A/N: Chapter contains brief, non-graphic attempt at self-harm.

Next week will be very busy with PhD stuff, so the next chapter will be in two weeks. I will still be logging in and responding to comments.

XXX

The first time they destroyed my things, I got angry.

I was seven years old, freshly arrived in Vale, and ready for my first day at my new school. I'd been sad to leave back my friends at the primary school in Menagerie, but the way daddy had described Vale had made me excited to see it. And so far, his descriptions had proved correct. There was so much space in Vale: the buildings were huge, the roads wide; and even more miraculously, there was breathing room in between that served no functional purpose and was simply allowed to exist. Nobody was trying to design neighborhoods with the goal of packing in as many houses as possible in the most efficient way imaginable. There were parks and playgrounds everywhere; the apartment complex we were staying at even had its own garden. For the first time in my short life, I'd been allowed my own room. Jay's was slightly bigger – the privilege of being the older brother – but I didn't mind. Mine had a view of the garden and more space than I knew what to do with, and Jay let me hang out in his room all the time anyway.

Daddy had said this was nothing: that we'd been used to the size of houses in Menagerie, which was very small compared to most of Remnant. If things went well at his new job, we could afford an even bigger apartment. I couldn't even imagine what that would look like. He was taking us out a lot during those days: the last precious days of summer, before he'd start his new job and Jay and I would have to start school again. We went to restaurants and amusement parks and all the landmarks of Vale I'd only ever seen on television. Jay and I were having a great time, but my mother's suppressed fear was casting a cloud on these outings. I didn't know exactly what she was afraid of, but I could tell the fear was there, even though she was masking it with a smile. The signs were present – a burrowed brow, an anxious hand around my shoulders – everytime a bystander stared at us for too long, or a little kid pointed at my ears, or a security guard asked a few extra questions. But daddy said people were only looking out of curiosity, and I should just be friendly and open like I'd been in Menagerie.

So when a group of kids waved at me to come closer, that first day in the school yard, I thought maybe they wanted to be friends. I felt my seven year old self's joy and excitement as she – I – sped up to approach them. I was in her body, yet completely unable to warn her.

"Hello", I said, smiling. "I'm Velvet. My family arrived here recently from Menagerie. It's very nice to meet you."

The kids exchanged looks. There were three of them: a curly-haired boy with freckles, a second, taller boy with calculating blue eyes, and a blond girl whose default mood seemed to be boredom.

"She can talk good", the curly-haired boy remarked. He sounded surprised.

My seven-year-old self had been perplexed by that comment, and I relived her confusion as I heard it again. But couldn't make her recognize it for the warning sign it was: at that time, I had just thought the boy was probably a little weird, and maybe not very knowledgeable. I had not corrected his grammar, either. Mommy always said it wasn't polite, and I hadn't wanted to make him feel bad.

"Of course she can talk, Sammy, don't be rude." The taller boy smiled at me, his eyes seizing me. "I'm Don, and these are Emma and Sam. You said you came from Menagerie? My family moved here from Mistral a year ago, so I know how it feels. But don't worry, Vale is super welcoming."

"What grade are you in?" Sam asked.

"Third."

"Hey, us too", Don said.

Emma looked at me skeptically. "Aren't you a little small to be in third grade?"

I explained about starting school earlier. Truth be told, the principal had shared her skepticism. I remembered the meeting he'd called in his office with my parents and me. He'd expressed his concerns about my ability to follow the schoolwork, citing the different requirements and standards of schools in Menagerie. As a child, I'd missed a lot of the subtext in that conversation, but I remembered not liking the patronizing way he spoke to my mother.

In the end, he'd asked me to go to a different room and complete a test. He'd told me I could take my time and noone would be mad at me if it was too hard. I'd come back five minutes later, handed him my answers and politely told him it had been a fun little exercise and I would like to do another if he had one, but maybe with harder questions, please, if it was no trouble. He'd raised his eyebrows, looked at my paper, looked at my parents, and then sighed and said he would see what could be done.

I didn't mention all these details to my new acquaintances. It could come off as bragging, and noone likes a braggart.

"Do you like Vale?" Emma asked.

"Oh, yes." I gave them an enthusiastic account of my room, and daddy's new job, and our garden, and all the places I'd been to. Sam started to interrupt me a few times, contemptuously pointing out that whatever I was talking about wasn't that impressive: hadn't I seen a normal house before? Or, what was so special about having a garden? But Don and Emma hushed him everytime and urged me to go on, listening carefully, absorbing everything I said. At the time, it had seemed like kindness.

"Sounds like it's been fun so far", Don said. "Hey, I know. Let's play a game."

My seven-year-old face lit up, oblivious to the turmoil in my adult mind. I felt my younger self's happiness at his suggestion as if I was experiencing it for the first time, without the knowledge of what would come afterwards: I'd found some new friends who wanted to play with me. "Okay", I agreed.

He extended his hand, palm facing upwards. "Give me your backpack."

"Uh… okay." I didn't know this game, but perhaps it was a Vale thing. When you go to a new place you should adapt to the local ways, daddy had said. So I took off my backpack and gave it to him.

He let it fall, crashing on the hard surface of the yard. "Now pick it up."

I relived my past feelings with acute vividness. Confusion. Uncertainty. What was he doing? He'd said it would be a game, but it wasn't nice or fun.

"I don't understand", I said.

"I drop your backpack. You pick it up. That's the game." His voice was friendly and casual, as if he was making normal conversation.

"That's mean. It's not a game."

"Yes, it is. My dad does it all the time with his dog. He throws things and the dog fetches them. They both have fun. It's a game." He paused to relish in the impact of his words; I was too stunned to respond. So he continued, his tone patient and explanatory. "I can't throw your backpack across the yard, obviously, it could hit someone. So I'll just drop it, and that way it will be easier for you as well. Okay?"

"No, it's not okay." I walked forward to pick up my backpack. "I don't like this game. I'm leaving."

He stomped on it, pinning it on the ground with his foot. "That's not very polite, you know. I'm trying to be nice here. I'm trying teach you some things."

"Don, come on", Emma said. My younger self felt a brief surge of relief. I couldn't communicate to her how unjustified it was, but she figured it out the next moment. "You can't train bunnies like dogs. They're not that smart. My auntie has a pet bunny. They like making messes everywhere and they don't respond to commands. You can't get mad at them for that, it's just how they are."

"Oh. I did not know that." He smiled at me, and the scary part was that his smile seemed genuinely friendly. "I apologize", he said, his voice polite and sincere. It was a voice that could earn a teacher's goodwill and convince a well-meaning parent that their kid might get a little rambunctious here and there, but would never cause harm on purpose. "My instructions were too hard for you. You must have been very confused."

I pointed at my backpack. "Give it back", I demanded, trying to suppress the tremor in my voice.

He picked it up himself and looked at it thoughtfully. "Hm. You said they like causing messes?" he asked his friend.

"Oh, yes. My aunt's bunny is always chewing things or ripping them up."

"Then maybe you'd prefer something like that", he told me. He opened the backpack and started throwing my things on the ground, stomping and kicking them as they fell. His friends joined in, ignoring my shouts and pleas. My lunchbox opened when it hit the ground, its contents splattering on the spot; a kick broke its hinge. My new notebooks with the beautiful covers, that I'd selected so carefully, were soon torn apart and smudged in dirt. I looked around in the busy yard: why was noone reacting? Kids continued their discussions or their play as if nothing was happening, or they passed by us without sparing a look.

Sam dug out a box of muffins: my mom had made them for me to share with the class. She'd spent all evening getting the mix right, baking them just perfectly and decorating them as prettily as she could. A gesture to earn some goodwill. To fit in more easily.

"No, leave them!" I wanted to sound angry, commanding. Instead, my voice cracked under the pressure of withheld tears. "They're for sharing –"

"Nobody wants your rabbit food", Emma informed me. "Gross." She grabbed the box out of Sam's hands and tossed it violently on the ground.

"I think that's all", Don said, shaking the backpack upside down. When he confirmed it was empty, he tossed it down with everything else. He smiled at me, as if we'd just spent a pleasant hour playing together. "That was fun, right? It's a mess, and bunnies love messes. Aren't you happy?"

A bell rang.

"We have to go to class", Emma said. "You'd better pick these up, bun-bun."

"Don't call me that", I said angrily. "You're mean. If you pick on me again, I – I'll tell on you."

"Telling" had been a real threat in Menagerie. I'd expected them to get scared, maybe even apologize. Instead, they just laughed as they walked away, as if I'd just told them a great joke.

XXX

"So, I called the school", daddy said. He leaned down and kissed me on my forehead, very gently, like he always did when he wanted to be particularly comforting. "They were apologetic. They already have teachers monitoring the schoolyard during breaks, but it seems they missed what happened today. They said they'll keep a stricter eye on things from now on." He scratched the bases of my rabbit ears, the way he knew I liked. "On Saturday, I'll take you to get new notebooks. The most beautiful notebooks in the world. And a new lunchbox. With extra space for dessert. And then, we could go for ice-cream", he hastened to add. "The biggest ice-cream you've ever seen in your life, with strawberries and chocolate and anything else you like. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, daddy."

I forced myself to smile, because I could see he was hoping for it. It must have been unconvincing, because he sighed and sat down next to me.

"They were just some stupid kids", he said. "Don't let them ruin school for you, baby. You're going to make lots of nice friends and these kids will soon be kicking themselves for treating you like that. Noone will want to be their friend if they keep being mean like that."

I bit my lip, looking at my mother, who had said very little thus far. She met my eyes and smiled at me. Her smile was like my own – forced.

"Daddy is right, baby." She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as me. "These kids aren't worth your thoughts. You should try to make other friends."

"But what if they don't stop?" I said doubtfully.

"They'll stop", my father said. "If they don't, daddy will go to school to make a big fuss, and then the principal will make them stop."

"I think our neighbors have a daughter around your age who goes to the same school", my mother said. "And they seem nice. I'll try to get them to introduce you, and then you'll have someone to play with."

Jay gave me a hug. "Come on", he said. "We have to get your mind off things. Let's go to my room. We can play some games and then watch a movie. You chose the movie."

I considered it. "Can we watch Pumpkin Pete and the marshmallow factory"? I asked hopefully.

"Anything you want." He kissed my temple and offered me a hand up, guiding me to his room. As we approached his door, I heard my parents' voices from the other side of the house.

"I knew this would happen, Will." That was my mother, her voice conveying a lot more worry than she'd allowed herself to show in front of me.

"Kids can be real assholes", my father said.

"You know there's more to it than that."

A sigh. "Let's not jump to conclusions."

"Jump to conclusions?" There was a hint of anger in her voice now. "They specifically compared their actions to training an animal."

"You're right", he replied gently. "I'm sorry. It's awful. What I meant was that we shouldn't conclude it will necessarily become a pattern. They're young kids, they don't necessarily understand everything they're saying."

"Maybe not, but the effect on our daughter is the same. And if they're learning this stuff at home, I don't see their behavior changing anytime soon."

"Perhaps not, but it can be checked. I'm sure the school will take the appropriate measures."

"It's so easy for you to be optimistic about that", she said bitterly.

"Dammit, Meg, what do you want me to do? I called the school, if it happens again I'll go down there personally. I can't control other people's kids – "

Jay put a hand on my back, gently pushed me inside his room, and closed the door.

"Are they fighting because of me?" I asked.

"Mommies and daddies can disagree with each other sometimes", he said. "It's not your fault."

At eleven, that was all he had to offer in terms of words. But he kept me company all evening, blatantly let me win every game we played, and watched Pumpkin Pete with me until I fell asleep.

XXX

The second time, a teacher intervened.

I felt relief when I saw her approaching us, kids across the yard parting to make way for her. The phone call had worked; the lack of monitoring during the first incident had probably just been an oversight. Teachers were good and kind; they were the people who were supposed to protect you at school, the people you were supposed to go to if you had problems. I just couldn't expect them to be everywhere at once; that wasn't reasonable. Now that she was here, she'd tell these kids to leave me alone and she'd make sure they understood what they were doing wasn't right. And if they apologized after that, I'd forgive them.

"What's all this ruckus?" she demanded coldly, looking straight at me.

I blinked. That wasn't how I'd imagined she'd approach the situation. My surprise at her harshness rendered me speechless for a few precious seconds.

Emma smiled sweetly at her. "Velvet was throwing her things around", she said. "We told her to stop and that you can't act like that at school, but she wouldn't listen."

"What?" I said indignantly. "That's not what happened at all."

"Yes, it is!" Sam said.

"She just doesn't want to get in trouble", Don added. "I think she hasn't learned how to behave at a proper school yet. We were only trying to help her, but like Emma said, she wouldn't listen."

"Are these your things?" the teacher asked me.

"Yes, but –"

"Pick them up and don't ever do that again. That is not how we behave in school, young lady."

"But…" Why was she not asking me for my side? "I didn't do anything. They took my backpack and started destroying my things. It's the second time they do it. My parents called the school about it –"

"I'm aware your parents called, thank you very much. The principal talked about it at length. I must say I don't like this new trend of parents calling at school every time a little thing happens. It makes kids very spoiled and entitled. You, for example. Just because your parents called, you think that teachers should bow to your whims and automatically take your side."

"No, that's not what I –"

"Don't talk back to me. I am your teacher and this is a school. I must say I don't like your attitude at all. Obviously your parents think you're their little princess who can do no wrong. Well, here's a wake up call for you: I don't care what your parents think. Here we judge every situation fairly and impartially. You say one thing, but three of your classmates say another. Are you saying they're all lying and you are the only one telling the truth?"

Even at seven, I knew that this majority-vote method of determining who was lying was neither fair nor impartial. But in that moment, I could not find the correct words to express that to the angry adult standing before me.

"Alright then", she said, deciding that my silence was an adequate admission of guilt. "Pick up your things and apologize to your classmates for lying to get them in trouble."

That made me find my voice again. "No."

A dangerous pause. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, no", I repeated, quietly but firmly, my heart thumping violently in my chest. "I'm not apologizing when I didn't do anything wrong."

My tormentors didn't say anything. I'd just done their work for them.

"Detention", the teacher said. "Friday after school. Come see me at the end of the day. I will give you a note for your parents to sign. Hopefully, that will correct your family's collective misconceptions that you run this school."

With that, she left me to pick up my things. But Don, Emma and Sam were not done with me yet.

"Should've just said sorry", Don said conversationally. "It doesn't cost anything, you know. I would have accepted your apology, too."

"Leave me alone."

"I'm just trying to be nice to you. You shouldn't be snitching to teachers, that's not cool."

"Snitches get stitches", was Sam's wise contribution.

"We were just playing around", Emma said. "You didn't have to take it so serious. Look, I'll even help you clean up your mess."

"Don't touch my things", I snapped. "And it's not my mess."

"Really? But you just said they're your things."

"Don't try to reason with her, Emma. It's probably too hard for her", Don said. "If you're half animal and half human, I guess that makes you smarter than an animal but dumber than a human. It's just basic math."

"It's better than being half human and half garbage", I replied hotly.

"Woah, she's getting aggressive. Back off, Emma, we don't know if she bites."

"Wait", Emma said. "Maybe we're being unfair. I bet she can be nice if we're really, really nice to her first. We just have to make it real simple, to make sure she understands it." She smiled at me in a way that, without context, would have seemed charming and friendly. "I like your locket."

I covered it with my hand. "It's mine."

"Of course it is", she said soothingly. "I'm not a thief. She's so paranoid", she added, speaking to her friends.

"There's a lot of stealing where she came from", Don said. "She's probably used to it."

"That's not true."

"It isn't? Okay. I'm just saying, that was a weird way to react to a simple compliment."

"Yeah, I was just saying it's pretty", Emma said. "I didn't mean anything by it. Of course, if you wanted to give it to me, that would be really nice. It could be your way to make it up to me for snitching."

"Hey, that's a great idea", Don said. "I bet it'd look better on Emma anyway. And it would be a nice way to make things right. You see, when you do something mean to someone, you have to make it up to them." He smiled at me in his charismatic way. "What do you say? Do this for us to show you're sorry and we can start fresh. Maybe we could even be friends."

I clutched my locket more tightly and stared at him in wordless defiance.

His smile turned cold. "I guess you don't want to be friends, then", he said, his words filled with calculated meaning. "Such a shame."

XXX

"I would've just given it to her", Olive said.

Our neighbor's daughter, it'd turned out, was two years older than me. She went to the same school, but in a higher grade. She was nice when we met in the privacy of our homes, but at school she preferred to hang out with her own friends, which was reasonable for someone older. Still, if I said hello to her at school, she said hello back. When I sought her out that day and told her about my misfortunes, she agreed to give me some paper and lend me a spare pen. And apparently, she had some advice for me as well.

It had not been the advice I'd been expecting, though.

"But it's mine", I said. "I got it for my birthday. It has a picture of us in it – me and my parents and Jay. Here, look."

I opened the locket to show her.

"It's a pretty picture", she granted after a cursory look. "You can keep it, though. Your friend only asked for the locket after all."

"She's not my friend", I said. Hadn't she been listening?

"Okay, she's not your friend", she said pacifyingly. "I'm just saying, sometimes you gotta compromise. You give something, the other person gives something. You know? Maybe she'll be nicer to you if you give her what she wants."

XXX

"What do you think I should do?" I asked Jay as we were walking home together.

My brother was my favorite playmate and confidant: a self-assured, intelligent boy who seemed to always knew what to do. Like our mom, he loved working with his hands. Like our dad, he was a gifted tinkerer. The first time I'd stolen dad's tools, Jay had helped me use them. He played with me, taught me things, let me get the best share of whatever dessert we were having, shared control of the TV equitably despite being bigger than me, and spoke for me on those rare occasions I got in trouble with out parents.

I wished he'd been admitted in the same school as me. Things would be simple then. In my seven-year-old mind, I pictured him telling off the teacher and making my bullies tremble before his wrath.

But Jay, who, like me, had started school a year early, was now at the start of his secondary education. Due to different waiting lists and obscure bureaucracy, he'd ended up in another local school.

"I don't know", he replied honestly, shaking my belief in his omniscience a little. "It's a difficult situation."

"Olive said I should just give up my locket. She said maybe they'll be nice to me then."

"No, don't do that. What's to stop them from taking it and then keep bothering you? They'll never leave you alone if you just give them what they want. They'll keep coming back for more."

"I don't want to give it to them anyway."

"Good." He ruffled my hair. "We'll tell mom and dad. They'll know what to do."

"They've been fighting a lot", I said doubtfully. "And I got detention. Maybe they'll be angry with me."

"Mom and dad won't be angry with you. They'll help you." He didn't address my first comment. Perhaps he didn't know how.

"Jay…" He waited patiently as I struggled to find words. "Why do they do that? The kids, but the teacher too. She was so angry with me even before I'd said anything. She didn't really listen to me. She wasn't like the teachers in Menagerie. And the other kids in the yard... at least some of them must have seen what was happening. What if everyone is like that? What if they never accept us here?"

He knelt in front of me, getting at eye level. "I don't think all humans are like that", he said softly. "Most of the kids in my grade are alright. Got a couple of comments at first, but I shut it down. I think you should be nice to everyone until they start giving you crap. Then you should stand your ground."

"I tried", I said. "And I got punished."

"Yeah." He kissed the top of my head. "That shouldn't have happened. It wasn't your fault. You did the right thing, standing up for yourself. Let's just go home and talk about it to mom and dad."

XXX

As it happened, I didn't mention the incident to my parents on that particular day.

We came home to find a feast in the making. Our parents were in the kitchen, together, laughing. A rich variety of spices and vegetables was spread out on the kitchen counter – the secret ingredients to my mom's famous pasta sauce. My dad's trademark pancake mix was resting in a bowl between piles of fresh fruit.

"Nice", Jay said approvingly, stealing a berry. "What's the occasion?"

"I didn't know we needed an occasion to make dinner", my mother said humorously.

Jay shrugged. "No, I mean, you two seem… happy."

That made them pause and exchange an awkward look. "We do have some good news", my father said at the end of it. "Your mother got a job. She'd had a second-round interview last week, and today they called and told her she got the position."

"Hey, congrats, mom!" Jay celebrated while I rushed to hug her. My mother had been interviewing for jobs since the beginning of summer, even before our final move to Vale. She was an electrician, proficient in repairing and maintaining the equipment required to utilize lighning dust as well as alternative sources. Her trade was in high demand, and my father had been optimistic that she'd get her pick of offers. But the response to her numerous applications thus far had been silence or rejection. Winter had come, and after months of consecutive disappointments, it was nice to finally see her getting some news that made her smile.

"Where will you be working, mom?" Jay asked.

"In a dust refinement factory, half an hour's drive from here", she replied. "It's owned by the Vale branch of the Schnee Dust Company."

Jay looked surprised. "Huh. I didn't think you'd want to work for them. You used to say all that stuff about how bad they are."

She was quiet for a moment. "Work is work. Besides, it won't be forever. Getting some experience makes it easier to be more selective in the future."

Our father put his arm around her shoulders, kissing her temple. In hindsight, it must have been that gesture of wordless support that made Jay drop the subject. Seeing our parents united was a rare sight those days.

"Enough about us old people", my father said. "How was school?"

The detention note was in my pocket, requiring a parental signature. The locket was around my neck: finely worked silver framing a heart made of stained glass. Inside the heart, my parents were smiling.

The discussion could wait one day.

"Fine", I said. "Nothing special."

I locked eyes with Jay, and he nodded in silent understanding. This peace would not last long. The most logical thing to do, right now, was to cherish it.

XXX

The third time, it was a different group of kids. Emma's and Don's popularity had made many of our classmates follow their example, and ensured that those who privately disagreed with them would stay quiet and keep out of it.

These episodes of property destruction were actually fairly sparse. Their frequency, I now realized upon reliving the memories, had been carefully calculated: they were just rare enough to be an uncomfortable spectacle for bystanders, but ultimately someone else's problem. If they happened too often, the plausible deniability surrounding them would eventually have to be shattered.

But in between, there was a constant stream of verbal bullying and milder physical abuse. Everything I'd told Emma and Don that first day had been twisted, spread among my classmates, and turned against me.

"Is it true that the faunus in Menagerie live in holes?" asked a mocking voice from the crowd gathered around me.

"Yeah, it's true. It's because they're too dumb to use the space. We gave them a whole island to themselves and they still don't know what to do with it."

"She was so impressed by the size of her apartment when she moved here. Weren't you, bun-bun?"

"I know her street. Houses there aren't even that big."

"Must be disgusting to live in a hole, though."

"You think that's disgusting? Bunnies eat their own poop."

"No way!"

"It's true, my bunny does it all the time. I bet she does it too."

"Ew! Teacher made me sit next to her the other day…"

"It's not right that we have to be in the same room with her. It's gross. It's not normal for animals to go to school with people. Someone should do something about it."

"Maybe if we teach her a lesson, she'll leave."

My eyes scanned my surroundings, looking for an opening.

"She hasn't learned yet, but it's worth a try."

I tried to run, but the crowd closed around me.

"Where are you going, bun-bun? Hold still. I just said we're going to teach you a lesson."

I tried to look past the crowd, searching for a kind face. Hell, a neutral face would do. It had been a busy part of the yard when the scene started unfolding, but now most non-participants seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. The few kids still passing by avoided eye contact with me, walking past us in a hurry.

"Help me", I told the first person whose eye I managed to catch. "Go tell someone!"

The boy shook his head and lowered his eyes, almost running on his way.

Of course. Most of my peers were not actively violent against me, but all of them shunned me from their company; either pretending not to notice any mistreatment, or treating it as a joke. Once it had been decided I was an outsider, noone had wanted to go against that wave.

Even if he went to fetch a teacher, what did I expect to happen? It would just be a repeat of last time.

"Help you? Help you with what?" a jeering voice said. "We didn't even do anything yet."

"But if you insist…"

My backpack was roughly yanked from me and I was shoved to the ground. I got up and made a second attempt to run. Two kids caught hold of each of my arms in an instant; a third one grabbed me by the shirt.

"I said, hold still." His fist closed around the collar of my shirt, stumbling on something small and hard. "What's this?"

"Nothing! Let me go!"

"Shut up." He yanked the locket from around my neck, snapping the chain. "What's this stupid thing?"

"It's that necklace Emma was talking about", one of his friends supplied helpfully. "Said it was pretty."

"Did she?" He tossed it up and caught it again. "Maybe I'll give it to her as a present."

"Give it back –"

"I don't think Emma should wear this", another boy said calmly over my cries and protests. "It's gross if you wear something an animal used to wear. Emma could get sick, or something."

"Yeah, but bun-bun here was still rude not to give it. I think we should punish her."

There was a general murmur of agreement. "An animal doesn't need something like this anyway", someone said.

My locket was thrown on the ground and stomped under a boot.

Stupid, I told myself bitterly. I'd been stupid to keep wearing the locket at school after Emma's not-so-subtle hints.

And yet, I'd found it hard to do otherwise. My home was increasingly becoming a war zone. Mom's accident at work had initially resulted in a ceasefire; the first few days after her release from the hospital had been full of tender care and mutual understanding. But after that, the fights had gradually increased.

The locket was comfort. Opening it and looking at the picture inside it allowed me to pretend that things were still okay. It wasn't much, and it was probably a cowardly way to cope with things, but it helped me.

Despite being glass-made, the locket was actually fairly sturdy: it had survived a couple of falls on hardwood floors, back when I'd first got it. But no piece of jewellery could reasonably be expected to take the level of abuse my classmates inflicted that day. My locket was stomped, tossed and beaten with bags until the only things that remained from it were a thousand shreds of glass, an empty frame on a broken chain, and the picture of a happy family drowing in a pool of mud.

XXX

"We should never have left Menagerie."

My mother's despondent voice penetrated the walls of my room. The house had supposedly been soundproofed to the standards of faunus hearing, but whoever had been responsible for my room had not done a very good job.

"It was the best move for us", my father replied.

"Perhaps it was the best move for you." Her bitterness was palpable. "I don't remember my daughter coming home crying when we lived in Menagerie."

"I never wanted this to happen."

They had been united in the principal's office, when they'd come to school to demand an explanation. I'd waited for them outside, listening to their enraged questions and concerns being reasoned away with an infuriating sort of polite indifference. They had to understand, kids would be kids. Perhaps an argument had gotten a little bit out of hand, but it was hardly anything to make such a fuss about. Besides, I had been the common denominator in all these incidents. Was it possible, perhaps, that I was instigating them? Fibbing a little about my role? After all, nothing like that had ever happened in this school before my arrival. Emma? Emma was a model pupil, had never caused any trouble. Her family were great supporters of the school. Don? Don was a fine boy. Star student, full marks in all his exams, a promising young athlete, well-liked among his teachers and classmates. Besides, Emma and Don hadn't even been present in this particular incident, so what exactly were my parents accusing them of? It was unfortunate that their little girl was upset, but hardly the end of the world. Perhaps therapy would help, or some sort of behavioral management plan…

And so on, and so forth. Even though everything my parents said fell on deaf ears, listening to them had made me feel strangely happy and proud. They were together, fighting for me. Everything else would sort itself out.

But now, that was over, and they had turned on each other again.

"You aren't doing much to prevent it", my mother said, in response to his last comment.

"How can you say that? I was at that office with you. I tried to get through to them. I would do anything for this family, Meg."

"Except give up your precious career."

I imagined them on opposite sides of a battlefield, shooting words at each other like bullets.

"You want me to just abandon everything I've worked for?"

"I want you to take your children's well-being into account – to at least consider giving up something you want for their sake! You're talking as if I'm asking you to drop everything and move again, when all I'm saying is it should be an option on the table. But you refuse to even think about it. You know you could get a job anywhere, it's only ambition you would be sacrificing."

"Only ambition? I love building things, Meg. It's not just a job for me. And there are so many more opportunities here. You know this, I've told you how I feel about it. You used to support me."

"I used to support you? I'm the one who made the sacrifice in moving here, Will. Every day we spend here is evidence of my support."

"Yes, so you keep reminding me. Well, thank you so much for your sacrifice. I am eternally grateful. What do you want, a monument? If I didn't have this job you hate so much, noone else would be bringing any money in –"

"Are you blaming me for what happened at that factory?" I pictured the burn marks on her arm, staring at him like an accusation.

"No, of course not – dammit, that's not what I meant."

"Taking care of the house isn't work? It's not what I expected to be doing full time, but I'm trying to do it as best I can. You're saying it doesn't count?"

"You know that's not what I'm saying."

"Then what the fuck are you saying, Will?"

"I'm saying that you're making me out to be this monster who doesn't care about his children, when they're the reason I work so hard in the first place –"

"Oh, don't you dare suggest you were thinking of your children when you proposed moving here! You did it for yourself."

"I thought it was the best decision for our family. And you agreed to it! We discussed it! You're talking as if I forced you. How could I have predicted things would get so bad? At least I spoke for Velvet in that office, instead of letting these people walk all over me –"

"So it's my fault they were interrupting me and not taking me seriously? Of course they'd respect you more. You're one of them, I told you it would be like that."

"For fuck's sake, Meg. There's an us and a them now?"

"I didn't make it that way, Will, I'm just saying how it is."

I folded my rabbit ears with my hands and pressed them on both sides on my head. It didn't really help. I wished I could be somewhere else. Anticipating this would happen, I'd gone to Olive's apartment earlier to ask if she wanted to play with me. But her mother had been uncharacteristically cold and told me Olive was busy.

XXX

The fourth time, I lashed out.

My pain wasn't just from these episodes of being cornered and shoved around and having my things destroyed. It was fueled by months of endless taunts and hurtful comments; ostracism affecting every aspect of my life in school; notes on my back saying "rabies" or "needs chipping"; my rabbit ears getting roughed up and held still as animal training whistles were blown right next to them at full volume; spoiled pieces of carrot thrown at me with the explanation that it was to feed me.

I was sick of it. If noone cared about violence, I could use it too. If they were going to hurt me anyway, I might as well do some damage back.

But the moment I threw myself at the ringleader – the very first instance of me physically fighting back – the fight was broken up by a teacher. I was pulled off and dragged to the principal's office, where the episode was described as me assaulting my fellow students for no reason.

I'd been so wrong. It wasn't that they didn't care about violence: it just had to be targeted in the appropriate direction.

"Velvet? Are you still in there, sweetie?"

My mother's voice and her knocking on the door seemed to be coming from somewhere far away. I heard it, but didn't really register it. I'd went and locked myself in the bathroom after my parents' fight, fully focused on my image in the mirror.

These stupid ears. It was all their fault. If they didn't exist, I'd be normal. Noone would target me. Noone would hate me on sight if I didn't have these giant, unnatural, attention-drawing, ugly sticks protruding from my head. My parents wouldn't be fighting so much – I was the source of most of it, directly or indirectly. And even if they fought, I'd be able to block it out. I wouldn't be stuck with these horrible appendages, catching every bit of hate and transferring it to me, making sure I'd never stop hearing it.

On the counter, there was a pair of scissors. They were thin, meant for hair trimming. But they looked sharp enough.

The knocking became louder, more insistent. "Velvet?"

Olive had told me that I'd deserved the discipline from the school. That she'd had her doubts when people talked about how violent faunus were, but now she'd seen it was true. So we couldn't be friends anymore.

My parents had been given a warning to reign me in. If they couldn't, if I disregarded the basic rules of civilized society in such a way again, I'd be expelled for violent behavior and it would go into my academic record. The warning had been presented as a favor, deserving of gratitude.

But my parents hadn't blamed me. They'd been wonderful towards me: assuring me that they weren't mad at me, that they understood why I'd snapped. Telling me they were trying to find a new school for me – a better school, with nice kids and competent teachers. Holding and kissing me until the tears subsided.

And then they'd shut themselves in their own bedroom and started ripping each other apart. It had taken Jay storming in to make them pause.

"Stop it, both of you", he'd yelled. "You need to stop. Can't you see that your fighting hurts her more than what's been happening to her at school?"

They'd stopped then – for a while. They hadn't meant to hurt me, and their son's rebuke had shocked and numbed them. But I knew it was temporary, and I didn't like Jay yelling, either. I hated that things had to be like that.

"Velvet! Open the door, please. You're worrying me."

The scissors were worth a try. I brought the blades close to the base of one ear, then hesitated. Maybe I was supposed to clean them first.

It was such a bizarre thought – caring about something like that in the middle of such a moment. But a lifetime of habitual cleanliness, and a sort of compulsive need to always be using my tools in the right manner, guided me to open a cupboard in search of a disinfectant. When I finished, the blades were shinier than before, and they smelled funny.

"Velvet!" The small part of my brain that still paid attention to outside trivialities registered the fact that it was my father's voice now. That was good. They were together, and they weren't fighting anymore. "Open this door right now, or so help me, I'm bringing it down."

Maybe it would hurt, but things would be easier afterwards.

A sharp pain in my ear. A crash as the door went down. My parents barged in; I'd been so disassociated from them that it felt like aliens from a different world had invaded my bathroom. Their horrified shouts made my hand open in surprise.

The scissors clanged on the floor.

XXX

The fifth time, I didn't fight back. I just let them do and say whatever they wanted until they'd decided they'd had enough fun.

XXX

Something was around me.

Vines?

No… not vines. Why would there be vines? Silly Velvet.

Arms. Multiple pairs.

Danger? I was feeling a bit groggy, not thinking clearly.

I squirmed a little. The arms relaxed. Coco, Fox and Yatsuhashi stood back.

My teammates.

Right. We were doing a mission. There was a forest. That was where the vines had come from.

My teammates had been trying to hug me to death, it seemed. Not that I minded.

XXX

"What exactly happened to your mom?" Fox asked. "If you don't mind me asking."

"She had an accident at that factory", I said. "Faulty equipment. Electric shock through her arm. Severe burns as well as muscle and nerve damage. She had to be hospitalized and there was some talk of possible amputation. In the end it didn't need to happen, fortunately. But some of the damage was permanent – her burn marks are visible to this day, her movements were slow and awkward for a long time, and she never fully recovered sensation in that arm. When she was eventually fit to work again, it was even harder to find a position."

"But surely the company paid compensatory damages?" Yatsu said.

I shook my head.

"Yatsu, it's the SDC we're talking about", Coco scoffed. "They're experts at weaseling their way out of such things, they've been doing it for years."

"They certainly had excellent legal representation", I said.

Not knowing what to say, Yatsu shifted awkwardly in place. This was inconvenient, since I was lying with my head on his lap.

"You moved", I said accusingly.

My pout made him smile, despite everything. "Forgive me, Your Highness", he said as he rearranged his posture to my satisfaction.

"My brother always held still. But I forgive you." I tried to keep my tone light and cheerful. I had to prove to them I wasn't fragile. Coco and Fox had been able to power through their experiences. I needed to do the same.

"I didn't even know you had a brother, Vel. You've never mentioned him."

"He's not in my life anymore. I don't mean he's dead", I hastened to add, seeing their somber expressions. So much for lightening the mood. "Not that I know of, at least. He left home at seventeen. He was supposed to go to college to become an engineer. He was going to build medical equipment to help people. He was brilliant, he'd have been good at it." I paused. My teammates waited patiently, not commenting on my haphazard way of answering the question. "Jay was a kind boy. He thought that faunus and humans can be allies and friends. He thought you should start off treating everyone with kindness and respect, but when faced with discrimination or mistreatment, you should stand up for yourself and for those weaker than you. As he grew up, his experiences made him more jaded and bitter. Eventually, he moved on to assuming that, as a faunus, he'd be treated poorly by default, and that he should start off every interaction with a human by forcibly demanding respect. He became angry at our parents, at the world, at me, at himself. But he still wanted to do something to fix the world. I think that's why he left."

"What do you mean, left?" Yatsu asked in utter confusion. "Where'd he go?"

At the beginning of the year, I'd never have imagined having this conversation with my teammates. But right now, somehow, talking to them felt right.

I sighed. "I assume you're familiar with an organization called the White Fang."

There was a pause.

Coco was the one to break it. "You're kidding."

"The faunus rights activists?" Fox asked.

Yatsu frowned. "That's a generous description. They strike me more as a terrorist group."

"There are different branches", I said. "The White Fang used to be a unified group under a single leader, but as it expanded, its members started having significant disagreements on which methods would work best. There are currently multiple leaders and, roughly speaking, three main schools of thought. The first relies exclusively on diplomacy and peaceful protest. The second considers it acceptable to use a degree of violence – in the form of property destruction and such – when targeting exploitative corporations like the SDC, but steers clear of attacks against civilians. And the third uses violence freely and indiscriminately, considering it the only thing that will get humans to listen. I don't know which branch Jay associated himself with, or even if he still works with them. I haven't heard from him in years."

I didn't mention that I'd become a Huntress partly to honor his original ideals; the memory of the generous, strong, kindhearted boy that he used to be.

As my teammates and I spent our next moments in shared silence, I realized that something had changed.

"Do you hear running water?" I asked, sitting up.

The sunlight felt brighter, falling in beams through the forest's canopy. The branches were loosening up, revealing a path. Parallel to the path, a river was flowing. It hadn't been there before. In silent agreement, we walked towards it and stood at its edge. At first it was just light dancing on the sapphire waters. But after a few moments, the flow came to a halt, as if the river was frozen in time. And then there was something else.

"It's Mr Carter", I said in surprise.

Fox scratched his head. "Where?"

"On the surface of the river. There's an image of him sleeping on his bed, wrapped in vines, like he was at his home."

The waters shuffled and stilled again.

"Now it's a different image. Two boys playing across a blooming field. Chasing each other. They seem happy. I think one of them is either Mr Carter or a relative – they have the same set of tiger ears."

"Our guy has tiger ears?" Fox asked in surprise.

"They're pretty small, and they were hidden among his hair and the vines in his head when we were at his house. I guess ADA didn't catch them."

"You think these are memories, too?" Yatsu asked.

"Probably", Fox replied. "I don't know what they mean, though. The one you just described sounds happy, but maybe it's tied to something traumatic."

The image disappeared. The water became alive again, flowing across the forest.

"It seems we finally have a direction", Coco said.