A/N: Welcome back, dear readers! So, my writing schedule got completely annihilated when I injured the tendons in my left hand and wrist. I had to go a couple of weeks without typing much at all (talk-to-text isn't working for me in creative writing) and slogging through the very long chapters in works such as Reign of Steel or Falling Snow - or this story, for that matter - has been difficult. It's been healing well, but I gotta be careful for a while. So, to keep from straining my hand and wrist overmuch, I'm presenting something a little different; a series of short "interlude" chapters that bridge Act One of The White Knight with Act Two, and set the stage for when I can resume writing normally.

Please excuse the short length of these little updates. Not being able to write has hurt worse than the injury ever did.

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The White Knight Interlude 1: The Boy

Life was generally quiet in the hinterlands of rural Anima. It was far removed from the troubles of the wider world, almost suspended in the timeless cycle of planting and harvesting. The day-to-day labors of farm life provided more than enough trouble to occupy the attentions of the villagers, who cared little for the hustle and bustle of their counterparts in the Kingdom of Mistral proper. It was a peaceful life, but while Oscar Pine knew that he had it luckier than most orphans, he still couldn't help but feel restless, even as he worked hauling sacks of grain to the mill.

At thirteen years of age, Oscar was smaller than most boys his age, but while his frame was small and lithe, he had a wiry strength born of a childhood laboring on his aunt's farm, and his skin had a healthy tan from hours spent each day out in the fields. His aunt had told him that his messy black hair and forest-green eyes came from his father, her brother, but many of his features came from his late mother. Oscar's mother had been a wandering Huntress while his father had been one of the local farmers. While her missions had sent her far and wide, somehow they always seemed to bring her to the village at least once a year, until one day, she didn't come back. One of her friends had brought the infant Oscar to his father; while no one told him the specifics, Oscar was under the impression that his short stature and slight build was due to a premature birth, one under...unfortunate circumstances.

The bloody flux had taken the older Pine that same winter, and so Oscar had been orphaned before he'd seen a single birthday. His aunt, a new widow herself, had taken him in, and done her best to raise him. It wasn't that Oscar wasn't grateful to her for all that she did for him - he never went hungry, he always had a roof over his head and clothes on his back, and beyond that, she was always kind to him - but Oscar had inherited his mother's love of adventure. He struggled with trying to explain it to his aunt in a way that didn't insult his late father. After all, Forrest Pine lived his entire life in the village, and had, by all accounts, been a fine and upstanding man, with many friends who mourned his loss. It wasn't that Oscar couldn't see the positives of farm life, with its deep connection to the land and a close-knit community, but it just...wasn't for him. He wanted to see the world, meet new people with strange customs, and have grand adventures that people the world over would clamor to hear. If he was lucky enough to grow old and grey, he wanted to have stories to tell that were a bit more riveting to hear than the tale of the Great Wheat Husking. And if he wasn't so fortunate to live to an old age, well, at least he'd have spent his life on his own terms, doing what he wanted.

Oscar hefted the now empty grain sack over his shoulder as he left the mill. The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in wondrous pink and indigo hues. It was a beautiful sight, to be sure, but the young farmboy despaired of a life spent gazing into the same horizon, day after day, until he met his end. He sighed deeply before turning his back to that horizon, shuffling back towards home.

He was halfway through the wheat field when he saw the smoke rising. A fire! Dropping the empty sack, Oscar rushed towards the clustered homes of the farming village, watching in horror as great flames spread across the wood and thatch buildings. Worse, as the villagers fled from their homes, great, horrifying beasts of oily blackness and protruding bone set upon them. The realization thundered through the farmboy. Grimm!

Everyone had heard of the Grimm, but rarely had anyone in the village seen one up close. Gods, they were...horrifying. They practically exuded a putrescent stench, an overwhelming odor of corruption, and their baleful red eyes glowed with unrestrained malice. Oscar stood, paralyzed in shock, until he heard a familiar shriek. His aunt!

The realization that he could very well lose his last remaining family broke through the boy's stunned terror, and he tore off in the direction of their home as quickly as his feet could carry him. In front of their house, his aunt lay dead, a wolf Grimm ripping through the gore of her torn-open chest. In his horror and grief, he was unable to keep himself from crying out, drawing the creature's attention to him. Oscar began backing away as soon as he realized his error. When the wolf-creature lunged, the boy turned and sprinted for the small shed to one side of the house. The beast's heavy pants were loud in his ear as he burst through the flimsy wooden door with a shoulder tackle. Oscar just barely managed to reach the pitchfork hanging on the far wall before the Beowulf was on him, lunging at him with razor claws and gnashing fangs.

Oscar was no Huntsman, but the human race hadn't survived on a world of Grimm without its descendants having some notions of fighting. The farmboy would have been hopeless in a duel with a trained warrior, but thrusting forward using a stick with something sharp on the end was damn near instinct for a human being. As it was, hours of stabbing with the implement to bale hay translated into a fairly effective stab, the three sharpened tines of the pitchfork biting into the lupin Grimm's chest. Boy and beast stood at an impasse for a long moment, the long shaft of the farm tool keeping Oscar out of the reach of the Beowulf's swiping claws. Then Oscar grit his teeth, shouted, and pushed, driving the impaled creature back, first one step, then another. At the third step, the wolf Grimm tripped over the threshold of the shed and fell backwards. Almost by accident, Oscar bore the creature to the ground, using his body weight to push down with the pitchfork, as though the wolven monster was nothing more than a particularly well-frozen bale of hay in a winter freeze.

He stumbled forward as the monster began to dissipate into an oily cloud of black smoke, off-balance by the sudden absence of his foe. The farmboy panted for breath, overwhelmed by everything that had occurred. A glance back at his aunt confirmed that she was very much dead, her ribcage split open. Turning away from the gruesome sight, he looked at his village burning. Gods, it was all gone…

Oscar had decided that it was time to flee, when he saw one of his neighbors, carrying her toddler in her arms, screaming as she was chased by a ravenous Grimm, this one appearing more like a bear than a wolf. From the way that it was gaining on the woman, Oscar could tell that she wasn't going to make it.

His heart pounded in his chest. He glanced at the pitchfork in his hand, then back at the terrifying monstrosity bent on ripping the life out of that woman and her child, just as the other Grimm had savagely torn his aunt apart.

Oscar was more terrified than he'd ever been in his life. It was only in that moment that he realized that, at some point in his fight against the wolf Grimm, he'd soaked the front of his trousers in sheer terror. He wanted nothing more than to run and hide, to make himself small and escape the notice of these horrible monsters. But with a weapon in hand, he could at least make sure that those two could at least have a chance to get away. He could do something in the face of all of this hell and madness.

Before he even understood it, Oscar had made his choice. His feet carried him forward as if possessed, and interposed himself between the woman and the Grimm, his pitchfork at the ready.

"Hey!" he shouted, making certain that its focus was solely on him. He jabbed forward, threatening the bear Grimm with the three sharpened points of the tool. The Ursa reared back on its hind legs, roaring loud enough to shake the nearby burning houses to their foundations. It fell forward in a great swipe, forcing Oscar to hop back. The farmboy tried to stab into its side, but its bone-studded hide was too thick for the farm tool to get much purchase. Oscar stood warily, jabbing forward to ward the Ursa back. He made sure to keep the point between himself and the Grimm at all times. It was more through luck than any skill that one of the sharpened tines skidded across the Ursa's brow and struck home, closing one of the baleful red glowing eyes. Unfortunately, the great bear shook his head violently at the injury, and Oscar had had to hastily retract the pitchfork, lest his only weapon be torn from his grasp.

Boy and bear were locked in their wary stalemate until, with a great cry, one of the local woodsmen stabbed into its side with a great boar-hunting spear. The long, wickedly sharp head of the spear, purpose-built for inflicting deep wounds on large creatures, found much greater success than Oscar's improvised weapon had, and the bear reeled from the unexpected and devastating hit. Other men then fell upon it with whatever weapons had come to hand - billhooks, pitchforks, hatchets or machetes being most common. When the villagers had driven the Ursa to the ground, another woodsman set onto it with a woodcutting axe. The tool rose in the great, overhead arc that the man had made every day of his life, driving into the beast's skull with a resounding crack, just like he was cutting into a log. The man planted his boot onto the skull, wrenched the axe free, then repeated it, twice, until the terrible beast lay dead, its essence dissipating to mix with the rest of the smoke over the village.

An old woman - the village elder, Oscar recognized - stepped forward. "Oscar, are you hurt? Your aunt?"

"I'm fine," Oscar gasped, suddenly feeling completely drained from his experience. "My aunt, she…" he looked away, unable to bring himself to continue.

"Aye," the elder said sadly, putting her hand on the youth's shoulder. "We'll have much to mourn."

Oscar's green eyes widened as he remembered the woman. "There was a woman, with a baby in her arms. The Ursa was chasing her. She ran that way!" he said, indicating the path behind him.

"Daisy!" the woodsman with the boar spear called out. He set off down the path.

"Slate, go with him," ordered the elder. The woodsman with the axe nodded in acknowledgement, following his counterpart. Oscar shifted in uncomfortable embarrassment as he realized that the state of his trousers was readily apparent, though the villagers around him, whether through simple decency or by having more important concerns, didn't mention anything about it.

The elder guided him into the center of the mass of villagers. "Come, child. The worst has passed now."

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"We should have seen this coming. The Huntsmen patrols have been growing more and more infrequent for months now."

"But why?"

"Mistral doesn't care about people like us. Never have."

"They'll care when they can't get shipments of produce!"

In the days since the attack, the villagers had hastily buried their dead and set about erecting walls around their village. When Oscar had asked why they were staying to rebuild a place that was burned down, the adults around him had looked at him like a crazy person. Now he sat quietly outside where the villagers had gathered to discuss the attack and its implications.

It was true that it wasn't every day that one saw a true Huntsman or Huntress in the area, but as Oscar thought about it, he realized that it had been about a half a year since he, or anyone, had seen one at all. Something was up, but he was in no position to know, or even understand it. His frustrating lack of world experience just underscored his desire to leave.

As the meeting broke up, Oscar looked for the spear-wielding woodsman, whose name was Hara. He had been extremely grateful at his actions in protecting his wife and son during the attack, and had promised that he would speak to the village elder about taking him to the nearest train station to Mistral. Sure enough, he found the man near the elder. The old woman sighed as she saw him.

"I don't suppose you've changed your mind, have you?"

Oscar shook his head. "Afraid not, ma'am. If anything, what they said today just makes it more important that I go. What if there aren't Huntsmen coming because they don't have enough? With a pitchfork, I was able to save Hara's family. How much more could I do if I went through a combat school?"

The elder hadn't liked it, but in the end, she couldn't deny him. After a few days of preparation, Hara and his axe-wielding partner, Slate, had escorted him down the road to a small town a week's hike away from the village. Hara had bought his train ticket to Mistral - to Oscar's chagrin, he hadn't even considered that it would cost money to ride the train - and had pressed a fair number of lien into the boy's hand.

"I can't take this," protested Oscar. "You've got a baby, and the village is still rebuilding, and -"

"And you're a wide-eyed farmboy going to the big city," the woodsman interrupted. "You're also the brave kid who saved my family's lives. It wouldn't be right, sending you out into the world without giving you what I can spare to help. We'll be fine, kid. Just make sure you remember to look out for the little guy when you're a big-shot hero, yeah?"

Oscar nodded. "I will."

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Oscar had never seen anything like Mistral. He understood, intellectually, that a city was a place where lots of people lived, but he'd never seen so many people and buildings in one place before. Everything felt all cramped together, and the streets were so confusing! Oscar was painfully aware that he must appear a total rube, with his homespun clothing, complete with pitchfork over his shoulder. Still he'd managed to find Haven Academy...only to find it closed, according to the bored-looking clerk.

"What happened?"

"It's a matter of security. Rest assured, steps are being taken to ensure the safety of Mistral," the man replied, his bored tone giving away the rote nature of his response.

Of all the obstacles Oscar had imagined on his path to becoming a hero, the school simply being closed had never been one of them.

"But...I need to become a Huntsman?"

"Yeah, you and every other bored teenage boy in the Kingdom," said the clerk. The man then peered at him. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Thirteen."

The clerk pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kid, Haven Academy is a finishing school for Huntsmen and Huntresses. That means that you have to be seventeen to enroll."

Oscar blinked. "What."

"Yep. Now, if you want to enroll in a combat school, you should try Sanctum, up in Argus."

"Is that...is that in walking distance?"

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Oscar glumly picked at his food. He shouldn't have seemed ungrateful - after hearing his story, the clerk had directed him to a tavern run by his brother, who comped him a free dinner - but he was in serious trouble. He was going to have to scrounge up some more cash to take the Argus Express all the way north to get to Sanctum.

He was debating how he was going to begin to manage that, when he caught sight of a news program playing on the vidscreen.

"Hey, is that Pyrrha Nikos?" asked one of the other patrons.

"Turn it up!"

"...stopped a major incursion of Grimm, which apparently had been experimented on by the White Fang in the ruins of Mountain Glenn. Mistral's own Pyrrha Nikos was recognized for her heroism by being awarded the Star of Vale, while her partner received a more traditional form of recognition."

Oscar watched as a quartet of older teens marched down an aisle, surrounded by cheering throngs of people, received medals, and then a tall, blonde man knelt before an old man with a sword.

"Dooby-damn," remarked an old man, whose hair and beard were white, sitting a few stools down from Oscar. "Didn't think Vale made knights anymore."

"Knights?" asked Oscar.

"It's a Valean thing," answered the elder. "Like Huntsmen, but held to the very highest standards of personal conduct. Thought the Knights of Vale were all gone, but I guess one or two of them still stuck around. And of course, this new one's an Arc. Thought they were all gone too. Guess it's a new day for Vale. I'll drink to that."

"Are you from Vale?"

"Sure am. The name's Marin, captain of the Pride, out of Vale."

"My name is Oscar, Oscar Pine. What can you tell me about these knights?"

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Fate, Oscar decided, had a funny way of working out. Captain Marin had been only too happy to talk about his homeland's cultural traditions with a youngster, and in exchange for working as an extra hand on his ship - the sea voyage was another fascinating experience - he granted him passage to Vale. The combat academy at Patch was much closer to Beacon than Sanctum was to Haven, and if nothing else, Oscar could have the chance to meet real-life knights. It sounded too good to be true, but if, as Captain Marin had insisted, the old man who had knighted the young blonde man was the real deal, then it would be worth the trip just to speak to such people. If he was very lucky, one might choose to take him on as their apprentice, called a "squire."

He waved goodbye to the Captain and his First Mate, and hefted his pitchfork onto his shoulder. It wouldn't take much to find Beacon. The great old castle stood on a dramatic rise overlooking the city proper. Oscar smiled as he set off.

It was time to see where else fate would take him.

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Endnotes: Again, please excuse the brevity of this update. I just had to write something. This was originally going to be worked in amongst other sections of the first chapter of Act 2, but it worked well enough for a quick, standalone interlude. I'm planning on doing more, one for Blake, one for Weiss, and maybe one for Yang and her dad. Ruby's story, and Jaune's reaction to everything going on with everyone around him, will be the major part of the first proper chapter. Just this interlude was written across two days, and my fingertips are tingling again, so I need to wrap it up.

As always, thank you for reading! I hope to get back to writing more regularly soon!

Love,

Mahina