(A/N) Sorry about the lack of updates in the last two weeks. Ran into some issues relating to quarantine, but they're dealt with now. I'll be back to a weekly update schedule, with a new chapter out every Monday, and maybe some additional ones throughout the week if I have any extra free time.

It's another 370 kilometers to Shion, and I'm back to the slower pace necessitated by training. The gradual draining of my enthusiasm I'd been experiencing on my way out from Vale has stopped- my encounter with Tyrian, and the way it reminded me of my encounter with Marie, has made me realize that I'm not strong enough. I can't protect myself, much less Neo, from the real dangers of the world we've been thrust into. Not yet, at least.

However, the cut to my pace from the redoubled commitment to sword practice means it takes me another week to get to Shion.

It's only when I get close enough to see the blackened husks of the buildings that I realize something's gone terribly wrong.

The urges to increase pace out of curiosity and to decrease pace out of caution seem to cancel each other out, and I end up maintaining the same casual stride as I step past the burnt, ruined remains of the city wall. Past it, the place is a ruin. Most of the buildings have been reduced to piles of ash, charred husks of larger support timbers poking out.

Arnaut points to a blast mark on the cobblestone road that I'd missed. "That's from a Dust firearm. Bandits did this."

I nod and continue forward, only to halt once more as I pass the edge of a building and a corpse comes into view- eviscerated, and not by human blades. The wounds are too vicious, and there's too much meat missing. "Grimm."

Arnaut's expression darkens as it always does when he's confronted with the more vile aspects to humanity. "There usually are, yes. The bandits attack knowing full well that the Grimm will arrive to clean up any mess they leave behind, as well as take the blame."

I round another corner and see someone in a sitting position, back braced against some rubble. For a brief moment I wonder if he's alive, but am disabused of that idea after trying to sense his Aura and finding nothing.

Nevertheless, I stride over to the body, one of the very, very few left relatively intact. He has to have died after the Grimm came, or he'd have been eaten. Relatively high-end armor and a discarded Dust rifle at his side tell the rest of the story- he's a Huntsman. Was a Huntsman, anyway.

"Dust to dust," Arnaut mutters again.

I'm not so sentimental, and squat down beside the corpse to see if there's anything worthwhile left to take.

"Dreki-"

"Oh fuck off, it's not like-"

"No! Dreki, behind you!"

I spin and draw Aurora just in time to see a raggedly equipped bandit charge me with a two-handed battleaxe. Before I block, I catch the sight of more movement out of the corner of my eye and abandon the notion, vaulting back and away from the danger instead.

Just as I'd suspected, another two bandits emerge from the ruined shells of buildings to level firearms at me and unleash a spray of bullets. I catch most with Aurora, but can't dodge effectively mid-air and take a bit of damage to my Aura.

I land in a full sprint and focus as hard as I can on Aura sensing, trying to detect how many aggressors there are. Arnaut has been training me in this, but the lessons always begin with trying to find a calmness, a peace of mind that I can never manage. Closing my eyes, clearing my thoughts, always takes me to places that I don't want to return to.

My attempt at concentration is broken by the axe-wielder smashing through the husk of a wall in front of me. He takes a wide swing at waist level, but I drop beneath it on my knees, turning as I slide and starting a strike of my own-

But a gunshot impacts my shoulder and I curse, turning to see another bandit on a rooftop.

Even worse, my distraction causes me to miss the axe-wielder continuing his strike in a full circle and catching me square in my unprepared back.

My Aura isn't braced well enough for the gunshot or the axe strike, and I'm already down to sixty percent. Even worse, the force from his blow goes through my unprepared Aura hard enough to bruise my spine and launch me nearly twenty meters.

If there's one upside, it's that my fall is broken by a burned-out manor house. The charred wood buckles beneath me to soften the impact, and the walls keep me out of the line of fire for the moment.

I grit my teeth, closing my eyes to try to find the calm that Arnaut insists upon, reaching out with my soul to scan for the Auras-

And the first one I find is ten meters above me, closing fast. I have the barest instant to roll myself out of the way before the massive battleaxe comes crushing down through three stories of building and cleaves deep into the ground where I'd been lying.

I evade the worst of the damage, but the shockwave from the Aura discharged is immense, blasting apart the ruined house and hurtling me through the air once again. This time I'm not so lucky, and bounce twice before rolling to a halt in an open street. Before I even stop, I'm taking gunfire from three rooftops, dropping my Aura down to forty percent.

"Dreki! Move!"

I obey Arnaut's command and take off sprinting to my right, stumbling at first. The gunmen are slow to track my movements and I evade their shots for the moment, accelerating along the main road towards the village exit.

This is not like the other encounters. They're coordinated. Skilled. Lethal. They must have been the ones to put down that Huntsman. I can't afford to use them as a training exercise.

The village's far gates, still standing, are wide open for my escape-

But as I near them, the axeman stalks out onto the road, a cruel smile on his face. "Can't run from this one, Goldilocks."

I stop in my tracks, heart beating, mind racing. He's fast and strong- a tough opponent by his own rights, and coupled with the support from the seemingly endless army of ranged allies, I cannot afford to fight him. Neither can I run, though. He's too fast, his fire support too coordinated.

It's all I can do to play for time, and even then it's more of a trade than anything, as it means the gunmen have time to make their way onto the rooftops to my left and right. "I'll give you twenty thousand Lien to fuck off."

The leader simply gives me a disinterested smile, eyes half-lidded as if this bores him. "I'll take thirty off your corpse, girl. Besides, this ain't about the money."

I crack the knuckles of my left hand, trying to clear my mind while keeping him talking. "What's it about, then?"

He chuckles. "You killed our boys. Blood for blood."

It's only then that I notice the gear-and-wing symbol of the Branwen tribe emblazoned on the significantly larger of his two spaulders. His armor is a piecemeal combination of different sets- a light polymer chestplate, combat boots, one arm covered in heavy steel armor and the other without any at all.

Shit. I work my jaw, expanding my Aura senses wider and wider as I scramble for something else to keep the conversation going. "Didn't that kid tell you I don't want a fight?"

He snorts. "Goldilocks, if we left people alone because they didn't want a fight, we wouldn't be bandits, now, would we?"

My sense widens to encompass a hundred-meter radius of me. I can pick out many forms, most without Auras unlocked, stealthily making their ways to the rooftops on either side of me. There's at least ten already, with five more on their way.

I'm in deep shit, I realize. I can't fight the axe guy with the ranged ones backing him up, but neither can I use the human shield tactics from a week and a half ago- there's too many gunmen, too spread out. They have me surrounded… they have complete control.

He who controls the fight, wins the fight, my mind adds unhelpfully.

The axeman drops into a more combative pose, axe held back behind him ready to be swung. "But I think that's enough talk. Now, you can come quiet, or die loud."

It's a lie. They'll kill me even if I surrender.

I swallow and desperately rack my mind for a way out. If I flee, he catches me. If I fight him, the gunmen ruin me…

That's when Arnaut, silent up until this point, finally speaks. "Change the paradigm, Dreki. If you can't fight him or run, then-"

"I see it," I mutter, realizing what I need to do. "Hey, you!" I shout to the axeman. "At least tell me your name before I kill you."

I'm already charging Aura within Aurora's blade as he laughs derisively. "Hell, girly, at least you're damn confident. Fine. I'm Ahmar, of the Branwen Tribe."

I start to spout dramatic bullshit as I raise Aurora towards him, stalling for just a few seconds longer as I continue focusing my Aura into it. "I am Dreki, student of the Golden Guardian, heir to the Way of Wind, uh… savior of Shinston, protector of Luskhan and Southfen, Defender of Vale… and I will not be slain by the likes of you."

Ahmar sneers. "Oh? Then-"

I reach critical mass and drop Aurora's tip to point at the cobblestone a few meters in front of me, a wild grin emerging as I realize, too late, the insanity of my plan.

Then I pull the trigger, and a Burn/Blast round exits the barrel with ten percent of my Aura stuffed into it. I'm already leaping up, back, tilting the flat of Aurora's blade to face the epicenter, as the shell impacts the earth.

Then half of my vision becomes fire and energy. The explosion balloons outward from the road, enhanced exponentially by the Aura I poured into it, and consumes the rooftops of both buildings beside where I'd stood, catching sixteen men in the devastation. Only three of them have the Aura to survive the immolation.

The blast reaches me, but most of my body is spared the flames, shielded by the flat of Aurora's blade. The explosion still picks me up and flings me like some giant careless child throwing a toy.

I'm launched twenty-five meters and yet laugh the whole way, rolling off my landing and tearing towards the straggling bandit gunmen. My laugh is not one of humor- it stems from my stress, my nerves, my desperation. The blast buys me precious, precious time and distance from Ahmar. I need to remove his support before he catches back up. If I don't, I die.

Without him on me, it's a much simpler matter to sprint at one bandit unfortunate enough to be caught on the road, block a few stray bullets with Aurora in Warm Front, and then take his head off with a clean slash.

I don't even break from my sprint, snapping my gaze towards the next-closest enemy and hurtling towards them. This one is on a rooftop, turning his gun towards me. Too slow. I tear into the house underneath him, glance upwards, then vault up through a charred support beam and punch Aurora's Hardlight tip through his back.

Another fires at me, and though I block the shots, the gnawing fear returns to my heart. I'm not going fast enough.

I take off with a leap, discharging Aura from my feet to trade the extra durability for speed, and cleave the front of the bandit's torso open before my feet even hit the ground. Instead of landing, I bounce, discharging even more Aura in another leap that redoubles my momentum towards the next gunman.

This one tries to block, flaring his Aura. I slam Aurora into his upraised gun, reach beneath it to snatch his neck in my offhand, and drag him headfirst along the ground as I continue my sprint. The continual grinding wears on his Aura until it breaks, and then his face is ravaged by the cobblestones.

I sense the much larger Aura of Ahmar moving towards me, and urgency mounts.

After shunting another four percent of my Aura into Aurora, I fling the battered gunman in my hand towards another of his fellows in a somewhat familiar trick. The uninjured one catches his ally, vision obscured enough that he doesn't notice my Aura Thrust until it has punched through both of them.

Ahmar is still closing the gap, but I never break momentum. I even take a trick from his book and charge through two charred, near-broken walls to surprise another bandit. This one I cut in half without a second glance, and then veer sharply right, back towards the town's exit.

This was my ploy- deal with the outliers, draw Ahmar out to me, and then beat him back the way we both came to finish off the three survivors of my blast.

He changes course to follow me. I catch a glimpse of him as I tear back the way I came, adrenaline mounting.

The three gunmen who survived my fire blast shout and turn their aim towards me. I slide into Spring Rain without missing a step, strides growing longer, wider, leaping back and forth in a serpentine motion to avoid the worst of their gunfire.

One stops to reload. Ironically, it means he lives a few seconds longer as I turn towards the more urgent targets of his friends. The next-closest one nails me in the chest with a handgun shot, costing me yet more Aura. I'm running on fumes now. It doesn't matter.

I hit him dead in the chest with Scattered Showers, holding back slightly on an initial thrust that breaks his Aura before fully extending the blade in a followup that punches two prongs through his chest.

The woman beside him shouts and unloads on me. I spin around her and cut behind me without looking, knocking her off the rooftop and breaking her Aura as well, then follow her down with a stab that punches through her body and into the charred crater left behind by my blast.

The first one finally finishes reloading- but so have I, and I do it much faster than him, simply slipping a new round into the slot beside Aurora's mid-blade hilt. He fires his submachine gun, spraying me with bullets that chip away at my fading dregs of Aura.

I return the favor with a Lightning/Beam round aimed at his chest. His Aura resists for one second, two, as my own Aura begins to break-

But his goes first, and the electricity courses through his veins unimpeded, giving me a brief glimpse of his skeleton before he collapses, smoking and very, very dead.

I've done it.

But… it doesn't matter. My Aura is hanging by the barest of threads- a stiff breeze could shatter it. I may have dealt with the small fries, yet now I have nothing left to fight the strongest foe.

Ahmar comes flying in, only hesitating when he sees me standing over the corpse of the woman. He narrows his eyes, but doesn't attack… why doesn't he attack?

"Only the fourth man's death brings fear," Arnaut quotes, and then his tone goes more urgent. "Dreki, stand up! He likely hasn't trained enough to sense Aura levels, so if you…"

I get his meaning, and straighten myself into a more threatening pose, even reaching behind my head and undoing the tied ends of the black bandage over my eye, affixing him with the red glow of the Grimm. When I speak, it's in the most intimidating growl that I can muster: "I'll allow you to leave if you tell the tribe to stop."

Ahmar hesitates, axe wavering. "What… what are you?"

I wave a hand around me, at the carnage, the still-burning bodies. "Tell your leaders that I'll kill anyone they send. How much blood needs to be spilled? How many more lives, wasted?"

He stumbles backwards. "This… isn't the end. We'll come again- Raven'll make you pay!"

Fuck, these people are relentless. I don't push my luck, waiting until he's out of sight to collapse to the ground, breathing heavily.

Arnaut drops down beside me, legs crossed. "That's another of Alorn's lessons. 'If you're a wolf, act a lamb. If you're a lamb, act a wolf.'"

I don't even have the energy to respond.

By some miracle, I make it the rest of the way to Higanbana without stumbling into any ambushes. Which isn't to say that I didn't still spend the last seven days on high alert for another Branwen attack.

It's bad enough that I actually slowed down on the sword practice, raising my minimum Aura level to 50% just in case and Aura Sprinting as much as I did through the Dust Wastes. Arnaut uses it as a way to train the passive reinforcement and regeneration that he's always gushing about.

Still… "Aura only regenerates when you deactivate it," I say suddenly, just as Higanbana comes into view.

"And…?"

"And that means regenerating it during a fight would be useless," I finish. "You'd have to lose all your defenses."

"Your durability would still be passively enhanced," Arnaut counters. "And your Aura would still heal you from the damage,"

"But if you get stabbed or shot, it doesn't matter. No one could maintain focus on Aura regeneration through the pain."

"I know of at least two people who can," Arnaut says, a hint of darkness in his tone. "You've already met one of them."

"Who?"

He hesitates. "One of Salem's servants. Hazel."

That's… well, not exactly a surprise, but also something I hadn't considered. Truth be told, I hadn't invested much thought into Hazel since that first day when I realized he could control Grimm- No, I realize, Salem's the one who can control Grimm.

"By the way, Arnaut, that's another part of the reason why I'm not exactly raring to fight Salem."

He squints, confused. "Are you so terrified of Hazel?"

Sometimes I forget he can't read my mind. It's strange, constantly whispering to him- it's given me a nasty habit of muttering my thoughts out loud that could come to bite me. "I mean, yes…? But also, I wasn't referring to him, I was referring to Salem. She can control Grimm, right?"

He nods, starting to see where I'm going with this.

I gesture to my left eye. "So who's to say I'm not going to get controlled by her?"

He works his jaw, and then nods, conceding the point. "As you are now, yes, it's likely not a good idea to confront her."

The end of the conversation synchronizes rather nicely with me stepping through Higanabana's wide wooden gates. It, like every settlement town I've run across in Mistral so far, has only a wooden palisade wall and a surprisingly low number of guardsmen for its size as defenses.

"Why're the towns so poorly defended?" I murmur to Arnaut.

"They weren't, the last time I was here," Arnaut says, expression troubled. "Is Leo preparing for something? Recruiting from outlying settlements? Or perhaps the Dust embargo has reduced the ability to arm city guards?"

I ignore his consternation and step up to the village's tavern and inn, which- like the rest of the town- is larger than the other places I've passed through. When I step inside, I see there's even a second floor, although I slide into a spot on the first.

It's a little past noon, and the place is full from the lunch rush. I don't mind at first, because it means I have time to pull out my Scroll and check, as I have at every major settlement I've passed through, for any new messages from Neo.

A wave of relief floods into me when I see that there are two, only to be swamped by another wave of nervous anticipation. I'm almost afraid to see what it says- almost.

[Neo]: Did a little digging. Flaming Bitch still alive and going to come to Mistral City. I'm meeting with Miss Piggy, making sure we give the bitch a warm welcome.

So my destination is to be Mistral City. I scroll down to see the second one:

[Neo]: Hope you're holding up okay. Miss you. ;)

My heart lightens just a bit at that. I can almost see the hesitant compassion in her expression as she must have typed the words out, can remember how she'd retreat into embarrassment and then annoyance if I ever met her sincerity with any of my own. "I… miss you too," I mutter, that habit of saying my thoughts out loud acting up again.

"Miss who?" A familiar voice asks from only a few feet away.

I yelp, startle in my seat, nearly fall out of it and lose grip on my Scroll, which bounces out of my hands and down onto the table.

Fuck!

As fast as I reach to snatch it, the damage is done, because Neo's image at the top of the screen was plain for the other person at the table to see. The luck required for it to not only land back on the table, but settle facing up and away from me, makes me want to scream.

And yet, by some absolute miracle, I am saved by the fact that Qrow Branwen is by all appearances nursing the worst hangover in the history of Remnant. Most of my instincts scream at me to snatch the Scroll as quickly as possible, yet one outlier- Arnaut's, I suspect- cautions me to keep calm, to avoid giving it away. I casually reach over and turn it off, then pocket it.

He just looks at me through half-lidded eyes, wincing whenever anyone in the tavern makes too loud a noise. "Shit, kid- what the hell're you doing all the way out here?"

"You heard of the Endless Path?" At this point, it's become the easiest and most provable lie. Arnaut even went so far as to run me through using his Scroll to document my apprenticeship with him in case anyone pushed me. It's… strange, him helping me cover up his own murder, and somehow the fact that I don't experience any paranoia about him screwing me over during it feels even stranger.

Qrow shakes his head no, then winces and raises a hand to his forehead.

"Huh. Well, it's a religious thing. I'm… cleaning up some stuff for the Golden Guardian."

He makes a noise of understanding, slumping down in his chair to rest his head in one hand, elbow braced on the table.

It's… odd to see him like this. I'm not deluded enough to believe I have the advantage- he could likely still kick my ass no matter how nasty a hangover he had- but still, I've nearly given myself away several times and he's never been present enough to notice.

My fear doesn't fade, it just shifts. The gnawing worry leaves the forefront of my mind and morphs into a larger, more primal thing dancing around the edges. It grows even further when I realize what this implies- all this man's missions, all the hordes of Grimm he's slaughtered, all the criminals he's executed, all of his accomplishments were when he wasn't even operating at close to full effectiveness.

Words fade from my lips as I look at him with a new curiosity. What could he do, were he not handicapped by this affliction? How much deadler could he be?

He notices my expression and frowns. "What?"

"Nothing," I mutter.

"Huh." He's silent for another stretch, and then seems to remember something. "Oh… oh!" He winces at his raised voice, then continues quieter: "What're you doing out here, anyway?"

"You already asked me that," I say.

"Did I…?" He blinks a few times, and then sighs.

This is beyond strange. Qrow Branwen, left hand of Headmaster Ozpin, one of the deadliest active Huntsmen in Vale- Wait.

Branwen.

"Are you part of the Branwen Tribe?" I ask on instinct, a bit of my fearfulness in speaking to him gone now.

"Me? I… no. Not anymore." His tone is dark, and he shoots a glance at the second floor of the tavern for some reason.

"What…" I trail off when Arnaut shakes his head at me, then try again with a different tack. "If you used to be with them, do you have any clue how to get them to stop ambushing me?"

That seems to haul him partially out of his stupor. "What?"

"A few of them ambushed me outside Xiangan," I say. "Knew me by name. I killed most of them, left one to send a message…" I trail off. He's shaking his head slowly. "What, should I not have done that?"

"No, kid, you really shouldn't've," he groans. "The Tribe… well, it isn't like the crime in… where were you from, again?"

"Vacuo," I respond. "Well, kind of."

"Kind of?" He frowns. "No, nevermind. Look, the Tribe don't see themselves the way the rest of the world sees 'em. They've got too much pride, too much… honor." He spits the word out distastefully. "Not the kind to keep 'em from ransacking innocent villages, but the kind that sees fighting back as an insult. They see you fighting in self-defense as a challenge to them."

I'd suspected something like that, but hearing it confirmed is still a pain in the ass. "So, now what?"

He sighs. "How many of 'em did you kill?"

"Uh…" I count off on my fingers. "I think there were seven the first time, but I let one live… and then more recently, in Shion…"

His expression gets even darker, filled with a deep-rooted spite. "What happened in Shion? Were you there, when they…"

"No," I say, this time without the urge to shy away from his rage, knowing it isn't directed towards me. "I came through a day or two after they looted the place. They set a trap for me."

He blinks. "You fought your way out of a coordinated ambush?"

"I mean… yeah, sure." I don't feel like elaborating on the bluff that kept me alive. "I think I killed another… let's see… thirteen in the blast, plus five more outliers, and then I finished off the three survivors, so…" I drop my hands. "Twenty-one."

Qrow's eyes go wide. "You killed twenty-seven Branwen Tribe fighters?"

The waitress, who chose exactly now of all times to walk up, gasps and drops the menus she was carrying. I turn to look at her, but I have no clue what to say- do I deny the claim? Pretend he's drunk? Lean into it?

She gives me a wary look as she picks up the dropped menus, doing a poor job of disguising the way she shies away from me. "Uh… today's… today's s- specials are, uh…"

I spare her. "Don't worry about it."

She nods and flees to another table, leaving me to turn to Qrow, who in turn has practically broken his neck craning his head around to watch the waitress's hasty retreat.

"Something, something, love to watch her leave?"

He turns back towards me with a wry smile that's gone in an instant, replaced by a hangover-dampened incredulity. "Look, if you killed twenty-seven of the Tribe's fighters, they aren't gonna stop sending people after you until you either leave Mistral or kill one of their heavies."

I open my mouth to ask what he means by that last part, but he beats me to it.

"Oh, right. By heavies, I mean one of Raven's- uh, the leader of the Branwen Tribe's lieutenants. They're the ones allowed to lead raids and take command over the other hideouts." When he speaks about the Branwen Tribe, his eyes grow spiteful again, and yet also cloud with some distant memory. "They're stronger than most Huntsmen- and I mean real Huntsmen, not the cut-rate ones running around these days. I've seen you fight, and no offense, but you don't stand much of a chance."

I nod slowly, sinking feeling returning to my gut. "So I either book it out of Mistral, or get hunted down by someone much stronger than me?"

He nods unhappily. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Shit." I think about the road left towards Mistral City. I'm barely 2400 kilometers into the total 4200, and the remaining stretch is all winding through rough, mountainous terrain, meaning I'm likely closer to around halfway through. I doubt I'll be able to deal with one of the lieutenants he mentioned, and I also doubt I'll make it another couple weeks in their home turf without getting hunted down.

But I have to make it to Mistral City. To Neo.

Qrow opens his mouth, and then closes it again, looking cautious.

"Go ahead," I say. Whatever his suggestion is, it can't hurt to at least hear it.

"Well… Rave- the head of the Branwen Tribe can call 'em off. You'd have to convince her to, though, and that's never gonna happen."

I bite my lip absentmindedly. "How would I do that? Theoretically, theoretically," I stipulate when his eyes flicker in warning.

"Look, kid, just… forget I said anything, alright?"

"I'm just curious," I say, only half-lying.

"Really?" He squints at me, and then relaxes a bit. "Then, in that case… I don't know. Maybe by convincing her you're 'strong?'"

I tilt my head, growing actually curious now. "But massacring two parties of them wasn't enough proof?"

Qrow's voice grows heavy with cynicism. "They respect strength the same way they respect honor. Picking and choosing when it suits them. Get killed by them, and it's justified by you being 'too weak', but then kill one of them? That philosophy flies out the window. Suddenly it doesn't matter that you were strong enough to kill one of them. They'll declare fucking blood feuds over the insult."

The waitress returns and we both order, a heavier silence settling over the table.

I'm split. Risking my life to try to convince them to let me off is seeming a dumber and dumber idea by the second, but at the same time, I'm not confident I can even make it out of Mistral before the Tribe hunts me down. My options are book it back the way I came, likely get caught, and then probably die, or book it towards the Branwen hideout, likely get caught, and then probably die.

The fear coils in my gut and black begins flickering up a single vein of my arm.

Fuck. I banish the thoughts and turn back to Qrow. "How far away is this 'Raven' woman."

His eyes flare. "No. No! Look, kid, I told you that was a bad idea. You can't reason with them, they'll kill you!"

A flicker of the fear remains in my grey eyes when I meet his red ones. "Look, Qrow, I'm two thousand kilometers from the border. You and me both know I probably won't make it there before they hunt me down. My best shot right now is Raven."

His expression softens, and after a few seconds, he speaks. "Come with me."

I blink, surprised.

Qrow keeps on talking in my silence. "I can fight off a bruiser if they send one. You can stick with me to Mistral City, and then register with Leo. They won't touch you if you're inside Haven."

I'm touched by his kindness. A submerged part of me wants to say yes, to stick with him, but…

Arnaut chimes in for the first time in minutes. "If you allow a feud with the Tribe to fester, it will mean looking over your shoulder in Mistral for the rest of your life."

He's right. I steel myself, and turn back to Qrow. "If you protect me, that'll be the ultimate insult, right?" I ask. He twitches, but nods slowly. "Like admitting I'm too weak, and hiding behind you. I… might be coming back to Mistral more, in the future. I can't afford to have the biggest criminal group in the kingdom out for my blood." I think of it like the Syndicate- if they wanted me dead, I'd barely be able to get off a ship in Vale without worrying about poisoning, snipers' bullets, ambushes around every corner. I cannot afford to have an enemy like that.

Qrow grimaces. "You can't talk them down, kid. They'll kill-"

I raise a palm. "Stop." I can't afford to overthink this- the more I worry about the price on my head, the harder it'll be to keep a handle on the Grimm, which itself has been even harder since… what happened in Vale. "Look, just tell me where the Tribe's hideout is?"

He works his jaw, eyes narrowed. "No."

That's frustrating. "Please?"

"No. I'm not gonna help you kill yourself."

I start to bite my lip again. Arnaut contributes again: "Tell him you'll just get the information from-"

"Right," I mutter. "Qrow, if you tell me where the place is, I might be able to sneak there. If you don't, then I'm going to have to walk into another ambush, try to capture someone, and make them tell me where it is. If they send a lieutenant like you said, then…"

He narrows his eyes further, and I realize I misread him. "Not if I arrest you for being a danger to yourself and drag you to Mistral."

Fuck. If I end up in Haven's system, they might get hold of my criminal record from the time I spent on the streets there. I think, desperately searching for an out, and find something: "You're here looking after your… niece, right? Does she have silver eyes, by any chance?"

He looks suddenly wary.

"Does the name 'Tyrian Callows' mean anything to you?" I ask him.

He just shakes his head.

I shoot Arnaut a confused glance, and he just sighs. "Qrow was never very good at remembering briefings on suspected Salemites. Not that I blame him; Ozpin would run us through every single remotely noteworthy criminal or Huntsman that ever went missing."

That shoots my plan in the foot, but I do my best to limp it along anyway. "A week or two ago, back in Tsubaki, I ran into a Scorpion faunus in a brown coat- he used to be a serial killer around here. They called him the Butcher of Byakura?" Qrow just looks blankly at me, and I give up on trying to jog his memory. "Fine. The point is, he mentioned something about hunting a silver-eyed girl for his 'goddess'."

That snaps Qrow to attention. "What?" The dull haze fades away- not completely, but driven back by his urgency. "If you're lying to me-"

"I'm not," I promise, a bit more confident now when I'm speaking the truth. "I don't know what he wants with your niece, but… he seemed dangerous. If you're bogged down dragging me along with you, you won't be able to protect her."

Qrow flickers from suspicion, to worry, to resentment, to some mixture of the three as he finally lets out a long, heavy sigh. "You're gonna go after Raven no matter what I tell you, huh?"

I nod.

"You and Yang should start a club," he murmurs, and then finally settles into a composed expression. "Fine. Give me your Scroll and I'll give you the coordinates for their base. Just…" He trails off, a genuine worry for me that I don't know how to deal with filling his eyes. "Don't do anything stupid, kid. Well, more stupid."

I hand him my locked Scroll, and he taps it to his, the physical contact transferring the locational data.

"Thanks."

It's then that the food arrives. We eat in silence, an awkwardness born from my refusal of his invitation weighing down on the both of us. It's only when we've finished and paid, as I get up to leave, that he reaches to grab my sleeve. I turn to see the worried look again.

"Be careful, kid."

"I will," I mutter, feeling oddly embarrassed by the genuine care he seems to have.

It turns out that the Branwen Tribe's main hideout is back towards the northwest, a full thousand kilometers from Higanbana.

By abandoning my training altogether and burning Aura, I cover nearly 400 kilometers in the first night alone, staying off of main roads and moving by the cover of darkness to avoid being spotted. With any luck, the Tribe will assume I'm continuing along the route towards Mistral and will try to set up a trap for me there.

Even when I'm not training, Arnaut finds a way to make everything a lesson. On the second day, as I Aura Sprint through a farmer's fields, he drifts along, carried by the invisible five meter boundary around Aurora that he seems physically held within. Despite being a few meters behind me, I can hear his voice as though it were in my own ears.

"You know, the Branwen were one of the great families."

I grunt a noise that vaguely indicates for him to go on. Keeping up a pace this intense saps my conversational skills, and it's not sustainable for more than the two or three days' journey to the hideout.

"After the Great War ended, several families resisted the Final King's eradication of the nobility, mostly those of Mistral and Atlas. When Oskri threatened war, however, only two of them refused to bow: the Branwen Tribe of Anima's eastern plains, and the Valkyrie Clan of Solitas's northwestern fjords."

Arnaut takes on a darker, sadder tone. "Then came the part that they don't bring up in the history books. Oskri laid waste to the Valkyrie stronghold, eradicating any who resisted him- which proved to be near-all of them. The brutality was enough that all the other houses that had been wavering, considering joining the rebellion, did so no longer. The Tribe knew they had no chance of defeating Oskri in battle, yet their pride was such that they would not bend the knee, so they fled into their foothills and became renegades.

"Oskri chose not to hunt them down, instead dividing their holdings among their citizens and returning to his throne in Vale. That, I believe, is the root of the Branwen Tribe's bandit actions, at least towards the beginning. They saw Dwyrain- sorry, that's what Eastern Mistral used to be called- as their birthright, and therefore the fruits of its people's labors as their property."

I wonder why Qrow didn't tell me all of this, and Arnaut reads my expression perfectly. Sometimes I wonder whether he ever even needed to use his Semblance.

"When they were originally recruited to Ozpin's Brotherhood, Qrow and Raven-" he sees my surprise- "Oh, right, I forgot to tell you- Raven was once part of the Brotherhood. Back then, she and Qrow had only heard parts of the story I just told you. I discovered the truth from Alorn- who had lived through the events- and told it to them both in confidence. Qrow took the news surprisingly well, but his sister… less so. She abandoned the Brotherhood to return to the Tribe and assume her position as leader."

I nod. Behind me and to my right, the first orange glow signals that the sun will soon rise. A quick check of my Scroll tells me that I've covered another 400 kilometers on-and-off Aura Sprinting through the night.

I decide to push it until I'm out of the fields. The grain is high enough that I'm unlikely to be spotted, but I'd rather not take the risk of sleeping out here. Arnaut can warn me from danger, but even if I get away the chance that the Branwen Tribe hears about my location isn't one I'm willing to take.

It's another twenty minutes before I reach the edge of the field and stalk out into a heavy forest. After putting a bit of distance between myself and the grain, I select a tree and rest myself into a nook high up within the branches. Arnaut settles into a branch beside me and wordlessly begins the long chore of scanning for any danger. It's been enough nights of sleeping alone in the wilderness that all of this has become routine.

Although- I realize I've never shown any gratitude for it. "Arnaut… thanks for… keeping an eye out," I murmur, sleep rapidly claiming me.

I don't catch his reply.

Most mornings Arnaut lets me wake myself up either naturally or with an alarm in my Scroll. Any time there's serious danger, he usually spots it coming far off, and gently wakes me up with plenty of time to prepare for it.

However, this time, I'm woken by his desperate shout-

"Dreki! Activate your Aura!"

I instinctively obey, scrambling upright and frantically blinking sleep from my eyes-

Then a thrown blade slams point-first into my right shoulder hard enough to demolish a third of my Aura in one hit.

I'm flung backwards, slamming against the trunk of the tree and then awkwardly cartwheeling ten meters down to the ground. I manage to gather enough of my wits to land on my feet, which likely saves my life as I instantly dodge away from a followup strike, a downward stab that sends a long, wickedly curved sword tip into the ground where I'd landed.

I nearly die a third time when, without even hesitating, the attacker spins forward around his own impaled blade and launches the one in his other hand straight as an arrow through the air towards me.

Flaring my Aura around my hand, I manage to catch the thing, but gasp in surprise at the unexpectedly intense weight and momentum of it- even with my Aura fully concentrated in defense around the hand that caught the blade, I still lose a good tenth of it.

My momentary loss of focus costs me further when he slams a palm into the bottom of the blade's hilt, jerking it forward in my grip and stabbing into my forehead. The force, concentrated into a single point and unexpected, pierces my Aura enough to split my skin and draw a trickle of blood.

"Dreki, run!" Arnaut shouts.

As if I was fucking choosing to fight this guy. The blade pressed against my skull, coupled with the distraction of Arnaut's words, means I fail to see the other blade in my attacker's offhand come slicing forward and- despite the gap being shorter than its reach should be- slashing across my stomach three times in less than one second.

"Fuck off!" I cry out in pain and desperate rage, slamming an Aura-enhanced kick into the assailant's midsection.

He blocks the strike with ease, but misjudges my strength and is sent flying backwards. Despite that, he lands with practiced ease and then straightens up… yet doesn't attack, instead bouncing on the balls of his feet with barely restrained energy.

I'm too grateful for the brief moment of recovery to question the sudden shift in behavior, gasping greedy breaths of air and finally managing to unscramble my mind. There's a pause where we both size each other up, and I take the opportunity to unsheathe Aurora.

My attacker is a ram Faunus, with two large dark brown horns curling back from the top of his skull to poke out and forwards on either side. Two grey irises that are light enough to almost be off-white stare at me, but his pupils are odd: horizontal black bars, like those of a sheep. His hair is like his eyes, the same dirty off-white, and snarled in thick clumps around his head like a fleece. It's lighter than his skin, which is a tanned, reddish color. The wispy beginnings of a beard curve around the edges of his face, wild and unkempt.

He's wearing light leather armor, the ancient equivalent to the polymer materials used for the same purpose in modern combat. Besides shaggy white fur pants, it's the only thing he's wearing. His simple leather breastplate has a symbol painted onto it in white: two horizontal off-white bars, with a third vertical one leading up through them and then curling into long curved ram's horns on either side.

I can see him sizing me up in the same sort of way, and coming to a less-than-impressed conclusion that's evident in his expression- until he notices Aurora.

His eyes widen, and he speaks in a surprisingly youthful voice. "So you are the Golden Guardian's heir, eh? Shame, really. Would've been a good fight if he were here." He's got a thick accent that I don't recognize- like northern Vale, but stronger. He rolls all of his r's.

"Are you with the Branwen Tribe?" I ask directly.

"That'd be a yep, missy," he says, still twitching with pent-up energy. "Auntie Raven saidja killed Ahmar's whole raidin' group without breaking a sweat, so I figured ye might give me a decent challenge." He nods towards Aurora. "Y'ready to fight, then?"

"Shear," Arnaut murmurs, and then more firmly: "Ask him if his weapon is called Shear."

I frown, but do as he says, desperate for any way to drag out the conversation and regenerate my Aura. For all I've been training it, I can still only really manage five percent a minute, and so far the conversation hasn't lasted long enough to even make a dent in the majority missing from his viciously fast strikes.

"Is that Shear?" I ask, gesturing to his weapons. They're a pair of long-handled saifs, the outer edges rusted, chipped and jagged from countless battles, but a second inner blade on each kept pristine and sharp. As I watch, he expertly flicks his wrist on one to bring the blade snapping down on a hinge until it touches against the hilt, rotating the weapon in his grip so that it becomes like a shorter cleaver-like weapon, and then flicking it back into the saif mode. Back and forth, back and forth, making a metal click each time.

"Eh?" He raises the other unoccupied weapon and nods, a small smile crossing his face. "Oh- yeah. Thought ye were from Vacuo, though? How'd ye know about 'em?"

"Same way you knew about the Golden Guardian," I reply, still concentrating on recovering my Aura. It's exponentially easier the more Aura one has- if Aura is broken, then recovery can take hours, but topping off a mostly full bar can be a matter of less than a minute. Which isn't the greatest for me right now, given that I'm missing the larger part of mine.

"No kidding? Welp… y'know, I think we've talked enough," he adds suddenly, dropping into a stance with one of his blades shortened, held in front of his chest and the other extended, held horizontal to his head.

I scramble for an excuse to keep talking. "Uh- shit. At least- can you tell me your name before I kill you?"

He shrugs without leaving his pose. "I'm Wlan Branwen, fourth-in-command o' the Branwen Tribe."

Then he flickers forward with no warning, long blade extending in an attempt to spear my chest.

I can't win in a strength or attrition war with him- he hits unnaturally hard, and he has more Aura than I do. Therefore, wiith the safest choice, blocking, being out of the question, and his speed advantage disincentivizing the riskiest option of trying to parry, I'm left to do my best to evade.

He's on me almost instantly and forcing me to dodge away again, this time taking a glancing strike to one thigh- and then I'm rolling out of the way of a third strike, barely managing to block a fourth, and backstepping out of a fifth, without time to even gather my thoughts.

My deeper animal instincts- and Arnaut's- become the only things keeping my life intact. The strategist, the cold analyst in me flees, and my world narrows down to the two jagged blade edges ripping through the space I occupied only milliseconds earlier.

It doesn't last.

I take enough chip hits through my desperate dodges that he'd eventually wear me down, but my downfall comes much faster than that- when I block a stab he makes at my gut, and he rips his blade upwards to lift Aurora away, my battle trance is shattered by the realization that he just used Sudden Squall on me.

Then he steps inside his own reach with a cleaver blade and savages my midriff, ripping through the remaining third of my Aura before I can react. The last sawing slice would have opened me along the stomach if I hadn't managed a desperate leap back- and even then, it still cuts a long, thin, bleeding line just under my belly button.

I gag from the pain as I land, only to see him surging along the ground in Rustling Leaves, cutting upwards. He's too fast to dodge, hits too hard to block without my Aura reinforcing Aurora-

I'm about to die.

The realization sends a spike of primal fear surging up my spine, and before I realize what happening my left hand snaps forward to block his strike.

The blade cuts deep, and he saws it upward to cut all the way through my palm.

I hiss in pain, in shock, in disbelief… but what lands on the forest floor is black and already crumbling to dark dust.

Wlan looks up to see half my face consumed by darkness. "You've gotta be shittin' me."

He fails to notice my mangled left hand twitch, smoking furiously, before four new fingers erupt outwards and swipe at him so fast they're practically a blur.

Somehow he ducks the strike, but that doesn't save him from my vicious punting kick that launches him twenty meters. His recovery speed is inhuman, though- he manages to hook one of his blades around a tree, spin himself around it, and surge at me with renewed glee in his eyes. "Fuck yeah!"

My confusion over his reaction causes the Grimm to pause- with him happy and me less afraid, it doesn't have anything to feed on. The lapse proves costly as Wlan's exaggerated cross-strike towards my chest proves to be a feint- he flows around me like trickling rainwater, abusing my blind spot. Even with all the wicked speed of the Grimm amplifying me, I only manage to turn in time to see my death coming, not avoid it.

He's snapped the two Saif blades of Shear together at the hinges, with the sharpened, straighter blades on the inside facing each other like a giant set of shears- that snap shut around my neck.

The Grimm screams, resists, regenerating the tissue even as it is torn, but the shears are clearly designed for fighting enemies that can resist damage with Aura- they crush down inescapably. Where most blades knock back that which they cannot pierce, the shears simply grind inexorably, millimeter by millimeter carving into the Grimm's neck.

And at that, my fear returns, coupled with a deeper, instinctual rage at this boy for trying to kill me.

A third arm, that of an Ursa, bursts out from my shoulder and swipes at Wlan hard enough to force him to vault backwards, detaching the two blades of Shear and landing easily.

"So Ahmar weren't lying," he murmurs, even as I stand there, shoulders rising and falling with each breath, eyes glaring hatefully at him. The one on the left is exposed now- the earlier strike to my forehead tore a hole in the bandage. "Hell, this might just be a decent-"

He pauses, frowns, glancing at something over my shoulder. Addled as I am by the Grimm, I fail to react, some urge keeping my eyes trained firmly on him, stoking my anger.

When he speaks, there's a new edge to his voice. "She yours, then?" Whatever it is gives some assent, and he shrugs, snapping both saifs into their shorter modes before pushing the hilts through leather loops on either sides of his thighs. "Shite, alright. I'll leave ye to it."

And with that, he simply turns around to run off, leaving me deeply confused- until I realize who it must be.

The only one who knew I was here, who would come here to save me. "Qrow," I murmur, unwilling to turn around just yet, suppressing the Grimm as much as I can. My thoughts focus on Neo, on quieter, happier moments with her-

"Dreki! It's not-"

I finish subjugating the Grimm just in time for two bone-white javelins, hurled simultaneously, to punch right through both my forearms. They're aimed perfectly between the radius and ulna, right at the widest point of the gap between the two bones- so when I try to turn, to move, the bones grind horribly against the javelin held pinned between them. I gasp in pain and drop to my knees, my arms refusing to move.

However, move they do- just not by me. Cross-spines of bone emerge from the the javelins in front of and behind my arms, locking the weapons in place moments before they're yanked backwards and drag me along with them. The pain is incomparable- like my bones are being dragged slowly apart, my wounds savaged by the grinding of the white bones against my own bloodied ones.

I only see Marie when I rise into the air and watch her walk out before me, long threads hooked behind her waist. With every backward step she takes, the threads looped around the tree branch drag me higher in the air, arms held straight up above my head. The blood trickles down, staining my sleeves.

She's facing me the whole time, expression placid, head slightly tilted in interest as she walks slowly backward. When she finally stops, her curiosity only seems to grow, eyebrows knitting in an expression of scientific curiosity so ill-suited for her childlike features.

Despite my fear, my rage, the Grimm refuses to emerge- maybe the pain is too much for me to focus on emotion, maybe it took too much of a beating from Wlan. I can't muster enough willpower to give any thought to it.

"Dreki, hang in there-" Arnaut winces at his choice of words.

I snort out a breath of morbid laughter, but stop, gagging at the pain.

Yet it's not just pain- as I bleed, darkness eats at the corners of my vision, and fatigue chills my bones and muscles. It's unlike the Grimm, a creeping apathy instead of the sorrow it brings, and yet also unlike the normal blood loss I've experienced before.

As the strings trailing back to Marie flush blood-red, a thin-lipped grin gashes her pale face, eyes glittering with a cold, arachnid interest even as they shift from pink to a brilliant scarlet.

"Tell me, little dragon, how didst thou come across the old ways?"

I don't have the energy to frown- it's a struggle just to keep my eyes open as I mumble out my response. "What're… you talking… about?"

"Hmmm." Marie tilts her head again, seeming to realize how bad of a state I'm in, and does something that causes the cold draining sensation to halt, the red fading from the black threads for the moment at least. "The Hunter's Pact. Ozma did not allow the practice to persist beyond the Great Purging. Who taught you of the Pact?"

"I… don't know what…" I choke off as another spear of pain shoots through my arm, my wrist dropping a fraction of an inch with a horrific grinding of bone.

"A lie?" She frowns, narrowing her eyes. "Nay, 'tis thine honest belief. Then, dost thou truly walk a Hunter with no knowledge of thine burden?"

"I don't…" The strength is gradually fading from me, this time from simple blood loss and fatigue. I fight to stay conscious.

"Dreki, your only chance is to try to convince her that there's a benefit to letting you live," Arnaut says, gentle but with an insistent, near-desperate edge to his voice. "From my encounters with her, I'm certain that she isn't a moral purist- she hunts for herself, not for justice."

I wish I could, but my breaths come slower and slower.

Marie again makes an expression of annoyance that seems so very petulant on her weirdly childlike features. She crosses her arms and huffs. "For a Hunter of the Dragon, thou art such a fragile little thing."

It's my only warning before the cross-spurs of bone snap back into the needles, causing me to slide down the blood-slicked ends of them and collapse in a painful heap at the base of the tree, head cracking painfully against the roots.

A cold lack of feeling spreads through me. Maybe if I just… let go… it'd be alright…

"Dreki, stay with me," Arnaut pleads. "How about this- offer her your blood again in the future. If she lets you live, then she can come back later to take more of it, right?"

My gut burns at that indignity, the shame of pleading to let this monster come and hurt me again- but I've long since learned to swallow my pride in the face of death. "Marie, if you… let me live…" I cough painfully. Every significant movement sends more tidal waves of pain radiating from my forearms. "You can… take more… later."

She finishes reeling in the bloodied needles and sheathes them neatly across the small of her back, crosses to the center of my tear-blurred vision in three dainty steps, and simply stands there, looking down on me, for long seconds. At first I think she's just showing her disdain for my words, but… then her expression shifts from a frown of concentration, to curiosity, to disbelief, and then finally to an oddly sad, wistful, smile, as though thinking of some distant regret.

"Thou art of the Hunter's Pact, little dragon, yet… there exists something to thine blood. A potency beyond average mortality, and hints… of others. Of the Golden Guardian," she murmurs. "It is as though the Grimm's prey have merged with thee." Suddenly her eyes snap back to mine. "Thou wouldst have lived unnaturally long, had my ire not been drawn- and thine blood is even more vital than last we met." She frowns, eyes clouding, locked in consternation about something. "Yet…"

Marie goes dead silent, staring into the middle distance, and I don't know what to do- it feels as though my life is balanced on a knife's edge, and I can't do anything to sway it. I wish I could read-

I realize that I can read her mind and shift my leg a hair's breadth to the side, brushing ever so lightly against her while activating Arnaut's Semblance. While it works through Aura, it doesn't require me to be actively shielding to work.

A dark silhouette of a long-haired man, a spiked crown atop his head and a flowing cape behind him, voice dark and heavy. 'Marie, I've allowed you to live because you are my blood, and because you have the capacity to change- but hear this: the age of the Hunters and the nobility is no more. If you break the laws of the new world, if you steal the lives of any more innocents, my mercy will last no longer.'

Then a deep, inescapable fear, accompanied by visions of a fortress flying the symbol of a lightning-bolt hammer being reduced to ash in an instant-

Marie shifts and the contact breaks. I look up into her pitiless eyes as she spins a needle into a stabbing position above my chest. "No," she sighs. "Alas, to willfully allow a criminal's escape is a crime, is it not? And to injure a criminal without the intent to end their life or detain them carries an even greater sentence."

"Why… d'you… care…?" I look up at her flat, cold eyes, seeking some sort of meaning. Her pupils are an even deeper, darker red than her irises. However, the question is more to play for time than anything else, because I know: she's afraid of Oskri. Is he somehow still alive?

Marie tilts her head, tapping a finger to her chin in concentration. "When one lives eternal, that which seems unimportant becomes… much more so. For you, to defy the laws, to draw the ire of Ozma, likely only means a decade of fleeing him. For me, it will be an eternity of danger."

"Ozma?" I manage.

Arnaut realizes something. "Shit- Dreki, I forgot to tell you. Ozpin's… let's call it his Semblance… is reincarnation! He's been reborn into new people for centuries, maybe millenia. He is the same man as Oskri was, and a thousand men before him."

Oh. The final piece snaps into place- that's why Marie is bound so tightly to obeying the law. She's terrified of… Oz. Ozma, she called him. But…

I see my way out. "Ozpin… Ozma… just reincarnated. He's…" I cough and wince as the movement sends another wave of pain through my arms, which lay uselessly at my sides. "He's not gonna… be around for…"

Her eyes flare slightly. I nudge her leg and activate Arnaut's Semblance again, this time only for an instant.

An almost childish rebelliousness, a desire to spite something stronger, to lash out at an overreaching authority… but beneath, a deeper hunger, unsated for nearly a century-

I swallow as I look back up to see her eyeing me with those same dead eyes, but this time there's a starved animal lurking somewhere behind them- like a caged predator that hasn't been fed in decades.

"Very well, little dragon. Dost thou realize this merely prolongs thine life? When Ozma returns, it shall be forfeit once more."

I nod numbly.

She sighs. "Such as it always is with mortals. Thou wilt scratch and fight, claw and bite, commit anything just to prolong thine own suffering." Then she raises the needle above my shoulder instead of my chest.

My eyes flare as she stabs it down- but I'm too far gone to resist, and the pain of its tip punching through the gap beneath my collarbone and above my ribs is numbed by the creeping darkness. This final bit of brutality proves too much, and I slump, sensation fading, finally giving in to unconsciousness.

When I come to, I'm alone in a puddle of my own blood, but my back has been braced up against the trunk of the tree, and strips of my own black bandages have been wrapped around my forearms and stomach.

Even more surprising, a spent syringe-like canister with only traces of green Life Dust remaining in it- a healing stimshot, which must have cost quadruple an average worker's annual wages- lies beside me. She actually healed me, I realize, and try moving my arm.

It hurts, but… not in the way I'd expected. There's none of the grinding or the sharp pain of a wound, merely an unbelievable soreness that comes from having new muscle rebuilt and unused for hours and hours.

Arnaut notices I'm awake and squats down in front of me, a brilliant smile of relief dawning on his face. "Dreki! You handled that brilliantly. Using Ozpin's situation to play for time was exceptionally well done."

I scowl. "All I did was offer her my fucking blood whenever she wants it like… some kind of farm animal." The thought fills me with a disgust that I am forced to swallow as I rise unsteadily to my feet. I don't have much pride, but I also despise being stepped on, as much as I've tried to suppress that visceral reaction over the years. "Shit," I groan, remembering what I have to do now, "How am I gonna deal with the Tribe?"

"I've actually been thinking about that," Arnaut continues. "It's been a day and a half since Marie took you under- it's almost a miracle that nothing came through the forest in the meantime. But anyway, I think I have an idea…"

Two days later, as I approach the Tribe's main fortress, I adjust the long strip of black bandage that once more covers my Grimm eye. I've had to double-layer it now. Something about the impending threat of Marie, the way she forced me to kneel, beg for my life, offer my own fucking blood, has made the red iris glow brighter. The darkness in the sclera now creeps slightly out of it, trickling down into the shallow groove of the scar Cardin gave me that emerges at the lowest point of my eye.

However, as I stalked through the deep forests, avoiding any possibility of human interaction for fear of another Tribe lieutenant ambushing me before I made it to my destination, I discovered that there is one upside: the Aura detection exercises that Arnaut kept forcing me to do were no longer necessary.

I open the Grimm eye. As I look out through it, I can see- or at least sense in the way Grimm do- the Auras of living creatures. Even the animals with their dull-grey unlocked Auras.

And now, I can sense the slightly more colorful Auras of the Tribe scouts, perched in the trees and scanning for any intruders. Few of them have Aura unlocked, and none of them are diligent. When I focus in enough to make out the specifics of their outlines, two of them are lying back, asleep, another two are engrossed in something on their Scrolls, and the last two are facing each other rather than out towards the forest.

They've grown too reliant on the stealth of this place, not that I blame them. If my role was to watch an empty forest for weeks, I'd have already abandoned it altogether.

However, it's a boon for me. I slide through the underbrush, watching the ground for the sticks and leaves that would give me away if I stepped on them. Up in these mountains, the trees are evergreen pines, so there's plenty of needles scattered about despite it being the deep of winter.

I hesitate in the shadow between two especially large trees, out of view of the lookouts, and draw in a deep breath.

Arnaut senses my tension. "I know Raven, Dreki. Despite her statements about strength, she's a coward at heart. Convince her that-"

"I know," I murmur, and begin to gather the necessary Aura in my feet. "I'm just out of my element, is all."

"Just remember, Dreki. If you're a lamb, act a wolf."

I roll my eyes, swallow my fear, and then discharge the Aura from my feet hard enough to shatter the ground, vaulting the four-meter palisade of sharpened wooden stakes with ease. As I hurtle through the air, my worry fades, replaced by the simple animal glee that always comes with this- no matter how much I do it, I never get used to the soaring mobility Aura provides.

The inside of the camp is more spartan than I expected. I spot several tents, a pile of cages arrayed in the back corner, a larger red one at the very end, opposite the entrance-

Then I'm landing with another discharge of Aura from my hands to soften the impact, creating a shockwave of wind and dust. The ground cracks beneath my fist and knee, but does not crater.

I rise, surrounded by rapidly clearing dust, hearing the murmurs of the bandits around me. My Grimm eye sees the Auras around me hesitate. Some go for their weapons, most keep their distance and bunch up, but none challenge me as I stride forward with Aurora at my side, cutting a direct path towards the front flaps of Raven Branwen's tent.

"Raven!" I shout, masking the lingering fear behind a confident sneer. "Come out, Raven!"

"Who the fuck're-" a bandit is jerked back by his friend, who whispers something to him that makes his eyes go wide.

I ignore them, closing the distance towards the front flaps of Raven Branwen's tent. Before I can make it there, a familiar figure skips across the camp and stops in front of me, twin blades hooked on his thighs.

Wlan looks me up and down. "How the fuck're ye still alive, lass?"

Only for him do I stop. "You think Marie could kill me?"

He frowns, hesitates, uncertainty crossing his features as he realizes what my surviving the encounter must mean.

I grin. It's only half-forced. "You left before I could really get going."

"Did you… kill…"

"Marie?" I snort. "Nah, she got away fine. You, on the other hand, if you don't get out of my way right now…"

Wlan narrows his eyes, obviously itching to fight me. For a terrifying second I fear he's going to call my bluff-

But a commanding woman's voice shouts from behind him. "Wlan, let her through."

At Raven's order, he nods, the defiance gone in an instant. He steps aside for me to pass and I do so without hesitation, striding as I can remember Arnaut doing in the videos- long, purposeful steps, shoulders back, head held high.

I look up at Raven Branwen. She wears red plated armor of South Mistral design over her upper body, but below the waist she's in a blak skirt and leggings like mine. Long, ragged hair feathers out behind her like a raven's plumage. Her eyes are a saturated red, deeper than her brother's.

She obviously makes a similar show of looking me over and then makes a gesture with her head back towards her tent. "Come."

For the first time in a while, I think about appearances- if I simply obey her, it shows deference and places me beneath her. So instead, a snort out a laugh and shrug, makinig sure a few nearby bandits can hear my "Sure" before I follow her, making it clear to them- and to her- that I'm not as cowed as Wlan.

If you're a lamb, act a wolf.

Inside, the place is surprisingly well-kept. It's like night and day walking from the dirt and grime, the blazing torches and animal-skin tents of the camp outside, into the neat, orderly table and mats within. However, the room's decorations are what I take greater notice of- I've spent enough time around criminals to recognize the hodgepodge of various fineries that indicate a trophy room. She's got an ancient clock, a few paintings, a carpet emblazoned with intricate East Mistral patterning that likely costs more than the rest of the camp put together, and- on the low table- an antique tea set.

"Vernal, why don't you brew our guest some-"

"Don't bother," I interrupt, drawing an angry flash from her eyes. I meet them head-on, keeping my own calm, collected, betraying none of the fear beneath.

"Interrupting her implies you look down on her," Arnaut says. "You want her to think you see her as an equal. Try to mend the bridge." He spent the last two days advising me on how to deal with her, and helping me craft the facade I need to wear.

I wear it now as I apologize to Raven. "My apologies, but I'm not here for tea."

She accepts the platitude and tilts her head. "So then, what are you here for?"

"I'm here because…" This is the tricky part. I sheathe Aurora behind my back to show I'd rather not fight and cross my arms, maintaining a neutral composure as best I can. "I don't want this feud between me and your people to go on any further."

She tilts her head at my directness. "Oh?"

I nod. "It's pointless. Enough blood has been shed for something as meaningless as pride."

That seems to annoy her. I've made a mistake. "You walk our lands, kill our people- and then mock our ways to my face?"

"Forgive me, it wasn't my intention to mock anything," I say, attempting to stabilize.

"Acknowledge her familial right," Arnaut reminds me.

"I recognize that this place is the birthright of the Branwen Tribe," I state, recognizing the small flicker of surprise that crosses her features. "But I am not of this place. Nothing of mine is of this place. Your men tried to take that which was not theirs to take. They had no right-"

This time, she interrupts me. "Birthright is only half of it. Their strength gave them the right to take what they wanted."

"And my strength gave me the right to kill them," I finish. "And then it gave me the right to kill the second party you sent to ambush me in Shion, and then it would have given me the right to take Wlan's life had Manhunter Marie not shown up to… distract me."

By her expression, I can tell that the confirmation that I fought off Manhunter Marie has shifted her view of me from an enigma to a threat, so I take the next step to shift it from a threat to something else: "But I am tired of fighting you. I don't want to kill any more of your people, and I'm fairly certain you don't want any more of your people to die."

She seems about to say something, but I keep talking: "However, I also recognize that you can't afford to show weakness, so here." I toss her a 10,000-Lien card. "I offer that as payment, and humbly ask that you forgive me for my crime of self-defense."

I expect her to take a moment to think it over, but she surprises me by snorting a quick laugh and responding immediately. "Deal."

Still, I take it in stride and rise to my feet, nodding deferentially to her and then sparing a quick glance at a girl by the door with striking blue eyes and short-cut brown hair. "Then I hope we won't be seeing each other again."

"Agreed," Raven says.

I maintain the facade as I stride out of the camp. No one dares challenge me- the implication of my unimpeded exit from the leader's tent keeps them out of my way. The mannerisms came easier to me than I'd thought, and still do- some measure of Arnaut's muscle memory also translates to this, it would seem.

Regardless, once I'm a kilometer out from the camp I allow the act to fall away and retreat into my normal slump, shifting in my course a bit- the route towards Mistral City from here cuts along the southern edge of Lake Matsu. The daunting 3,000 kilometer hike through rough mountains almost seems to loom before me-

Until I take out my Scroll and look at Neo's last message: 'Hope you're holding up okay. Miss you.' The thought of her brings some of the fatigue off of my shoulders, helps banish some of the lingering soreness in my forearms.

Hang on, Neo. I'm coming.

(A/N) I've put up some sketches of characters, weapons, and stances from this fic on a Deviantart account I just made. It's under the same username as this account, ReaperofLykos. I'll include a link to it in my author profile.

Raven was a bit of a disappointment for me in the show. I'm gonna do more with her down the line, but so far I've only laid a bit of groundwork for her later involvements.

Wlan's name translates to 'wool' in Welsh, which is the language 'Branwen' comes from and the one I've chosen to associate with West Mistral. He's actually a nephew once-removed to Qrow and Raven- their grandfather is his great-grandfather. His Aura and primary color are wool white, hex #e7d6c4. His folktale character is the ram from the story of the Chinese zodiac.