Disclaimer: Of course I don't own RWBY, its characters, or the franchise. That's all Rooster Teeth~
Story: In that forest with Yang, Ruby's silver eyes activated too early and she finds herself traumatized after a long time of captivity. Years later, her precarious mind wonders if she'll ever be okay, all while trying to grow into herself. If only her Soulmates could tape herself back together, though they'd have to figure out that they are in the first place…
Set as a complete AU rewrite of the series, included as a Soulmate!AU.
Spoilers: Definitely, as an AU rewrite.
Warnings: Age disparity, maybe future situations if this is continued. Violence, death, and cursing is a given.
Pairings: (Main) ClockRose (Ozpin/Ruby), IronRose (Ironwood/Ruby), and Qrow/Ruby, with some Ruby/Various. (mostly one-sided), especially WhiteRose. Toss up on RoseBull (Adam/Ruby).
A Thorn Crown For the Rose Queen
Chapter Four: Animal I Have Become
As all the other Faunus were leaving, Ruby sniffled and rubbed at her eyes, her head bowed as she leaned against the boy she just met.
"Come on, kid, we gotta get out of here," the boy grumbled. "And I can't be caught with a human, so you better tell me where your parents are at!"
"I don't know," she mumbled. "I'm not from here."
She felt him pause at that before he moved away from her, looking at her with furrowed eyes.
"Then…where are you from?" he asked slowly.
"…Vale," she told him dully, blinking tears away. "I live on Patch there."
"…Fuck, kid, that's far away," he cursed, looking at her in amazement and confusion. "What're you doing here?"
"…Bad men took me and brought me here," she started sniffling louder, before tears started flowing steadily. "Please take me home!"
For a moment, Adam looked panicked and unsure, hands hovering near her. "Hey, kid, don't fucking cry."
"Please, please take me home!" she begged again and he awkwardly patted her head.
"Okay, okay! I'll figure it out," he said in a rush. "Just, uh, stop crying already!"
He grabbed her hand and started walking, leading her away from there. She slowly stopped crying, hiccuping starting up though.
"Y-you're Adam, right?" she remembered him telling her. "W-where're we going?"
"Somewhere where we can rest and then I can think," he said uneasily. "You said you're Ruby, right? Uh…just hang tight. Gods, you're a small human," he muttered, glancing at her. "How old're you?"
Ruby rubbed at her eyes. "I don't know," she sniffed. "I was gone for a long time. Six maybe? I was five when I was home, but I've been gone for…a year and a half?"
"That's a really long time," he said, voice softened as he looked down at her, maybe just a little bit more kinder.
"Yea —"
"YOU!" a familiar, unwanted voice yelled and Ruby felt herself be yanked back, out of Adam's hold.
"You fucking bastard! Who the hell are y —" but Adam was cut off and Ruby watched in horror as the brother looking for her appeared in her view and punched Adam straight in the face.
The punch knocked him back harshly, flying back through the air until he landed far away and lay still on the ground. Leonid didn't stop there though, striding over and began beating on Adam, stomping on him angrily while he held onto Ruby's small wrist tightly.
"Stop it! Stop it, please," she cried out. "You'll kill him!"
"Disgusting Faunus," Leonid hissed. "Don't interfere with her!"
He held on tighter to her wrist and yanked her behind him as he began to stride back to the brothers' place. Back inside and dragged into the room where they trained her, Ruby struggled and tried to get away from him, angry and scared and worried for Adam —who though he didn't even know her and seemed to not like humans, had actually tried to help her.
"Be quiet," Leonid ordered coldly, chaining her up.
Ruby felt intense fury, a strange sense of it being not just her own, rush through her, almost blinding her with rage and overtaking her mind. Before she knew it, all she could remember was screaming her lungs out and her body shifting, changing her into a larger form.
Burning hot, bones larger and shifting, shifting, shifting…scales sliding over each other…
Ruby had become a dragon, in a roaring, furious, transformation.
When she, mind muddled, stared down at the shocked form of Leonid, she roared again and dove down, devouring the Hunter whole.
Adam forced himself to push himself up, coughing and hacking up blood. He yelled angrily and pounded his fist on the ground, trying to get onto his knees.
"Come on, damn it! Fucking get up!"
He had the shit beat out of him and he lost Ruby, and here he was screaming and groveling on the floor like a wimp.
"You godsdamn idiot, get the fuck up and go after her!" he gasped, holding his stomach as he pushed himself up, stumbling onto his feet. He had to hurry before they got too far away.
Steadying himself, he sniffed the air and tried to isolate Ruby's scent. He snarled and rushed after it, taking advantage of the adrenaline flowing through him and ignoring his pain. He had to hurry and he couldn't waste any more time, or else he'd fall too far behind and lose her.
Taking two lefts and then heading straight, he found a building that was saturated with her scent. He snarled and rushed in, bursting through the door to find her.
"RUBY! RUBY, WHERE ARE YOU?!" he screamed out.
And then he heard a loud roar that made him freeze up and his animal instincts to scream danger. He felt himself start to cower, before he angrily shook himself out of it. He had to find Ruby, especially before whatever the hell that was got to her.
He entered one of the rooms in the downward floors and nearly ran back out, seeing a gigantic dragon (of all things) curled up and taking most of the room in the rather large area. The dragon, with its long, serpentine body, stared back at him and didn't move or make any other noise.
"Shit, shit, shit. What do I do?" He didn't know where Ruby was or how to get to her, and there was this big ass dragon that could attack and eat him at any moment, if he even just moved wrong.
"D-don't kill me, okay?" he held up his hands, trying to inch back towards the door. "I'm just looking for a little girl…"
The dragon huffed, which made Adam freeze. He was terrified and confused, and he just wanted to find Ruby and get the hell out of there.
But then he looked more closely at the dragon's eyes and his breath hitched.
Familiar silver hues stared back at him, and only one person he knew (no matter how brief) had moonlight for eyes.
"Ruby?" he asked and the dragon's head shifted slightly and she was looking sadly at him. "Oh," he said quietly and entered further into the room, completely calm down now.
Coming closer to her, he looked again into her sad, sad eyes and sat by her, waiting patiently.
However long time passed, the dragon shifted and kept shrinking until a small girl was left panting on the ground and crawled towards him, collapsing onto his lap.
"H-hung-gry," she panted, gasping for air as she curled up on his lap.
He petted her hair and ignored the huge blood stains on the floor near them and the fact her abductor wasn't around.
"Yeah…let's go eat," he said dully, fixing her still intact red cloak around her and gathering her into his arms.
He uneasily saw that she still had dragon traits on her, ears and a tail that were too obvious, as well as the light sheen of scales around her neck.
There was no way in hell she'd pass for a Faunus —there's no such thing as a dragon and she had one too many 'animal' traits.
"Keep your hood up and your cloak around you," he muttered and picked her up.
"Hungry," she growled, eyes glazed over.
He shuddered and held on tighter.
The restaurant was pretty friendly enough with Faunus, so it was a good place to take her (more or less). He could stay with her and they could have a meal before he could figure something out.
Making sure her cloak was on with her hood up and adjusting his own brown cloak back on himself, Adam took her hand and held it securely.
"Hungry," she said dazedly, her eyes still glazed over and not fully there.
"We're gonna eat now," he whispered to her and led her into the restaurant. "Come on, Ruby. Just a little bit longer."
He didn't stay in the main part of the restaurant, heading to the back to find the cook he was on good terms with. He was pretty sure Ruby needed to have silence and privacy, and not be crowded by people and sounds. And the less people that were going to be able to accidentally see her and maybe catch her not-Faunus traits, the better.
"Redford," he greeted the man with the horse-like mane of hair from his head to the end of his nape. It wasn't an obvious animal trait, but it was still one. It did allow the man to find and land work here at least.
"Kiddo," Redford scoffed but he grinned after. "Shit, ain't you too young to have a kid of your own?"
Adam's face flushed red and he scowled at the other man "Shut up, you! She ain't mine," he grumbled, tugging her forward. "Ruby, you're hungry, right?"
She lifted her head up, sniffing and still looking out of it. She let go of his hand and drifted away, and headed towards the plate of steaks that were waiting to be cooked. To their horror, she grabbed one and started eating it raw, ravenously going at it like she was starving.
"Holy shit, is she okay?" Redford asked him and Adam stared slack-jawed.
"No, no! Ruby, you can't eat those like that," Adam shouted, rushing forward to grab her and stop her from eating a third, grabbing one arm to pull her away.
"H-hungry," was all she said though, eyes blown back and dilated while she grabbed another steak with her other hand and shoved it towards her mouth to chomp on it like a wild animal.
"You have to eat it cooked, Ruby!" He tried to grab her other arm, but she finished off the steak first before he was able to grab onto her.
She struggled in his grip, snarling as she sniffed the air and watched the smaller stack of raw steaks on the plate. Redford grabbed his shoulder and shook his head, still looking horrified.
"Kiddo, she's craving raw meat. You might want to let her at it," he said, even as he looked disgusted.
Adam uneasily remembered the blood stains on her and on the floor and tried not to think about her maybe eating that man.
Trying not to keep freaking out with Redford but unable not to keep worrying, he let her go and watched her attack the plate of raw steak and devour them like she was a Grimm eating humans.
After letting her get her fill and watching her become drowsy, Adam thanked Redford for feeding them and paid what he had, though he knew it wasn't enough. The Horse Faunus would cover the rest though and he'd have to remember to pay him back.
"Are you full?" he asked her hesitantly and she nodded tiredly, yawning cutely.
Despite that though, it was hard to not think of the fact that —evil son of a bitch that guy probably was —that she'd most probably had eaten that guy.
But…out of sight, out of mind, so Adam pushed those thoughts away and resolved not to think about it right now. Instead, his eyes caught sight of the Semblance Collar around her neck and growled under his breath. He couldn't get it off now, but if he kept leading her to where he was going, he could definitely get it off there.
"I've got a place," he told her. "I'mma sneak you in, okay?"
"Mmkay," she murmured, still not fully aware.
Adam secured her cloak more around her and kept her new 'features' hidden, and then picked her up so he could head towards the White Fang Headquarters and get Ruby to his room.
It was surprisingly easy to get her there in the end though —having not run into anyone, with everyone busy for the next protest and the upcoming yearly winter fair the Faunus held for themselves, no one was really around and he'd managed to get her to his room without any problems.
Ruby had fallen asleep, so he let her sleep and laid her on his bed, tucking her in before he went to get some tools to take that fucking collar off of her. He thought of maybe waking her for it, but she seemed so tired and he figured that transformation, whatever it was, probably took a lot out of her.
"Why the hell did they take you for, huh?" he muttered, getting to work on the collar. He figured though, that whatever it was they'd kidnapped this kid for, had a lot to do with why she'd been able to transform into a dragon.
A dragon.
That still blew his mind. Like who the fuck can turn into a freaking dragon? Never mind transforming, she kept those damn dragon traits! It would've been fine if it was just a tail or something, just one trait at least. She could've passed for a Faunus then, and instead of a dragon, they could have pretended it was some sort of reptile or whatever. But the extra ears, the scales, the tail, and even her eyes?
No chance in hell.
Ruby still knocked out, Adam lay sprawled on the bed and thought about what the hell to do next. At least she was small enough that he could lay on the bed too and have enough space for the both of them.
He looked over to her and saw some of the scales on her neck disappearing. Huh.
"Maybe the rest of those dragon traits will start disappearing too," Adam hmmed, sleepily watching her. "You can hide out here with me until you're back to normal. Then I'll find a way to bring you home."
He could sleep. After that whole day, he could just fall asleep and not wake up for a while. That's what he should do. That's what he wanted to do.
But if he was going to hide her in his room, then he was going to have to have stuff for her and it was better to get them now when no one was apparently around.
Groaning, he made himself get up and off the bed. After looking back to Ruby, he left his room and then went around the headquarters to scrummage around for what he thought he might need. What he came up with was a fuck ton of junk food (because no more raw meat, thank you very much) and some movies he nicked off of the others.
"Hey, sleepyhead," Adam nudged the girl in his bed. "I've got dinner."
Okay, so chips and cookies weren't dinner material, but that was all he had. Plus, when her eyes lit up at seeing the cookies, he figured it was all good.
"Cookies!" she squealed, back to normal it seemed. Well, normal except for her dragon features.
He handed them over readily and popped in a video. "We can watch while we eat this stuff," he said.
"What's the movie?" Ruby asked after swallowing down a mouthful.
"Uuuh, I don't know. I just grabbed some movies and some princess ones for you," he said, remembering he did at least grab those Disney princess stuff since he figured she'd like those.
"Oooh, I like princesses," she said excitedly, confirming his thoughts. "I hope one of those is what you put in!"
He grunted and let the trailers play before the movie's main menu came on. Seeing Beauty and The Beast, he hnned and pressed play, ignoring Ruby's happy squeal.
"Hand me those chips, will you?" he asked and she handed him one of the bags. He roughly opened them and shoved a handful into his mouth as the movie began.
To his embarrassment, he actually enjoyed the movie and was pushed into singing along with Ruby.
"You liked the movie~" Ruby teased.
"So?" he said, bottom lip jutted out in a pout. "It wasn't bad."
"It isn't!" Ruby grinned widely. "And look! The Beast had your name, Adam! You're like the Prince!"
He twitched and blushed. "W-well, then, that makes you the Princess! Yeah, that's right, from now on, I'm calling you Princess!"
Ugh, she was right though —aside from his name, his temper and personality was too matching to The Beast.
"Then I'm calling you Prince!" she was practically beaming at him.
He wouldn't admit to how red his face turned or how embarrassed he was, but he definitely wasn't going to admit how pleased he was too.
A few days later saw Adam scrummaging for more food. He'd managed to grab some more junk food for them to binge on, and was on his way back to his room when two heavy hands landed on his shoulders. One was large and thick and the other slender and feminine.
"My, Adam, that's quite a lot of food for one person," Kali said curiously.
Ghira hmmed. "He's a growing boy, Kali. But it's not at all healthy, those things."
Adam's face flushed. "Ummm…" He grew worried though, not sure if he should say anything about Ruby.
"Adam."
He winced and looked them in the eyes worriedly.
Started 5/16/21 — Completed 8/10/21
A/n: So yeah…Ruby ate a guy. Welp? She was hungry though XD I'm sorry for the lateness, but life just kept getting in the way over and over again, so I kept forgetting or getting too busy to upload. I apologize again, guys! I might take longer again for the next one too, since I've been busy and focused trying to finish some originals and getting the first published. In the meantime, hope you all enjoy this chapter!