Volume I: Ant. Chapter I: Gone Hunting:
2 months later: February 28th:
"Hey! Hey, Simin! Wake up!"
That's pretty much how my day started as Vernal shook me awake at around 6:30 a.m.
"Huh…?" I said in a very groggy voice as I was half asleep.
I remember Vernal saying something to me in a somewhat rushed voice as if she were in hurry. I don't exactly remember what I said, but I remember nodding my head with an "uh huh" followed by Vernal saying something else to me, which I responded the same way, hoping she'd leave me alone and let me go back to sleep. But instead, she then yanked me to my feet and had me grab my weapons and dragged me to the front gate by my wrist with her where we met Sophia.
I'm not even sure why she brought me along. I know Vernal can't stand me.
But regardless, I didn't even bother resisting or asking any questions. I didn't have the strength or the sense to. You can pretty much get me to do anything if I'm tired enough and I won't even question it because I'll be too out of it to think straight. So for the most part, what I'm recounting is pretty fuzzy.
Almost immediately after, we then made our way out of the camp and started into the woods as I struggled to keep myself awake and not walk face first into a tree or bump into either of them, which did end up happening at least twice. Too tired to ask any questions or engage in conversation, I simply just walked along and listened to what they were saying to get any context clues. The only word that was repeated more than once for me to remember was "hunt". So considering that, all I really know is that I just accidentally agreed to help them on some kind of hunt. Whatever it is, I'm not really sure. I initially thought it was a grimm hunt of sorts, but considering the fact Sophia is here, I highly doubt it because I don't see why Vernal would bring her to hunt a grimm since she'd be the most vulnerable.
At this point, we've been out here for almost 25 minutes and we haven't found anything. The sun is even starting to rise.
"Damn! Still no tracks!" Vernal quietly says to herself as she crouches to look for prints while I just awkwardly stand there waiting for something to happen.
"Any luck over there, Phi?" She calls out.
"Nothing!" Sophia responds without looking back, giving a thumbs down. "Are you sure it's still even here, Vernal?" She adds.
"I know it's here! There's no way it could be that far. I saw it just this morning so it should still be in the general vicinity." Vernal responds, yelling past me. "Simin, make yourself useful and see if you can find anything." She orders me.
"On it..." I feebly reply, finally able to do something somewhat productive. "Also, I know I keep asking, but are you sure Raven gave us permission for this?"
"Simin, how many times do I have to tell you? We're fine. If we didn't have her permission, we wouldn't be out here in the first place. She gave us about an hour to do our thing. Once that hour passes, she'll come get us. Now go see what you can find already." She shoos me off.
Not feeling up to continue, I decided to start my search by moving past Sophia toward a small group of bushes to find any signs of disturbance or movement. It feels a little awkward for me to walk by her, especially after our last interaction. I'm sure she still remembers.
As I got closer to my designated area, I could see on a large bush there were some twigs that were broken off and some low-hanging branches on a nearby tree were bent or broken. It was almost like something pushed its way through. I also hear a faint buzzing sound coming from beneath me. I look down and see a small pile of brown spheres surrounded by a small swarm of flies. I don't think I need to do anything else to see that these droppings are fresh. I should probably call Vernal and Sophia over.
"Hey Vernal, Sophia!" I call.
"Yeah? What is it?" Sophia says, arriving first.
"You find something?" Vernal asks after reaching us soon after.
"Do you think this might help?" I point at the broken bush and then downward toward the droppings.
Vernal takes a step and judging from the look on her face, it seems like I got results.
"Yeah, that'll do." Vernal says as she then takes a few steps forward past the bush before stopping in her tracks as she looks down as if she were inspecting something else.
"There are some tracks nearby too!" Vernal then gestures with her arm for us to follow. " Come on, you two! That elk is as good as ours."
"Oh, so that's what we're hunting?" I think aloud as I step through. "Well this'll be new for me."
As soon as I said that, Vernal's demeanor seemed to change slightly as well as her expression as she perked her head up and turned to me.
"… Care to repeat that?" Vernal requests as her tone changes.
"Me?" I point to myself after looking to see if she was talking to me or Sophia.
"Yes, you." Vernal confirms. "Repeat what you just said."
"I said this'll be new."
"What exactly do you mean by 'This'll be new'?" I could hear annoyance in her voice.
"Well I've never hunted a large animal before so-"
"I thought you said you had experience in hunting large animals!" She said slowly as she raised her voice. She seems a bit more short-fused than normal today.
"Wha-?!" I say with confusion. "When did I ever say that?"
"I asked you this morning if you had experience in hunting large animals! And you said yes. And then I asked you if you could help us out with hunting an elk and YOU. SAID. YES! ...Both times!"
"Oh... " That... actually does add up...
"Goddammit, Simin…" Vernal groans as she pinches the bridge of her nose.
"I-in my defense, I..-"
"'I-In my defense I-'" She parrots me in a mocking tone. "'In your defense' what? What is your defense?"
"I... wasn't paying attention." I mumble audibly.
"How is that a fucking defense?!" Vernal shouts as Sophia turns her back to us to stifle a giggle.
"B-because I was half awake! I was still coming to my senses and I was really groggy, so it was hard for me to pay attention to what you were saying." I rush through my sentence in one breath as I try to make an excuse for myself. "You can't just ask me important questions when I don't even have my senses about me yet."
"Then you ask me to repeat the damn question, you little-!" She yells at me, very irritated with my excuses.
"Vernal, it's okay." Sophia interjects before things escalate.
"No, it's not okay!" Vernal turns her attention to her friend.
"Just take it easy alright? Take a deep breath." Sophia continues trying to calm her down. "Excuse us for a minute, Simin. I'll take it from here."
She then flashes a teeth-baring smile as she comes behind Vernal, puts her hands on her shoulders, and ushers her behind a few bushes to talk as I stand around awkwardly, feeling like I did something wrong.
"Phi, I am about to send this kid flying." Vernal indirectly threatens as they're covered by the foliage.
"Okay… I'd prefer that you don't do that…" Sophia responds in a more serious tone as they speak in hushed voices even though I can clearly hear them.
"And why not?!" The brown-haired girl shouts under her breath in frustration.
"Well for starters, because you would never hear the end of it from either me or Mari. And plus, you're the one who brought him here in the first place, so..."
"Because he-! Ergh!" Vernal lets out a frustrated grunt as I can hear her bang her head against a tree in defeat "Why do you defend him...?" She continues with a defeated voice.
There was then a bit of silence where they were.
"Everything okay, Vernal? You seem a bit more short-fused than normal. Something stressing you out?"
Vernal then takes a deep breath.
"This is the first time Raven has trusted me with something like this and I don't want to let her down." She explains to her friend. "And more than that, I want to impress her. Usually, it's Mari and I working together when we're in charge at camp and we handle that with okay results, but this is the first time I've been trusted to lead something alone. It wasn't easy for me to convince Raven to give me permission to do this, you know. I thought Simin would be useful here considering he should have some hunting experience considering he was likely living in the woods on his own before he joined us and the fact he and I train with Raven. But now with this revelation that he has no experience with hunting large animals even though HE TOLD ME HE DID...," I could tell that was meant for me to hear as she raised her voice when she said that. "...my plan is pretty much going to have to be scrapped."
"Well… if life has taught me anything, you make do with the hand you've been dealt and adapt when the situation calls for it." Sophia tries to encourage Vernal. "Look, there's not much we can do about it. We're already out here, so we just need to adapt. Change things up a bit. Yeah, Simin knows absolutely fuck all when it comes to hunting large animals, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's never at the very least encountered one, right? I'm sure the kid has something he can bring to the table."
"And how can you be sure of that?"
"I'll ask him. Just... try not to stress. Okay?" Sophia tries to reassure her friend.
"It's kinda hard not to..." Vernal mutters as I can still hear them.
Sophia and Vernal then emerge from behind the bushes and Sophia approaches me as Vernal contemplates the situation.
"Heeey Simin…," Sophia strolls out from behind the tree, casually approaching me as if I didn't just hear they're entire conversation. "...mind doing me a big favor? Can you tell me what the biggest thing you've killed is?" She says as she kneels down to my eye level like an older sister talking to their baby brother.
"Does getting a giant rock formation to fall on a colossus count?"
"No, Simin." Sophia says bluntly, leaving me disappointed. "But that sounds cool as shit though. Tell me more about that when we get back. Anyway, like I said, no. I'm talking something that you've physically killed yourself."
"Well… I fought and killed a beowolf once."
"Okay, that's something." Sophia then looks back to Vernal. "See Vernal? He's killed something at least somewhat... vaguely... similar to the general size of an elk." She tries to sound reassuring.
"Fine... It'll do." The almost 17-year-old Vernal says, composing herself.
"It'll be fine, Vernal." Sophia tries to remain encouraging.
"So long as he doesn't screw up, that is." The stressed teenager mutters in response as we resume our hunt.
"Oh don't be like that~" Sophia teases a bit while still trying to keep her spirits high. "Show some spirit! You're leading this thing, aren't you? Prove Raven right for letting you lead this mission."
"Alright…" Vernal says after some contemplation and speaks with some determination. "Let's do this thing."
. . .
The three of us continued our search for another 20 minutes, but we haven't seen any signs of that elk since the last trace earlier. I'm beginning to wonder if the elk is long gone at this point.
"So Vernal, what does this elk look like?" I ask, trying to spark some conversation between us as I'm a bit bored.
"What, you don't know what an elk looks like?" She says in a sarcastic, somewhat sassy tone. Though I can tell from her body language she doesn't want much to do with me.
"Of course, I know what an elk looks like. I just mean, how do we know the elk we're looking for is the right one and not a different one? How do we identify it?"
"Well for starters, it's a stag, so we're looking for a male. Another thing is that part of its left antlers is broken a bit. But the main thing to look out for is its height. Its antlers could probably reach up to that branch over there." She says pointing to a branch that was about 7 feet (about 2.13 meters) off the ground. "You wouldn't even come up to its knees."
"So this elk should be easy to spot then?"
"Yup." She responds coldly.
"Also I thought only male deer were called stags."
"Male elks are called stags too, kid."
"Hey…!" Sophia calls, getting our attention with a hushed voice. "I think I found our elk buddy."
Vernal immediately walks over and crouches next to Sophia, who was looking through a pair of binoculars that hung from her neck, as she points to a distant massive set of antlers sitting on top of an even more massive elk. She then passes them to Vernal so she could take a look as well.
"Yeah, that's it." Vernal confirms. "Good eyes, Phi!"
"Hehe~ No problem~" Sophia looks proud of herself as she gives a bright smile in response to the compliment.
The bush the elk is standing behind is pretty large, but its head is poking out so far above it that it's hardly even concealed. The bush may as well not even be there. Judging from the distance we're at, it appears to be about 60 yards (54 meters) away.
"Okay, so we're going to have to come up with a game plan." Vernal speaks up as she hands the binoculars back to Sophia. "Phi, keep your eyes on it."
"Gotcha." Sophia gives a thumbs up, not turning her head away from the towering creature.
"Since my original plan is now scrapped," Vernal continues. "...does anyone have suggestions?"
Sophia was the first to raise your hand.
"No, Sophia…" Vernal instantly shoots her down.
"You don't even know what I was going to say!" Sophia exclaims in a hushed, disappointed and pleading tone.
"You want to use the bomb, don't you?" Vernal clarifies.
"Hmph! Lucky guess..." Sophia concedes.
"Wait, bomb-?!" My sudden outburst was suddenly interrupted as Vernal cups her hand over my mouth with an agitated look that says, 'Keep it down, you dumbass!'
Vernal then slowly takes her hand from my mouth and I speak again, this time under my breath.
"Did I hear you say-?!" I ask exasperatedly, not knowing what to even think regarding why on Remnant someone would bring a bomb with them for an elk hunt.
"Yeah, Sophia found a bomb." Vernal cuts me off with an alarmingly casual tone. "An ice dust charge to be exact- dropped and left behind by a caravan she was scouting a while back. She felt it would be useful for something, so she brought it with her. I told her no, but she insisted. So I just let her bring it just to appease her, otherwise she'd complain the whole time."
"But in what situation-?!"
"Beats me…." Vernal shuts me down.
"...Sophia...?" I desperately plead as I beg for some kind of answer.
In response, Sophia simply just stays silent as she gives me a nonchalant smile and shrugs her shoulders as she looks back at me while I'm just left speechless.
"Sophia! Eyes!" Vernal quietly barks.
"Oop! Sorry!" Sophia apologizes as she turns her attention back to the elk.
"Simin, snap out of it." Vernal turns her attention back to me as she quietly snaps her fingers in my face, regaining my attention. "Now's not the time to have a crisis. Do you have any suggestions?"
"Uh...w-well…-" I say, pulling myself together as I cut myself off to clear my throat. " Well… ever since that incident last December when I fell out of that tree, Raven spent a little over a week teaching me on the side to climb trees better."
"Really...? So I take it you're suggesting sneaking up to it from the trees and attacking it from above?"
"Something like that, yeah. I mean, it could work… Besides, I'm the smallest out of us, so maybe..." I try to defend my proposal.
"I can also shoot its other leg while Simin does his thing to get it on the ground or at least cripple it." Sophia chimes in, her eyes still locked on the elk as we occasionally moved slightly to keep out of sight and to keep it in sight.
"Alright, that sounds good. And once it's staggered or floored, Simin and I will finish it off, unless Simin kills it before I get there. Is everyone fine with that?"
"Actually, before we start, I have a question…" I speak, raising my hand.
"What is it, Simin…?" Vernal acknowledges me with a bit of a tired tone.
"Why did we only bring one long-ranged weapon with us?"
"Because Raven only allowed me to take one long-ranged weapon with me." She answers bluntly.
"Okay. Now follow-up question: why did we give it to Sophia?"
"Hey! What are you-!" Sophia interjects.
"Eyes!" Vernal cuts off Sophia as she could see out of her peripheral vision that Sophia was about to turn her attention back to me to respond to my remark. In response Sophia immediately stops and goes back to giving the elk her full, undivided attention.
"Because I don't exactly need a rifle and do you honestly think I'd trust you with it?" Vernal answers.
"Okay, good point." I relent a bit. "But then why bring- ow!"
I was cut off as I could feel a small pebble lightly tap me in the back of the head as Sophia chucked it at me without looking to get me to shut up. She could tell that whatever I was going to say would have to do with her.
"Because Sophia is a good shot." Vernal tries to assure me.
I glance back at Sophia, who now has the rifle pulled out, seemingly not paying attention to our conversation. She then aims the gun at the elk and looks down the sights of the weapon and quietly shouts "Bang!" as if she were taking a practice shot. I then look back to Vernal with a bit of a worried look.
"Vernal, I don't like this plan anymore..." I complain.
"Just trust her." Vernal says sternly, trying to get me to put some faith in her friend. "She's not going to accidentally shoot you or anything."
"She is definitely going to shoot me." I think to myself as I'm having second thoughts. If I'm being completely honest, based on how I know her as a person, I don't think Sophia is the most responsible of us three for this task considering how she can be. So I am very nervous putting my trust in her not to shoot me.
"Vernal, you have weapons." I speak again. "Can't you just shoot it? Or maybe throw your weapons at it or something?"
"No and no." She answers, disappointing me. "If I were to shoot it with these, that elk would get annihilated. And as for throwing either of them, I'm not that confident I'll hit the mark. Not to mention, if they get lodged into it and it runs off, there is a high chance I won't be seeing them again and I really don't wanna lose these. Simin, just trust her, okay? I wouldn't have given it to her if I didn't think she could handle it."
Vernal then walks away for a bit as she inspects the trees that might provide a good pathway to the target.
"Simin," Sophia cuts in as he takes her chance to divert her attention to me while Vernal isn't looking. "I got this. Gambling isn't the only thing I was good at." She then gives a confident grin.
"That's not very reassuring, Sophia." I say back with more worry in my voice.
"Oh, and why's that?" Sophia then had a bit of a curious look on her face as to what I meant.
"Because you weren't very good at gambling." I bluntly say with guilt growing in my shrinking voice throughout the sentence.
"...I'm... going to get in position now..." She then silently turns back to the elk. I think I may have hurt her feelings.
"Me too…" I respond awkwardly as I head to Vernal who is already heading my way, which causes us to meet halfway.
I need to learn to think before I speak. Or learn when to stop speaking... Or just stop speaking...
"This plan is pretty much set in stone, isn't it?" I ask Vernal with a sigh as she finds a tree for me to use.
"Yep. No pussying out, Simin. Now shut up and get your ass in that tree! Enough stalling." She orders me, pointing to a nearby tree. "It was your idea anyway, so I don't know why you're complaining. Come on. I'll boost you."
Without another word, I follow Vernal's order with slight hesitation as Sophia remains in her spot, sights trained on our target. Vernal then leans her back against the tree and locks her fingers together to give me a foothold to launch off of. I plant my foot firmly on her hands and jump with her assistance as I grab onto a branch and secure my position on the tree and give Vernal a thumbs up to let her know I'm balanced.
"Alright, Simin. Just get in position and drop down on it when you're ready."
"Okay…" I unenthusiastically tell her as I get going.
As I try to get the thought of getting shot out of my head, I skillfully make my way through the trees as I step from branch to branch, making sure not to stay on one branch for too long.
I remember the first time Raven took me tree climbing. I kept getting nervous and cold feet due to the fear of heights I developed ever since I fell from that tree. She gave me a demonstration and told me to follow and she noticed my hesitation and asked me what was wrong. I explained to her my nervousness and she told me to just keep next to her and she'll keep me balanced. I looked down when I first got up and got hit with vertigo and slipped on my first steps a bit. Before I fell, Raven simply just grabbed me and rebalanced me like she said she would. After that happened, she told me to "take a deep breath and only look down if that's where I wanna go."
We eventually reached the point that I didn't need her next to me anymore and she just started walking along the ground under me. Due to my nervousness of not having her by my side, I slipped and fell once and she opened a portal with the other end opening mere feet underneath me in midair and I landed right next to her. She turned what would have been a 25 ft (7.6 meters) fall to simply a 5 ft (1.6 meters) fall. After that she made me go back and start over, which I was very reluctant to do, but she wasn't having any of it.
Eventually, Raven felt I was ready enough for the "final test" which was to have me circle the perimeter of the camp along the trees three times at three different height levels of her choosing without slipping once. She warned me that this time, she would not be opening a portal to bail me out if I slipped. So it was best I kept a cool head and activate my aura, otherwise it would be a rough landing. Speaking of which, I've gotten better at not allowing panic, nervousness, and surprise to cause me to accidentally disengage my aura. I'm not perfect at it yet, but I'm making progress. I managed to pass her test and since then, I've been able to climb trees more easily. I still have a fear of heights though, so I just constantly repeat Raven's lesson in my head remaining calm and not looking down.
Anyway, as I finally reach the elk, I rest on my perch a bit and I stand over the towering creature, trying to determine what angle I should come at it. Now that I look at it up close, there's no way even a standard long range hunting rifle would be able to down this thing in one shot. No wonder why we're teaming up on it rather than just Sophia taking a shot and calling it a day. Even standing over it, it still looks massive.
I need to determine what will be a good place to attack it and when I should strike. First thing's first, I don't want to get in Sophia's line of fire so I should go for the elk's left side since that's the side facing away from her. I think my best bet would be to pounce on it and stab it in the neck. That should be able to leave a major wound and when Sophia downs it, I can finish it off. Yeah, I think that's good.
Worst case scenario, it escapes, but leaves a blood trail for us to follow. But let's not think about that yet. Now it's time to translate my thoughts into reality. Right now, the elk has its head lowered and neck is wide open, so now is as good of a time as any.
"Okay, Simin. Just drop from the branch, land on the elk, and execute." I think to myself. "Here I go."
With that, I engage my aura, pull out mom's knife, and drop down from my vantage point, ready to put everything into motion. But right when I'm about to drop, a breeze blows by, causing the elk to lift its head at the last second to enjoy the coolness of the sudden gust. It was too late for me to pull myself back and I land on it awkwardly as mom's knife gets lodged into its flesh. The creature feels the sudden pain of the knife and my full weight land on it and it immediately panics as Sophia's shot only ends up grazing its thigh. The massive elk lets out a shrill, high-pitched scream and easily bucks me off directly into Vernal, who was rushing over as soon as she saw things were going awry.
As Vernal catches me, the sturdy elk takes off... with mom's knife still lodged in its body. Vernal, in a desperate attempt to kill it, hurls one of her blades at the creature that was already 30~ yards (27.4~ meters) away. Her weapon sliced through the air, but she was just off as she clipped its other antler before it disappeared from sight. As I see her miss, I also pull out my weapons and start unloading at the elk with frantic, wild shots. I reach down for extra ammunition to reload and continue my desperate effort, but Vernal stops me by grabbing my wrist.
"But-!"
"Don't bother… You're just wasting ammo..." She says with a disappointed voice as she turns to a tree and punches it. "DAMMIT!"
"Simin, are you okay? You're not too hurt, are you?" Sophia checks on me with concern as she comes over behind Vernal.
"Yeah, I think I'm okay..." I assure as I brush myself off. If it weren't for my aura, I would have definitely broken something. Although that landing still wasn't very pleasant.
"Simin, talk to me. What happened?!" Vernal asks, wondering how I screwed up.
"I... I had it…!" I say in frustration while Sophia casually pulls a leaf out of my hair. "It had its neck lowered but it lifted it at the last second right as I was dropping down and it was too late for me to pull myself back."
"Well, I guess we can forget about it then. Ugh, dammit!" Vernal says again, with a frustrated, defeated sigh.
"I'm sorry, what?! We need to track it!" I respond with a sudden fire in my voice.
"Did you see how fast that thing was going, Simin? Even with that wound in its leg?" Sophia interjects. "It's practically gone. We're not seeing it again."
"Then we'll just follow the blood trail! Or look for signs of disturbance or something!" I say with a bit of anger toward her words.
"Pfft! Good luck with that." Sophia says with a chuckle, completely oblivious to how urgent I'm being. "Anywaaay, I gotta go. Be back in a bit." She then steps away for a bit as she disappears behind some bushes where we can't see her.
"But-!"
"I don't think you get it, Simin!" Vernal jumps back in as she points in the direction it went. "... The reason we're not going after it is because that's grimm territory. When Raven was scouting a while back, she saw that there was a high concentration of grimm in that area and she deemed it off limits for anyone that isn't her. You see that large 'X' carved into that tree? Raven did that to let us know where the line is. If Raven herself deems a place off limits, then you should damn well stay away from it."
"Vernal…, I don't care!" I interrupt bluntly with impatience. "It has my knife! And if you don't wanna track it, then fine. I'll go find it myself!"
Vernal immediately scoffs in response to my words as she crosses her arms.
"Why on Remnant would you want to march straight into grimm territory for a knife? Do you think you have something to prove?" Vernal asks, adopting an authoritative posture.
"Vernal that knife is very special to me!" I could feel myself getting angry as she seemingly does not care.
"So?" Vernal scoffs, completely unaware of the significance of it to me. "Don't be stupid, Simin. I'm not going to risk our lives for some shitty toothpick and neither will you."
"SHUT UP, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE! YOU DON'T GET IT!" I shout at her, giving into my emotions a bit for her insulting mom's knife as I scooped up a clump of dirt and hurled it at her, the soil dirtying the torso of her top while it broke apart and scattered. I could tell she was caught off-guard by my outburst. Every part of me wanted to fight her on the spot for that.
"No, you don't get it!" Vernal responds with force in her voice, clearly annoyed at me for raising her voice as she spoke with condescending contempt. I could tell she was done as she stepped closer and put a hand on my chest and pinned me against a tree.
"Look, runt! I'm going to be very clear. You are the biggest headache I've ever had the displeasure of enduring and I'd be more than happy to let you go march on in. But unfortunately, I have to put up with you and your bullshit. And in fact, if I'm being honest, the real reason I actually even brought you on this trip was because I thought that if I brought Raven's little special golden boy with me and got him back safe and sound, maybe she'll see what I can do in charge on my own and be impressed with me for once. I don't know what Raven sees in you, but it's clear to me you're more trouble than you're worth."
"Well at least I-!"
"I didn't say I was finished!" She cut off my retort before it could even get started. "Simin, I'm sure you know this, but I want you to hear it. I don't like you. I really don't like you. And frankly, I'd rather you be literally anywhere than in our family, whether it's dead or alive. I don't care which. Just anywhere but here. But unfortunately, you are here and it's only because Raven wants you here. Because you just had to waltz on in- no, get carried in, get special attention from Raven and a pity treatment from Mari as they treat you like you're actually worth something around here! Well, I'll tell you what I think. You're not worth shit, little boy! And I have no problem reminding you that every day when I'm forced to waste my time kicking your ass all over the place during training. And though we train at the same level, let me remind that I got there while you were put there. Yet you're the one she seems to take a liking to. I worked my ass off to get to the level she saw me on. As for you, you got placed on that level the moment you got here and I've yet to see why. If Raven didn't think you were worth the trouble of keeping around, I'd let you march to your death right now! But that's the reality I'm forced to live in."
And with that, Vernal finally released me as she turned, expecting me to follow her. But after what she said, there was no way I was going to stay quiet and take that.
"W-well maybe you never bothered to even think about why Raven put me where she saw me." I respond as I was still taking in what Vernal said to me. "Maybe it's because she saw more in me and from me than anything you've ever shown her in all the years you've been here. Maybe instead of picking on me, you should spend more time being someone that's actually worth the attention and acknowledgement you wish she'd give you!" It wasn't a long response, but I know it hit exactly where I wanted it to.
"Say that again..." She says coldly as she balled her fist and turned slightly to me.
"You heard me." I respond daringly.
I expect Vernal to turn around and sucker punch me and a full-on fight to break out. But instead, to my surprise, she just releases her fist before speaking up again with a somewhat indifferent voice.
"You know what, Simin? Go. You want that stupid toothpick so badly? Go and get it. I won't stop you. You have my permission to get yourself killed."
I was... honestly taken aback by her response. I gave her a bit of a surprised and confused look and she simply just shooed me off with her hand. I didn't think she'd do that. But I didn't bother waiting around to finish processing what she said. And with that, I took a few steps back, and then stormed off into the so-called grimm infested area as I embarked on my mission to retrieve my knife.
I'm going to get it back no matter what… even if it means I have to charge into the belly of the beast to do so.
**CHAPTER END**
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Heeey everyone!
I'm back! ...sort of...
Okay, I'm not back full time again yet. Let me give a breakdown.
To start off, I'm sorry for going on hiatus and I'm sorry for not keeping my promise and being gone longer than I said I would. I'm sorry to the readers who I've kept waiting for so long for another chapter, whose patience I am very thankful for. And I'm also sorry to the readers who I may have driven away by my absence, thinking that I left or stopped writing. Originally, I said I would be back by May at the latest. But I am at least 6 months late.
When my semester ended, I felt absolutely burnt out, so instead of jumping back into writing, I took a couple months off. Then in July, I slowly got back into it and was able to get a good amount of stuff done. But then classes were starting up again, so I had to slow down again. But I was still able to chip away at it whenever I could and have been working on it whenever I got the chance. Then, uh... well... a lot happened after that in late August-early September, so I had to take another break from writing. I don't wanna get into details, but I'll just say it wasn't anything good.
So with that out of the way, what exactly did I get done?
Well, here's the rundown:
1. I am still working on the final chapter of the volume and have made a bit more progress before I started working on the anthology chapters. I've been rewriting the entire final fight scene because I wasn't happy with the original version I wrote and am also trying to revise the ending as well.
2. Speaking of the anthology chapters, I have 3.5/5 done so far. The one that took me the longest to do was the third one, which is about Sophia's backstory as we get to learn more about her character and it teases some future [planned] arcs and it also teases a new character.
3. I scrapped the original fifth anthology chapter and I will be replacing it with a new one because I said there would be five and I plan on keeping that promise of 5 (with this being the first one of the five). The original was supposed to be Mari just hanging out with Simin for his birthday. The chapter I will be replacing it with will be about Raven and Mari as they start to butt heads a bit regarding their ideologies and their character and Simin.
4. I also changed the order of the anthology chapters as well, so I had to do a bit of an overhaul regarding the reorganizing of them and refitting them into the timeline. This led to me having to rewrite certain aspects of the chapters and do a lot of proofreading to avoid plot holes and inconsistencies.
5. I want to play around with third person narrative a bit, so some of the chapters have been/will be rewritten in a third person narrative (specifically the ones that aren't through Simin's perspective). I'll do a poll when all the anthologies are done to see which perspective you prefer me to write in.
And I think that's it! That's about everything I got done so far while I was out.
Now let's talk about this chapter for a little bit. it's been a while since I've posted a chapter, so I might have been a little rusty with this one. There isn't a whole lot for me to say mainly because it's mostly just set up, but the ending of this chapter I had to change a bit. But the events still play out the same generally. In the original, Simin simply just waltzes into the grimm area while Vernal just makes a half-assed attempt to stop him and this almost ended up being the final product. But in this one, as we see, Vernal and Simin exchange some words and this leads to Vernal to just let him go after he strikes a nerve with her. The reason I changed it to this was because it felt pretty weird to me to have things play out the first way because everything just felt so half-hearted.
I also debated with myself for a while whether this ending was any better, and I felt that it was solely because it's not that out of character for Simin to do something as rash as what he did considering the fact that the last time he lost his knife, he went out of his way to careen down a cliff to retrieve it and ended up tussling with a colossus for his troubles and for what he almost did in chapter 11 (as much as I dislike that chapter). So taking those into account, I felt that Simin running straight into grimm territory for his knife isn't that out of character. Not to mention he is heavily underestimating how dangerous the place he's in really is as he's more concerned about the knife than his own safety since it's the only thing left of his old life as well as the only thing he has that was his mother's. In other words, where Simin is now in terms of character, he isn't exactly the best when it comes to priorities. He gets pretty irrational without his knife because of what it means to him. So we can probably guess what's about to happen in the next chapter. But by the end of it, both Simin and Vernal are going to be taught a tough lesson for their actions.
I also added in Vernal straight up verbally attacking Simin because we all know that Vernal and Simin don't like each other (or at least I hope I did a good job at conveying that), but I don't think I did a good job at actually showing it. So that was one of the reasons why I did it so that we can actually see it a bit. The other was that because the chapter is supposed to end on a tense note and I thought I could increase tension with Vernal giving into her frustration and saying those things. The comeback Simin made was also a last-minute addition because I didn't want him to just sit there and take it. I felt he deserved to get some words in of his own too after what Vernal said to him.
Anyway, with that said, in the next chapter, both Vernal and Simin are both going to learn a valuable lesson the hard way when Raven has to get involved to clean up their mess. I hope this chapter leading into it wasn't too contrived.
Now before I go, there is one thing I want to say. Though I am back, I'm technically not back full time yet since I still have classes to worry about. This is easily my busiest and most difficult semester ever with 7 classes, so finding the time to write will be even harder than it was for me last Fall/Winter. So, because of that, I will be indefinitely abolishing my writing schedule. I'll still be working on the chapters on my own time whenever I get the chance and I'll simply just post when they're ready. This is only temporary though because I do like having some sort of schedule to follow. But I feel like I need it to be this way until further notice.
But with that said, me posting this chapter is mainly to serve as a reminder that I'm still here and to let you know that I'm still working on content for this SLVR story. So if you've been patiently waiting this entire time for me to post a new chapter, I'm sorry and thank you so much for your patience. And if I made you think that I stopped and caused you to drop it, I am even more sorry. I'm still here and I'm still working. It just hasn't been easy for me lately. But I plan to continue working hard and improving and doing my best to make this story the best I can!
Anyway, with all that said, let's close this with a fun fact:
Fun fact #17: This chapter as well as the next anthology chapter I almost ended up scrapping altogether when I first started writing it because I had no idea how I was going to end it. I think with how I ended up doing it is pretty good, but we'll see if that's the case when I eventually post anthology chapter 2.