There was something about hospitals that Laurel hated. It might have had to do with how quiet it could be with so many people in a relatively small space. Privacy almost seemed like an afterthought to whoever designed the buildings at Shade Academy, and with so many students, it was rare to have a quiet moment in groups larger than two. It also could have stemmed from the smell of bleach and antiseptic that seemed to permeate every surface and corner. She didn't need to be faunus to be able to smell it, though she certainly wouldn't want to be one. In a hospital, that is. Then again, it could have had to do with how cold it was, especially aggravating for someone whose Semblance allowed them to manipulate thermal energy.
There was a lot about hospitals that Laurel hated.
The gunner sipped at her too-hot coffee, enjoying the warmth as she spread it throughout her body. It wasn't a large change, but it helped. She looked up at the holoscreen in front of her, showing an interview regarding the Vytal Festival tournament that would begin in a few days. Laurel would have given anything to go again, to vicariously relive her youth through the students that were competing. Not that she was old or anything, but something or other always seemed to come up. That was the life of a Hunter.
As her eyes watched the screen, she heard the familiar click of her partner's boots coming up behind her. The taller man stopped next to her, crossing his arms as he looked up at the broadcast. "You know, you could go if you wanted to. You're your own Huntress; you don't need to stick around me all the time."
The woman sighed and shook her head. "I know, it's just… It wouldn't feel right."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said with a faint smile. "Makes me wish we could get the whole team back together, go win the tournament all over again."
Laurel shared the smile as she remembered the victories. "You find out anything about Aspen?"
Oliver's expression twisted into an exasperated frown. "Nothing. No runaways, no missing persons, no villages attacked in weeks; nothing to tell us where she came from."
The gunner mirrored her partner's expression. "Same here. She still doesn't remember anything from before we found her." She took another sip of her coffee, the bitterness blocking out the smell of disinfectant for a few brief moments. "So, now what?"
Oliver rubbed his eyes, clearly running on fumes. It wasn't unusual for him to run himself a little ragged following missions involving displaced persons. Some part of him just felt the need to help these people who needed it most. It was admirable, if a little foolish. "I'm honestly not sure. As far as we know, she doesn't even have a legal identity." He rubbed his face. "Hell, she doesn't even have any clothes to wear!"
"Not to mention a place to stay," Laurel noted, taking another sip of coffee. She offered the cup to her partner, but not before siphoning a few degrees first.
He gratefully accepted and took a huge swig of the now-cooled liquid. "I'd let her stay at my place—you know I would—but with the renovations, I barely have room for myself."
"So, you think I should let her stay with me?" Laurel inferred with a grimace. Nothing against the girl, but Laurel wasn't exactly a people person.
Oliver shrugged. "It'll only be a few days. You've got the room. Plus, she's not that much taller than you, so your clothes would probably work for her until we can get her something of her own to wear."
The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. Why do I let you talk me into this stuff? He was right though; as sparsely furnished as it was, her apartment did have the room. She could count the number of actual visitors she'd had on one hand, and now the girl would bring it up to a nice round five. "Fine," she conceded, "but I'm not paying for her clothes."
Her partner grimaced tiredly, but chuckled anyway. "That's fair, I guess." Finishing off what was left of the coffee, he stretched and tossed the cup into a nearby trashcan. "So, should we go see what Miss Gray thinks of all this?"
Right. Gray. To most anyone else, the choice of name might have seemed random. The 'Aspen' part certainly had been, but Laurel knew where 'Gray' had come from and, while she had her initial reservations, she had oddly grown to be okay with it. She gave him a wry smile. "First good idea you've had all day," she joked.
The pair made their way down several halls to where Aspen was recovering. As they entered the room, however, the girl was nowhere to be seen. Oliver immediately began asking nurses if she had been taken somewhere, but as Laurel stood in the room, a flutter of the dividing curtain caught her eye and she heard the faint bustling sounds of the city. With a sinking feeling in her gut, she slowly walked to the other side of the room, her tennis shoes creaking quietly against the tile floor.
The second bed was empty, the patient having left earlier that day, but the window was open. There, sitting in the frame with her legs dangling out over the six-story drop, was Aspen. She simply stared out into the city, uncaring of the breeze that caused her hospital gown and hair to flutter against her body as her eyes scanned the skyline. Laurel slowly approached the girl, careful not to do anything to startle her. "Aspen?" she asked softly.
The girl looked back at the woman over her shoulder, crimson eyes meeting Laurel's orange. Despite the lack of emotion in her face—or, perhaps, because of it—there was something about the way Aspen looked at her that caused the woman to stop in her tracks. The black-haired girl turned back to the city, keeping her hands resting on the window frame. "There are so many people," she said flatly. Her eyes narrowed slightly as they flitted across the view before them. "All moving and pressing at once, packed together into such a small space."
Behind her, Laurel heard Oliver reenter the room. She glanced back at him and he froze. They communicated silently, exchanging looks as the man worked out what the situation was. Cursing under his breath, he ran his hand through his hair and took a quiet step forward, but Laurel put up her hand to stop him. I've got this. He nodded and stepped back. Turning back to Aspen, who was still looking off into the distance, the woman searched for something to say to the girl. "Yes, there are… quite a lot of people in this city. Millions, actually." She took a slow step forward. "Aspen, why are you sitting in the window?"
The girl looked down to her perch, mouthing the word as if she'd never heard it before. For all Laurel knew, she hadn't. Aspen had several quirks—that was the polite word for it—about her, even outside her appearance. When she spoke, she would pause before certain words the first time she used them, as if she had to remember what they meant. More interesting, though, was how incredibly fast she'd recovered from her time in the desert. Despite what should have been a serious sunburn, her skin had already faded back to what the Hunters had assumed was her natural unnaturally-pale hue, not to mention the rapid rehydration that had surprised even those tending to her recovery.
Laurel snapped out of her thoughts as Aspen looked up at her. "Should I not be?" she asked, her neutral tone very nearly at odds with her innocent words.
The woman shook her head. "No, you shouldn't. Not this far up, at least." Aspen made no sign of acknowledgment other than spinning around and placing her bare feet on the cold floor. As the girl stood, Laurel let out a small breath of relief and began to lead her back to her bed. Dealing with Aspen felt like trying to deal with a child, albeit one who was two inches taller than her. She gave Oliver a hard look where Aspen couldn't see her. I better not have to deal with this for very long.
(-)
Aspen stared out at the city, feeling the warm breeze washing over her. There were just… so many people. She couldn't see them, but she could tell they were there. She could feel them, an oppressive force bearing down on her from almost every direction, shifting and shuffling about. Oppressive... was that the right word? She supposed not; she was actually becoming accustomed to the feeling.
"Aspen?" The girl felt Laurel approaching her before the woman even spoke. She turned her head to look at her. "Are you alright?" She nodded, having worked out that the gesture meant 'yes.' The woman gave her a small smile, though Aspen could feel a low level of… frustration coming off of her. "Alright, well come on. Let's get this over with."
The black-haired girl turned completely from the window and made her way toward the woman. This activity—"shopping," Laurel had called it—was something Aspen had decided she did not enjoy. Interestingly, her escort didn't seem to be enjoying it either, but had insisted that the girl needed her own clothes, a sentiment which they also agreed upon.
Aspen was currently wearing a strange tunic—a "sundress"—that Laurel had given to her. It was a bright orange similar to the top the woman was wearing, decorated with several yellow flowers. Aspen despised it, but all other options had been equally unappealing. That wasn't even to mention the footwear she'd been given: loose, floppy things that snapped against her feet as she walked.
Proper shoes had been the first thing they'd picked up. Aspen had opted for a flexible pair similar to Laurel's, though in black rather than white. Of course, she'd wanted to wear them immediately, to rid herself of the ridiculous pair she wore now, but Laurel had said they needed to "buy" them first. They had then proceeded with the increasingly dull chore of walking around and selecting various other articles of clothing and—worse still—trying them on. After they had everything for Aspen, however, Laurel had said she needed to buy a new poncho, further prolonging the trip. Now that she had it, though, the shopping seemed to finally be over.
As Laurel led her to the area near the front of the store where the buying took place, something caught Aspen's eye and caused her to stop. A fake person, headless and with smooth white skin, stood on a table with its handless arms at its sides. What had the girl's attention, though, was the jacket it wore. It was different than others she'd seen, made of a lighter fabric and with a hood sewn directly onto it. A silver line ran up the middle, bisecting the field of black. There was nothing particularly special about it from what she could tell, yet something in its design drew her toward it.
Without a word, she stepped over to the table and lifted one of the folded garments that sat at the model's feet—rather, where its feet would have been it if had any. As she raised the piece of cloth up, it unfolded and she was left holding a jacket identical to the one above her head, only split down the middle. Swinging it around, she extended her arms into the sleeves and brought the front pieces together. The jacket was tight, even without being properly closed, but it felt right to her, as if the pressing feeling of all the people in the city had taken physical form.
"Are you sure you want that?" Laurel asked, having noticed that the girl had stopped following her. "A hoodie might be a little warm for Vacuo this time of year." She paused as she thought. "Or any time of year, really."
Aspen slowly removed the 'hoodie,' shifting her shoulders to free her arms. Its presence was instantly missed, as the cool air inside the store rested on her bare skin. She looked down at the garment in her hands. She didn't care about the heat; she needed this. Carefully refolding it, she clutched it to her chest to indicate she had made her choice.
Laurel stared at her with an odd look, as if her entire face had been twisted in one direction. Eventually, the woman shrugged and turned back toward the front of the store. Aspen followed after her, only releasing her hold on the black cloth to allow the short, gray-haired woman behind the—…desk?—to flash her light over the card attached to it. Then it went into a bag with some of her other clothes.
Aspen tracked the bag as Laurel carried it out of the store. Once they were in the warm, open air, the woman set her burden down to pull her new poncho out of one of the bags. It was a burnt orange color, with a yellow line design running around it, similar to the one she'd had in the desert—what had happened to that one? As she swung it over her head, Aspen reached inside the bag she knew held her hoodie and pulled the garment out.
Repeating what she'd done inside, she slipped her arms into the sleeves and pulled it around her. She brought the front pieces together and attempted to seal it like she had seen on the model, but she couldn't quite figure the mechanism out. With a sigh, Laurel, now covered by her poncho, stepped over and inserted the end of the right metal strip into the odd device at the bottom of the left one. Once it was locked in, she lifted it halfway up, meshing the two strips of metal with an oddly satisfying zip.
Aspen looked at her reflection in the store window, clothes now sharply divided between black and colorful, with a touch of orange on her chest remaining uncovered. Somehow, the hoodie managed to make the rest of the outfit tolerable in her eyes. She looked down to the flip-floppy shoes on her feet.
Mostly tolerable.
(- -)
Back at Laurel's "apartment," Aspen stood staring at herself in the mirror, wearing nothing save the pair of undergarments the woman had bought for her. She had gone into her temporary room to change into the new clothes, but had been distracted by her own image reflected back at her. It was the first time she'd been able to get a clear look at her entire body since waking up in the hospital, and something seemed… wrong.
She took a step forward, and her reflection did the same. Red eyes stared back at her, mimicking every small movement as she scanned her doppelgänger's face. It wasn't the mirror that was bothering Aspen—in fact, ever since she had first recalled the word, she knew exactly how they worked—but her own image. She was… hairless. There were the long black fibers on her head, of course, but for the most part, the rest of her body was devoid of any noticeable hair. She wasn't sure why it bothered her so much, though; Laurel seemed to have the same amount that she did, after all. Perhaps it was because Oliver had more—on his face and hands, at least. No, that wasn't it.
As she continued to inspect her smooth skin, she noticed short hairs on her arm rise an instant before she felt the ever-present force on her body grow slightly more powerful. The feeling shifted often as people moved around, but she recognized this particular… aura. It was Oliver.
Through the door, Aspen could hear the man knock on the main door and Laurel moving to open it. Pulling herself away from the mirror, the girl turned toward the bed, where she had laid out the clothes she wanted to wear. As she picked up the pair of blue jeans, she began listening to the two adults talking in the other room.
"Hey. Where's Aspen?" That was Oliver's voice.
"She's in the guest room getting changed."
"Ah. How'd it go?"
She could hear Laurel sigh. "It was… not something I want to do again."
"That bad?"
"Not 'bad,' necessarily, just… Imagine having to keep watch for Noct."
"I did that once. Guy sucked the joy out of everything, even that." Oliver paused. "Point taken."
Aspen secured the button on her pants and picked up her shirt. It was primarily white, though it had a design of a vaguely familiar creature on the front. The label on the table had called it a 'Beowolf,' but she had no idea what that was.
"You know, when we started at Shade, I thought that at this age we'd be out fighting and killing giant Grim, not… babysitting."
"Well, we're hunters. That's what w—."
Aspen tuned the man out, shirt halfway over her body. Hunter. She liked that word. Better than 'malicious,' even. She knew what it meant: out in the wilderness, tracking things, taking them down. Killing them. She hadn't wanted to kill Laurel or Oliver since the desert, but if there were things—'Grim'—that they were hunting, then they must have a reason to want to kill them. That was when Aspen made the decision that she wanted to be a hunter.
Quickly finishing with her shirt, she began working on putting a pair of socks on her feet as she resumed listening to the conversation the two hunters were having.
"—dred and seventy-nine lee-en, by the way," Laurel said.
"For what?"
"You said you would pay for her clothes, remember?"
"Yeah, but that's a lot of money for just her clothes."
"Poncho."
Oliver grumbled before he spoke again. "Fine… here you go."
Aspen slipped her feet into the pair of black shoes they'd bought. Staring at them, she frowned as she tried to remember how to tie the laces. Laurel had shown her but, unlike most other things, it just didn't come naturally.
"So… please tell me you've got something."
"I wish I did, but… if she's eighteen, she's legally an adult. She's on her own."
Laurel made a sound of disapproval. "Except for us?" Oliver hummed. The woman sighed again. "Look… I know this isn't the most delicate way to put this, but I think something might be wrong with her."
Aspen stopped in the middle of tying her shoe. What does she mean there's something wrong with me? She looked up into the mirror. Was it really the hair? That can't possibly be it… can it? After all she was a - - - just like them. She frowned. Why couldn't she think of the word? She always found the right word. Even if it didn't come to her immediately, she should have known it within a few seconds. What were they?
What was she?
"—ost her memory. That's not something that you just recover from. She just needs time to readjust."
Readjust. Yes. No. I don't need to readjust. I need to prove myself. Prove that there's nothing wrong with me. Finishing her shoes, Aspen stood and looked at herself in the mirror again. Only one thing remained. Grabbing her hoodie, she swung it around her body, extending her arms into the sleeves in a single smooth motion. Meshing the ends of the two metal strips together, she grabbed the slider and zipped it up her chest, stopping midway.
Opening the door to her room, the black-haired girl made her way down the hallway, passing one other door before rounding the corner into the main room the two adults currently occupied. They both looked up at her as she entered, neither giving any indication that they knew she'd been listening to their conversation. "Oh, hey!" Oliver said, looking her over with his brown eyes. "Looks good. The hoodie seems like it might be a little tight, but—"
"I want to be a hunter," Aspen interrupted flatly.
Both adults' eyes widened and they looked at each other. Oliver scratched the top of his head as he turned back to her. "Uh, alright… That's great and all, but it takes years of training to even qualify for training."
Aspen narrowed her eyes. That didn't make sense. She needed to be a hunter; she needed to prove she could do it. How? She thought back to what Laurel had said about being a hunter and found her answer. "Let me fight you." If hunters fought and killed whatever 'Grim' were, then all she had to do to prove she could fight Grim was to fight and ki—fight and beat hunters.
The pair in front of her both frowned. After a few moments of silence, Oliver's eyes widened and he smiled. "Tell you what; if you can beat me in a fight, the two of us will take you to the Vital Festival so you can see some hunters-in-training your age in action. Deal?"
The girl considered the offer. She'd heard the phrase before, but she wasn't sure what the 'Vital Festival' was. The man had implied, however, that she would be able to see hunter-students her age fighting Grim. If she could fight the Grim too, maybe those who taught the students would teach her as well.
"Deal."
I'm a little surprised that I don't have much to say about this chapter. Perhaps it's because this is still an early chapter, and the story is still developing. I suppose the one thing I would bring up, now that I've actually called it out in the story, is that writing consistently for Aspen is an interesting process. For most characters, consistency means maintaining their "voice," but for her it's more about the words—which ones she knows innately, which ones she's "learned" and has to "learn," and which ones she actuallycan't "learn." It brings up a lot of questions, like, "Would she learned this word yet?" "Would she know what this word means?" "How would she hear this word if she wasn't familiar with it?"
That's all I've got. Anyway, if you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to leave a review to let me know, or—just as good—follow the story so you don't miss anything. Au revoir!
