment to turn a slightly alarming shade of greenish-yellow, and one distraction led to another. Justice started lecturing Gigas, an alarming prospect even if Pyrrha couldn't see Harpy glaring at him. Then he and Nora ran into one another chasing the stick—and despite the fact Gigas hardly seemed to have noticed, and she ended up on the ground, both Harpy and Justice drew themselves up as if ready for a fight. It took the combined efforts of Pyrrha, Ilia, Ren, and Gigas to calm them down.
"Never a dull moment, huh?" Jaune said, with a little grin.
Pyrrha smiled back. "I wish we could—"
And then Harpy snapped at Twiggy, or maybe it was the other way around—but they had to coax the two dragons apart, and Pyrrha finally gave up and led Harpy away.
"I wish you wouldn't fight with her," she said, when the others were out of earshot.
Harpy tossed her head and huffed.
Pyrrha walked with her around Atlas' campus. Harpy didn't trust people—she suspected that was the underlying problem. So perhaps it was too much to ask for her to acclimate to three strangers and their dragons, all at once.
She sighed and stroked Harpy's side. "I know it's hard," she said, half to herself, "but we have to keep trying."
"Miss Rose."
Ruby jumped, made an embarrassing squeaking noise that she really hoped General Ironwood didn't hear, and whirled around. "Oh! Hi! Um, sir?"
He gave her a stiff bow, then moved into the doorway of the stall. It was Storm's, at least for now—a lot of Atlas students had apparently left before the Council showed up, so there were plenty of empty ones to choose from. She sniffed him curiously. He stared at the metal plate still fixed to her forehead, with a calculating look in his eyes.
"Sorry to barge in on you like this. I would have asked you to come to my office, but I thought that Storm should hear all this as well."
Ruby winced. His office was probably near the top of the CCT tower, like Ozpin's. There was a landing platform up there, and a door big enough for a dragon to get inside... but Storm couldn't reach it.
"And this is... Penny. Correct?"
"Uh, yeah." Ruby glanced at Penny—her light had turned green, which meant she was listening. "Or, I mean, I called her that and she seems to like it, so...?"
"Excellent." The General examined the metal plate. "I understand that she's... rather more alive than we originally intended."
Storm drew her head back a little.
"She is," Ruby said, as confidently as she could.
Ironwood sighed. "Well. I suppose she should... meet... her designer."
"I don't know if designer is the word I'd use."
Ruby almost jumped out of her skin as first one, then two, then three pairs of legs came around the corner. She went slightly cross-eyed before she realized that two of them belonged to the man's chair—then he was smiling at her, and she was looking frantically back and forth between him and Penny.
"Pietro Polendina," he said, holding out a hand. "And I've heard quite a bit about you and Storm, here."
She almost missed shaking it—she was too busy staring at Penny, whose light was flickering rapidly from yellow to red. Storm poked her head out to sniff him.
Finally, Penny's light turned back to green. And, haltingly, "You... made me?"
"I wouldn't give me that much credit!" the man said, beaming. "I gave you the tools, so to speak, for you to make yourself."
"Without warning anyone else working on the project," Ironwood grumbled.
Pietro waved him quiet. "Yes, yes, that's beside the point. We have a proposition for you, my dear!"
Ruby glanced nervously at Penny. "Um... a what?"
"A body!"
Ironwood sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Pietro unrolled a blueprint with a flourish. And on it...
"Whoa," Ruby whispered.
Penny's light went yellow. "A dragon body?"
"Indeed! It's a little clunky just now, I'm afraid, but I'm sure once you've tested it out you'll be able to suggest plenty of improvements. Ah, and it isn't built yet, either. We have the armor, but it'll take some time to cobble together a skeleton, and of course there's the flight mechanism to consider!"
Yellow. Red. Yellow...
"Can I think about it?" Penny asked.
Ironwood frowned. Opened his mouth—
"Of course you can!" Pietro gave her chassis, and Storm's head, an affectionate pat. "Take all the time you need! After all, now we know... you're..." He trailed off, frowning. "Does anyone else hear roaring?"
All five of them piled outside. The sky was mostly clear, except for a scattering of ships and dragons protecting the city from flying Grimm—and three dark spots hurtling straight towards the school. A few airships seemed to be trying to follow them. Ironwood's scroll sounded an alarm. Then the spots resolved themselves into dragons. Familiar dragons.
Ruby stared, openmouthed, as Tempest streaked towards her. And behind her...
"Oh my god!" She threw her arms around Storm's neck in excitement. "Ragnar! He's alive!"