When Raven told Serene she was going to Haven to learn how to kill huntsmen, she didn't mention how boring it was going to be. It had been four whole weeks, and she hadn't killed anyone; not for lack of potential targets. Teenagers were annoying. She knew this, growing up with the unsupervised, substance abusing, violent crowd she called her friends, but the hundreds of teens (and young adults) constantly surrounding her at the academy and the nearby town grinded her nerves quickly.

She'd gone into town with her teammates the previous weekend, but as her first month of education came to a close, she found herself with an empty white container and venturing into the city.

Stealing the pills had been easy enough with her honed pick pocketing skills, and she'd quickly adapted to acting normal in the market environment.

There was a waterfall not far from the academy with a cove behind it. Serene had discovered it one night when she was snooping around in an insomnia driven haze and had taken to hanging out there when everything got too much. It was hard to reach without her weapons, but she wasn't one to let her personal safety factor into her desire to get high.

She settled in and let the pills numb her to the world. She felt light and easy and let herself relax to the sound of the raging waterfall. She pulled off the choker she'd chosen to wear, hiding the thin, pale scar on her neck.

Raven had told her to stay clean while on her assignment. Not because she cared about her wellbeing – if she had she would have stepped in years ago when Serene started – she just didn't want her blowing this. Serene tried, but it was all too much, and she needed to relax.

She forgot to breath for a minute, but she did that sober. Sitting up quickly, Serene gasped for air. After her heart stopped racing, she looked around the cave. The pills had mostly worn off and she needed to get back to school before her teammates started texting her.

She was still really bad at texting.

Serene and Maizie were seeing who could eat the most rice with chopsticks when Jazz appeared at the head of the table, her dirty blonde hair in a high ponytail and her uniform traded in for her usually pink and green shirt and jeans. She pushed back the rice bowl and placed a thin folder in between them.

"We were eating that!" Serene cried around a mouthful of fried rice. They'd abandoned the (hilarious) endeavour to balance clumps on their chopsticks and instead had begun to use them to shovel the food into their mouths.

"Do you guys know what this is?" She asked, gesturing to the white folder.

"My prize for winning our competition?" Maizie asked.

"Bitch I'm a whole bowl ahead of you!" Serene mumbled and held up the empty porcelain bowl discarded by her elbow. She was really having trouble swallowing that last mouthful.

"These," Jazz picked the folder up and held it against her chest, presenting it majestically, "are our request sheets to go to Beacon for this year's Vytal festival!"

"Already?" Nyla asked, shuffling closer from the other end of the table where she'd moved to avoid the off-putting contest. "Don't we have another few months before we have to go?"

"Yes, but we only have a few weeks left before we're allowed to go. The sooner we get our paperwork in the better our rooms are and if we sign up for the tournament we get to take our qualifiers early."

"Woah, aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" Maizie asked. "We haven't even spoken about going to Beacon, let alone actually competing in the tournament."

"Do you guys not want to?" Jazz asked, quickly deflated at her teammates lack of enthusiasm.

"Well we should talk about it before we make any decisions." Nyla said, trying not to completely knock her idea, "we've got plenty of time to decide."

"No we don't! Sun Wukong is already handed his in! And he spends all of history drawing things on Neptune's face when he falls asleep."

"We really shouldn't have theory after combat class," Serene muttered, reaching for the rice bowl.

"So," Nyla started, moving the bowl out of her reach, not moving her attention from Jazz, "What's the latest we can hand it in?"

"Right before the qualifiers, but I really want to see more of the festival! This might be our only chance to see Vale together." Jazz moved around Serene and sat on her other side, opposite Nyla.

"Well the rest of Sun's team isn't going straight away, right?"

"But this is our first year, we should attend as a team."

"When do you two want to do?" Nyla asked, turning to Serene and Maizie.

"I don't care," Maizie shrugged, "But I'm not going alone; Vale sucks."

"It's not that bad," Said Jazz.

"My cousin got stabbed there last year."

"Yikes," mumbled Serene around a mouthful of toast. Jazz smacked her arm, mortified at the cavalier comment.

"What about at the end of the first semester?" Nyla asked, looking through Jazz's folder. "We can look around and get settled in before the qualifiers."

"Fine with me," Maizie agreed.

"Sera?"

"Sure," She shrugged.

"Great!" Jazz smiled, snatching back the folder and pulling out several pieces of paper and distributing them among the other three. "Fill these out and we can go over the rest later."

With that she stood, leaving the table and heading out of the hall.

"Aren't you gonna have any lunch?" Maizie called after her, but she didn't hear. Maize grabbed the plate Nyla had made up for her and started eating.

Serene sat under the waterfall the next weekend. It was late at night and hopefully none of her teammates would notice her absence.

She awaited Raven, playing the game Maizie had downloaded for her on her scroll, killing rabid bunnies.

The portal opened in front of her at exactly midnight and Serene stashed the scroll, quickly getting to her feet.

"How are you going?" Raven asked, removing her mask. Why she was wearing it in the first place, Serene didn't know.

"Fine; no one suspects anything. Everything is fine."

Raven sat on one of the vaguely chair shaped rocks, putting her mask down beside her. "No one has questioned your identity?"

"Nope. Apparently they're all super respectful of tragic pasts around here."

"Good, try to keep it that way."

"Will do. Also my leader wants us to go to Beacon for the Vytal festival. I just… thought I should run that by you."

"Fine."

"Really?" Serene was kind of surprised there was no push back.

"Not going will be suspicious."

"Cool. So, should I use my semblance in the tournament or ke-"

"You won't be participating in the tournament." Raven cut her off, standing up and picking up her mask.

"What? Won't that draw attention?"

"Not as much as having your face and fighting broadcast to the world."

Serene opened her mouth to argue but knew better. "Right. Okay, um… I guess not a lot of first years will be competing anyway."

"Just handle it."

"Of course."

Raven gave her a look, looking her up and down. "How is your team?"

Serene was surprised, but quickly composed herself. "Uh, fine, I guess. They're nice."

"Don't get attached." Raven reminded her sternly, pulling out her sword. Serene felt her breath hitch slightly, and some part of her hoped the warning at the same time as her preparing to open a portal was not a coincidence.

But she wasn't stupid.

The portal glowed red and black in the dark, and she turned back to Serene, who felt the naïve hope that she might give her some words of encouragement or even just a 'goodnight'.

"Don't fuck this up," She warned in a deadly serious tone, and Serene nodded, looking at the ground until the portal closed and the cave fell into darkness.

The day had been absolutely scorching that day in Mistral, so as soon as their duties were finished Serene's group filed down to the river. Were they still her group if she wasn't there?

Ansa was sharpening her Karambit's, watching Jaron 'wrestle' with some other boys in the water. They were playing rough, but they always did. She probably had more scars and injuries from her best friends than in real fights.

Heidi was mending their laundry in exchange for taking her patrols, and Ansa hoped she wouldn't try to talk to her.

It wasn't that she didn't like Heidi, it was just that the girl was soft and would probably be dead in the near future. No point in getting attached.

"What does Jaron do to his shirts?" Heidi asked, sewing up the tear in the older boy's shirt.

"Do you really want to know?"

Heidi looked up, thinking for a moment, "No."

A few minutes passed, the only sound was the 'shing' of Ansa's whetstone and the cries of the boys Jaron was drowning.

"How do you think she's going?"

"What?"

"Serene." Heidi clarified, "How do you think she's doing?"

"She'll be fine."

"You think?"

"No, I don't think. I don't think about anything ever."

Heidi gave her the same tired look she gave her every time she said something weird.

"I'm still surprised Raven let her go," Heidi said, turning back to her work.

"Why? She's not exactly protective," Ansa said distractedly, running her finger over the blade and over the edge, feeling the sharpness.

"Well attending Beacon was what led her brother to leave so-"

Heidi jumped, cut off as Ansa's dagger impaled into the tree behind her, right beside her head.

"Don't," Ansa said, her voice dangerously calm. "Do not mention Him. You wanna fucking die?"

Heidi stared at her, her shock turning to anger. "What the fuck?!" She gestured wildly to the dagger. Ansa rolled her eyes; Heidi was never good at playing rough.

"That's nothing compared to what Raven will do if she hears you talking about Him. She's killed for less."

Heidi glared at her, pulling the dagger out – a difficult feat, Ansa really had it in there – and tossed it back to her. Ansa caught the dagger, a practise that had left her with a collection of scars across her palm and fingers.

Ansa picked up her whetstone and resumed her rhythmic sharpening.

"Besides," She said after a moment, her voice low and detached, like she was simply musing to herself. She rested her elbow on her knee and turned the dagger slowly, watching the light gleam off its silver blade, "she won't have anything keeping her there for long."