Chapter 2 - The Beginning After An End


Yang Xiao-Long was not terrified.

After all, Yang Xiao-Long was never terrified!

She was a proud Nord warrior woman, strong in arm, sharp in mind, and stout of heart! And if there was one thing the continent of Tamriel had learned, from the sagas of Ysgramor to the conquests of Talos and the Battle of the Red Ring, it was that Nord warriors did not feel fear, no! They struck fear in the hearts of others!

With that said, if Yang had to admit that she may have been capable of feeling any emotion that might bear even the slightest resemblance to "fear", then, by Oblivion, then she was definitely feeling a lot of that nameless emotion that day.

To be fair, though, the 17th of Last Seed 4E201 had started very poorly for Yang.

By then, she'd spent almost two whole months making the arduous trek from the patch of land they'd owned in the south of Cyrodiil, all the way up north into the province of Skyrim, despite the mounting unrest and danger of the roads, and the pleas and protests of her father Tai, with the singular goal of finding her bitch of a mother Raven Branwen, finding out why she had abandoned them 12 years ago, and then beating the shit out of her for breaking Tai's heart and leaving him to raise Yang all by himself. Not that Tai had necessarily done a bad job, but she'd figured he at least deserved an answer, some closure, and a measure of payback.

Unfortunately, at the very moment she'd crossed the border, she'd stumbled into an Imperial ambush of a passing rebel contingent. But not just any ambush of any rebel contingent, oh no.

General Tullius himself had personally come to oversee the capture Ulfric Stormcloak.

Even a peasant like her from beyond the backwaters of Bravil had heard about the Stormcloak Rebellion, and just who these men were.

Perhaps, if Yang had been at her best, she might have been able to escape. Weakened by her travels and the related exertions, however, she'd been unable to overpower the three Legionnaires that had jumped her, and had succumbed to unconsciousness after but two minutes of resistance (and getting kicked in the gut and pummeled on the head by the pommels of their swords).

To make things worse, she'd woken up on a prison cart with the Stormcloak rebels, had to endure self-righteous prattling and droning from said rebels (she'd been too busy catching her breath to snap at him to shove his spiel back where the sun didn't shine, and by the Nine was she thankful they'd had the foresight to gag Ulfric), and brought to a fortified town to be executed.

At least the Imperial soldier had tried to speak out against her execution, even if he'd been immediately overruled by his Captain. She was sure the small gesture would be a comfort when her head was lopped off.

It'd been as she'd been forced to kneel in front of a big burly hooded executioner (she'd derisively nicknamed him "Junior", just to piss him off), as she'd glared up at the axe gleaming in the sun, and steadfastly ignored the decapitated head of a Stormcloak below her, that the first stirrings of what definitely wasn't fear had begun to make themselves known to her, and she'd felt herself emotionally compensate by getting angry, getting aggressive, until finally she'd begun swearing up a storm, at Junior, at the Divines, at the Imperials who were about to execute her for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stoicism had been a valued trait in Cyrodiil, but she was a Nord in Skyrim; she felt the Nine could overlook her enflamed passions.

And then a dragon, of all things, had suddenly descended to the town below, and as fire rained from the heavens above she found herself revising her thoughts as hastily as she made for cover, running for a nearby stone tower with all the speed her legs could take her.

As she'd crept her way through the besieged city, watching Legionnaires, Stormcloaks, and townsfolk alike burn where they stood, head like an owl swiveling around in ceaseless vigil, the stirrings of not-fear had become a full-blown flood, gripping her heart in its icy grasp. And as she inched closer and closer to the closest thing to fear a Nord could feel, she began to get aggressive. Even as she slid past the massive black dragon, as it tried landing between her and the town's main fortress, she briefly locked eyes with it, and swore vengeance on the baleful lights within, for what it had done to Helgen, for being a worthy foe that she wanted to test herself against, and for making her feel, for the second time in her life, helpless and lost.

She knew the beast got the message, as its eyes narrowed, but even as it opened its fanged maw (whether to breathe fire upon the defiant mortal or roar a challenge in kind she could not say) the surviving Legionnaire who'd made it there with her had rushed to shut the door between the two.

It's furious tantrum at being denied its prey could be heard across all of Skyrim, and the pair could do little but watch as its attempts to break in caused the fort to shudder and crumble, falling rubble and debris sealing off their entrance.

The Legionnaire had cut her free, introduced himself as Hadvar, and been understanding and a good sport when she'd immediately slugged him in the face. He'd pointed her to a chest of Legion leathers, while nursing his bruised jaw, and offered her a sword that she'd refused.

As far as she could judge (and she had faith in her ability to judge people, having grown up in post-war Bravil), Hadvar wasn't a bad sort. Honest, earnest, kind-hearted, easy on the eyes, and good with his head, he hadn't let the unexpected sight of free Stormcloaks roaming the fort disarm him for roo long, and had tried to reason with them to work together. Then he'd subsequently proven the strength of his sword-arm when they'd attacked him, and he'd had to cut him down. Truly, Yang might have been able to appreciate Hadvar as a potential companion...

Except for the fact that he'd almost let her get executed.

Sure, he'd protested, and apologized, but he'd still been a bit too willing to follow a superior's orders over his own heart. And Yang had almost lost her head for it. As much as she could appreciate his finer physical qualities...

Well, it wasn't as if Yang had come to Skyrim looking for love anyway. It had been but a flight of passing fancy, one that had vanished as soon as she'd spared a thought for it. Yang sighed and subtly shook her head, irritated. She'd just turned eighteen, earlier in the year, and while she was physically mature mentally she found that she still occassionally felt the same stirrings of desire for companionship that had taken hold of many young lasses in her village. Personally, she considered it lucky that none of the boys in her village had been able to catch her eye, both for her and for them should Tai (the unarmed combat instructor of the town's Fighters Guild) have found out.

Well, that didn't matter either. Any port in a storm, as her father had told her. The two of them were merely allies of convenience at the moment, working together to escape the fortress, and nothing more. At this point, she was desperate enough she'd have accepted help from a troll, or a bear (or even a Stormcloak).

And then they came across the dungeons, and Yang wondered if the Nine had a sense of humor.

Of all the people and creatures she'd met that day, not even the dragon had made her recoil with distaste as much as the fort's torturer. Honestly, it was a miracle he'd managed to survive all this time, though a few Stormcloaks seemed to be trying their best to rectify that little oversight.

Honestly, she'd been tempted to find an accidental distraction until he'd coincidentally been killed before she could intervene. It'd been very tempting, in fact. However, Hadvar was bound by honor and duty to assist a fellow member of the Legion (though even he disapproved of the man's sociopathic sadism, to her delight), and when he'd thanked them for saving his worthless hide by rudely dismissing them and refusing to go with them, she'd barely needed to spend any effort in convincing Hadvar to abandon the man to his choices.

At least he hadn't done more than object when Hadvar had spotted some useful items in a cell, as well as nearby lockpicks. If she'd heard his grating voice while undertaking what was little more than a children's game in Bravil, she'd have probably shown him another way she could use the lockpicks.

He'd passed a sarcastic comment when they'd taken the dead mage's spellbook and potion, but his assistant had convenientl6 found a reason to "dust off his hood" when she'd begun violently gesticulating what he could do with his wit, and Hadvar had quickly hurried her deeper into the dungeons before she could do something the torturer would regret.

It was as she was being pushed past a row of cells, however, that something caught her eye, gave her pause. Looking more closely deep within the cell, she saw light reflecting off a gleaming plate, and for a moment she contemplated picking the cell's lock. Surely such a shining metal plate would be worth a few septims? Then she saw the reflected lights glimmer as the plate moved slightly, and she redoubled her efforts to unlock the cell.

The blood-soaked blonde man in the cell was still breathing!

Sure, Yang had little compunctions about killing other foes in the heat of battle, and she felt no guilt whatsoever about leaving the torturer behind, but even the Bravil-raised youth balked at the idea of simply abandoning an injured youth. As she rushed forward to assess the injured man, Hadvar spoke up from behind her: "Wait, who... this cell was supposed to be empty. We didn't bring him in here; there are no records of a prisoner in this cell! This cell was empty when I patrolled the block last week! And how did he get so injured?"

Yang traced the holes that had been punched cleanly through his breastplate and the odd black fabric beneath, but despite all the blood she could find no cuts or open wounds, let alone the deep ones that should have riddled his chest, judging by the state of his armor. There was mild bruising, but nothing that should have produced so much blood.

Had a skilled healer come and work on him? It couldn't have been the Stormcloaks; their disdain for magic aside, the cell had been locked, and there was no reason for them to heal his wounds but leave him behind. And it couldn't have been the Legion; they didn't even know he'd been in the cell, and if they'd healed him there was little reason for them to leave him in his clothes instead of changing him into prisoner rags, or removing the sheath by his side. So who could it have been?

What she did know, as the fort rumbled above her as the dragon continued its assault, was that they had to get out before the entire fort collapsed and trapped them in a cave-in, and the Nord in front of her was not grievously-injured. Making her up her mind, she began shaking him vigorously.

His eyelids fluttered and he began stirring, and she stared deep into his baby blues, before giving him a cocky grin and beginning: "Hey, you. You're finally awake.'

Unfortunately, she wasn't able to go any further than that, before the man beneath her turned green, and threw up suddenly and violently all over her boots.


Author's Note: And here we go, the first original chapter of the story! I'll be honest... I rewrote this whole thing from scratch. I'd originally written this from Jaune's perspective, of him waking up in the cell, disoriented, and getting his bearings. But as I tried writing it, I found it extremely awkward, with little proper flow. And so I scrapped a few thousand words and started again from scratch.

I understand that I may, perhaps, seem a bit harsh on the Stormcloaks. To that, I just want to point out that the initial section is written from Yang's perspective. And Yang, while being a Nord, was born and raised in Cyrodiil. Theological matters may be one thing, but she doesn't necessarily give a rat's ass about provincial independence, especially not when considering that anyone with two eyes in Cyrodiil can see a Second Great War looming on the horizon. She might also be a tad biased and resentful, since Raven "Bitch" Branwen did abandon her family for Skyrim...

Also, unlike the game's silent protagonist Dovahkiin... there's no way I can see Yang being in the least bit quiet and passive about being in a cart full of Stormcloaks who'd gotten her captured and sent to her execution. Or being executed by the Imperials for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And definitely not when an actual, honest-to-Talos, Oblivion-damned dragon of all things is wreaking havoc and breathing fire down onto the town below while flaming rocks are hurtling down from the sky and smashing stone towers like they were little more than kindling. Yang, as a character, has always struck me as mildly insecure, putting up a massive front of cocky arrogance and sureity and masking any signs of weakness with her fiery temper, and these aspects would probably have only been amplified as a Nord growing up in post-war Tamriel without Summer Rose as a second mother.

As for Yang briefly checking out Hadvar... people do check out other people. Especially when you're young, hormonal, and stressed. RWBY-Yang does seem to be very forward at first glance, openly checking out other guys before Initiation, and is especially willing to exploit her attractiveness and weaponize her femininity. Sure, she doesm't really form romantic attachments as easily (probably due to Raven), but she's definitely no blushing prude.

Now imagine a Yang without Summer's super-mom upbringing, without the responsibility from raising Ruby, and put her in a Middle Ages society where brawls and honour duels are commonplace, and where the definition of "public decency" has been loosened by a devastating war, crushing economic conditions, and widespread crime, and then make her a Nord, fiery and passionate.

That said, I don't want people to think I'm Hadvar-bashing, either. Yang's just had one of the worst and most stresstul days of her life so far, and Hadvar did almost let her die...

As for why the chapter was so short... I felt like this chapter worked best as a brief introduction into the Yang-onborn, before we really get into the swing of things.

And don't worry, Jaune only threw up because of the smell of blood and viscera, combined with his injuries and disorientation, overwhelmed him. Remember, Grimm don't bleed, and he hasn't really killed anyone at this point, as far as I can tell.