A Story Well Told
Deep within Remnant, in a time of great kings and kingdoms, stood a grand, jagged palace, and within that palace was a kind and quiet Witch. Capable of so many feats of magic, she held such power that her cruel father locked her away in its tallest tower, left with only a window to view the world through. The Witch wished for only one thing throughout the years: freedom. Alas, she cared too much for her family, though her father held no such restraint.
Many came to free her: mercenaries seeking the wealth of the palace's vaults, knights in shining armor seeking the Witch's hand, even spies and armies desiring her father's land, yet all were turned away. Until one day, a pure and simple Hero approached. He was not tempted by money, nor beauty, nor power. The Witch's father fought with all he had, but his evil could not overcome the Hero's purity, and when the throne lay open, his armies ready to kneel and vaults set to be plundered, the Hero marched up the tallest tower and unlocked the door.
And after asking only for the Witch's smile, the Hero walked away.
The Witch was perplexed. "If you desired nothing, why did you come to save me?"
The Hero simply replied, "Because life is precious."
The Witch still could not grasp such an answer, yet now with the gate to freedom open at last, decided that she wished for something else: to understand it. To understand him. And so she followed him from the jagged palace into the world beyond. Follower soon became partner, and partner soon became beloved. The two went on to adventure throughout all of Remnant, and the Witch believed she was unraveling that great mystery: just what made life so precious to him that he would so selflessly risk his own.
But the day she could understand the Hero never came. Not blade nor magic, but simple illness brought the Hero to his deathbed. The doctors failed to heal him, for they had not the knowledge. The clerics failed, for they had not the power. So too did the Witch fail, having some of both, but not enough to fight fate. And so the Hero passed, yet the Witch could not accept it.
The Witch sought out Life itself, he who brought all of it to the land, and gave to him all she could sacrifice and all she could pray, but to her surprise, Life refused her.
"Life cannot be precious without worth, and life cannot have worth without its end. That is the cycle." She was cast away, and grief turned to indignation.
The Witch came a second time: surely, if worth made life precious, then the Hero, who was worth so much, was all the more precious.
"Without life's end, his actions would have been meaningless. That is heroism." She was cast away, and indignation turned to anger.
The Witch stormed in a third time. Behind her, every life he had saved, could save. She demanded her Hero be returned.
"His life will not be returned. That is final." And she was cast away a final time, not just from his domain, not just from civilization, but from ever entering the realm of death. Cursed with immortality, she was forced to wander the earth until she could answer what made life so precious.
Anger turned to hatred.
And in that hatred, the Witch refused to bow to Life. She would prove that life could be precious without death, and to that end she used her magic and her curse both to bestow life unto all. First it was her tools: teacups and cabinets, candlesticks and clocks. Then men from cloth and mineral. Yet something was missing as they lived alongside her: they all had a certain emptiness. Aimlessness. Stagnation.
It was when the Witch formed her first from the flowers around her that she found the missing aspect: death. With the balance of destruction and creation came the will to choose. The will to learn.
And the Witch refused to acknowledge it. Instead she destroyed it and returned to her fiddling and fooling, determined to prove Life wrong. Yet from the short-lived rose to the ancient evergreen, each was successful, and each held the same: life and death. Soon, she turned to not wood and leaf but fur and flesh, raising the very animals around her to compare to her new man of metal. But nothing changed, and so she cast them away.
All while she worked, the Witch never noticed how she had formed a new tower around herself: a tower built from her loneliness and locked by her hate, where she toils forevermore...
"Most view it as a cautionary tale against hubris and shortsightedness, but I found it ever so hard to not sympathize with the Witch," Cinder said as a cold wind rushed through the Emerald Forest. Yellows and oranges conquering its once vibrant-green leaves left the land not exactly matching its name. "After all, it just seems like such an awful view of the world that strife is what makes it worth living." She checked her nails, frowning.
"It sounds like a way to cope with a rough life," Blake murmured more to herself than her team leader. Her ears twitched underneath her bow, and her gaze narrowed ever so slightly. There was something about her leader that left her wanting to hear more, but as someone who'd felt that curiosity before, Blake also knew how quickly that could steer her wrong. It left her on edge.
"I don't mean to sound blunt, but did you really call me down here to tell a story?"
The sharp gaze Cinder shot her way left her flinching, but before she could apologize, the hardness in her leader's eyes was gone. Her apology withered on her tongue.
Cinder smiled, smooth and confident. No, knowing. "I know that certain events have left us all busy, but I thought I said we'd talk soon. After the last story I told you."
Blake drew her lips to a fine line and hoped Cinder didn't see her shoulders rise: that was a curiosity she was also trying to forget. When Cinder walked closer, however, she couldn't bring herself to move. She was left staring back into the golden eyes that shone even as she walked through the lengthy shadows of the forest.
"You shouldn't be so stressed, Blake." Only a few inches away, Cinder laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and like a knot undone with the simple tug of a string, she felt herself relax despite herself. Every bit of tightness in her was replaced by only a faint warmth. "Please, why don't you tell me one. Turn the tables a little and just tell me a story, instead. I find it calming, myself."
Blake found herself nodding, yet her attention lay only on Cinder's eyes. So close, the light within was almost literal, standing out so sharply even amidst the warm colors of autumn around her, let alone against pale skin and besides coal-black hair. She realized Cinder was waiting. She searched her mind for a story: one her mother used to tell her when she was younger.
"Maybe... The Four Maidens?"
Her leader's eye gleamed, and she nodded. "Why, that sounds wonderful. Come, why don't we walk and talk." Cinder had turned and had begun to walk away before she'd even realized it.
Shaking herself out of her daze, Blake ignored the warmth in her cheeks and followed behind.
"Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall: the four Maidens." Pyrrha smiled. If anything, she felt a bit silly, having been so on edge before. "My mother loves that story."
"Would you believe me if I told you that was a new tale when I was a boy?" Ozpin joked.
Pyrrha laughed. "You're not that old, Professor." As far as she knew, it was centuries old.
His smile grew more sly, and Ozpin leaned forward, steepling his hands together. "Would you believe me if I told you it was true?"
And suddenly, she was conflicted: his almost catlike smile left it sounding like just a joke, but there was a certain edge to his words. An edge to his gaze. Pyrrha searched for words.
"I beg your pardon?" A flicker of emerald light caught her attention, and Pyrrha watched as the headmaster's mug carefully hovered up for him to take a sip, suspended only by that strange light. It was just like Glynda's Semblance.
"What if I were to tell you that there were four maidens existing in this world that could wield tremendous power without Dust?"
Still suspicious, Pyrrha looked to Ozpin, brow furrowed and mind working to explain it. "Like a Semblance, then?"
Ozpin brought his hands apart, and the mug separated into two perfect copies. Every scratch, every mark, even the cocoa within. "Or Aura."
Pyrrha sat straight, eyes wide: even a Semblance like Glynda's wouldn't allow for something like that. "But that's—"
"Magic?"
"Impossible!"
The gruff man in the shadows barked out a laugh. "Yeah. First time hearing it's pretty crazy, huh?" Qrow said.
Pyrrha couldn't pull her eyes away from the professor. She didn't feel like it was a Semblance. She didn't feel any aura from him, but that was the only explanation that made any sense. Sure, she saw it with her own two eyes, but she couldn't help but feel like this was all just one big joke at her expense.
"You're serious?" she asked.
And finally, Ozpin's smile fell: what was once jovial was now straight-faced. Serious. The unearthly glow around the mugs faded away.
Sitting atop a fallen log, the autumn air felt ten degrees colder to Blake.
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Cinder asked from beside her, gaze boring a hole straight through her and her usual, coy smile absent.
Blake couldn't help but feel like she'd somehow offended her, but that didn't make any sense. Surely she knew how insane this sounded: how insane all of this sounded. Fairy tales and girls in towers and magic? Blake sat taller: no, she refused to be shoved into a crazy conspiracy like that.
"Of course not, but surely you know just how impossible that sounds."
Her leader watched her for just a moment longer, then that always-knowing smile returned. Taking her time, Cinder turned her legs over the log and stood up behind her.
"Yes, I guess it would need a form of proof, wouldn't it?"
Blake had to turn her head the other way to follow her, only for her heart to stop. She sat frozen in place, watching as Emerald stalked around the log, every step smooth and languid. One of her ruby-red eyes carried a dim but unmistakable light to it.
"I've shown you my Semblance, haven't I?" she said in Emerald's voice. "I create heat within an object, melting it down and manipulating it for my purposes." Another step, and the image of Emerald peeled away like falling leaves. In her place, standing proud in front of her, in Haven Academy's uniform with her arms crossed under her chest, was Yang.
"This certainly wouldn't fall under that, now would it?~" she purred. "The ability to change anything about myself? To be anything?" Yang—no, Cinder—suddenly leaned down, not as the blonde but as one with blood-red hair and striking, emerald eyes, one all but ablaze.
"Anyone?" 'Adam' said, and Blake shoved herself off of the log with a gasp.
Blake's hand was caught by a perfect image of herself, yet this, of all things, shocked her the least. It was perfect, yet even wearing a mirror image of her body, Cinder shone through more than ever. Blake looked into her own eyes, yet the mirrored gaze was stable. Sharp. Confident. Cinder's self-assured smile was alien on her own face. There was something surreal, yet calming about it. A sense of being unnerved fought against a pang of envy.
She didn't resist being pulled back to her feet. Yet even as Blake stared at her own face, she searched for rationality.
"So your Semblance is... alteration?"
Cinder chuckled and, though it was Blake's own voice, the purr beneath it made them ever the more different. "I appreciate your dedication to logic, Blake." She let go of her hand and stood back. Cinder raised her hand, the blaze surrounding her eye heightened until the flame was lapping hungrily at the air, and without a speck of Dust on her, lit her entire arm aflame.
"But this world is so much more grand than others would have you believe. Now, I could sit here all day and let you see how I could continue far beyond what Aura or Dust could ever allow me." A flick of her wrist, and the flame gathered together into an orb she sent lazily spinning around them both. "Or you could sit, and let me tell you a little about how the world really works, Blake." She stepped closer, reached past her, and swept her hand aside.
What was a mere log had become a long bench.
The image of what she could be burned away to Cinder once more and, taking her hand, Cinder guided Blake to sit beside here once more.
"Ask away, Blake: anything your heart desires."
One question, more than anything, stuck out in Blake's mind.
"What are you?"
"The current Fall Maiden—Amber."
For a moment after Ozpin's statement, the only thing Pyrrha could hear was the constant beeps and pulses of the machine keeping her alive. Deep underground, at the end of a corridor well over twenty-feet tall yet so poorly lit she could barely see the ceiling in shadow, the resting girl looked like she was kept as a relic of her own right. No. In the metal chamber she rested in, stripped only to what would keep her modest, her face marred by a scar that looked like it was from acid, Amber was being held in a tomb. And yet...
"She's still alive," Pyrrha murmured to herself.
Headmaster Ozpin, Professor Glynda, General Ironwood, and this increasingly-mysterious Qrow stood ahead of her, and now more than ever in this yawning cavern of a room, she felt small. She crossed her arms: anything to look like she hadn't lost every bit of control.
"For now," Ironwood added, unfazed by this horror. "We're using state-of-the-art Atlas technology to keep her stable, but there is a lot about this situation that is... unprecedented."
She shifted in place. "What do you mean?" She didn't want to know the answer.
The general sighed. "Well, we don't know what will happen if"—he grimaced—"when she passes."
"Won't her power just... transfer to the next host?"
"Oh, look who's been listening!" Qrow jeered through a fake smile, then leaned over to Ozpin to stage whisper: "She is smart."
Pyrrha was struck with a rather strong urge to ask just what this relative nobody was doing here.
Ironwood shot a glare over to Qrow, then continued. "Under normal circumstances, yes. This, however, is a delicate situation: it's not uncommon for the last thoughts of the slain to be of their attacker. To make matters worse, no one has ever seen the power split like this before. No matter what her last thoughts are, the power of the Fall Maiden may very well seek out its other half."
Her eyes widened. "Her assailant."
He nodded and turned to her. "Out of the four Maidens, only one other is in our hands, and she isn't in much better condition. Worse yet, that Maiden's power is known for how fickle it can be in its choice: the most likely of them all to choose a random target by far."
Ozpin finally entered the conversation once more. "Thus if the power of the Fall Maiden were to be lost, it would not bode well for any of us. Let alone if it were to fall to her assailant..."
Blake reared back in shock. "You stole it?"
For once, Cinder's eyes didn't meet hers, instead gazing upon her left arm. She clenched her fist. "No," she hissed. "I returned it to its rightful owner. The powers of the Maidens go to the one in their last thoughts, but that makes it so easy to twist. A simple rule that can be directed at whoever is desired with enough time."
The flame in Cinder's eye burned with a righteous fury Blake had seen all too often. "I would have been the next holder of the Fall Maiden's powers, but their 'creator'—the Wizard—stole them away from me. Indoctrinated the previous wielder and bent her to his will."
Her mouth felt dry, her mind was racing, and Blake was acutely aware that not for the first time in her life, she'd found out the person she was following was far more dangerous than she thought. She settled on one question of many. "How could you even know that?"
Her leader's gaze finally turned to her, and the anger in her stare honed itself to a cold hatred. "Because the previous Fall Maiden was my mother."
Even the very air was still now.
"The Wizard's words are very charming: deceptively so. With enough time, he could have you believing anything, and were it not for the Witch, I would have been just as blind to it as I was when he took her away."
"But who are they!" Blake shouted. "The 'Witch,' the 'Wizard', that can't really be their names!"
"The Wizard has many names, Blake: Ozma, the King of Mankind, the Wizard, the Hero, even Julius, Last King of Vale. Currently, however, he is Headmaster Ozpin."
Blake grit her teeth: she had suspicions, and now they were confirmed. But she couldn't let herself fall into confusion yet.
"And the Witch?"
"Often she is simply known as that, but her true name is Salem." There was a certain weight to that name, one bringing up memories of halls of marble amidst bloody red, flame across her eye that felt only cold, and a woman of porcelain with eyes of burning coal. Blake remembered, now: even in her dream, there were four women with eyes just like Cinder's. Could that really have been real? Was that the Witch's doing? Salem's doing?
She licked her lips and forced herself to ask one final question.
"Who are you, then?"
And with a completely straight face, Cinder replied, "I'm still Cinder Fall, and I'm the one who approached the White Fang the day before you left."
Cinder was still speaking, but Blake couldn't hear a word. It all made sense, now. The clashes between her and Adam from the beginning, her tendency to slip off with only the other two members of her team, her mysterious calls to unknown people and how evasive she'd be about them, the White Fang's sudden shift in attitude and alliances.
Her breaths grew shallow and quick. If Adam's team as a whole hated her, then they'd have to know, too. But why wouldn't they say anything—do anything to stop her? Blake's mind rushed for an answer, even though she recognized Cinder's expectant look. The only reason Adam wouldn't act would be...
She was in danger.
"You caused the Breach," Blake whispered, horrified. It felt like her limbs had turned to ice, refusing to do so much as grip the bench tighter despite her shouting inside to run.
Yet, Cinder looked at her with curiosity. "I'm afraid I've done no such thing. Unfortunately, the only ones who listened to my approach were not the kindest of sorts: Neopolitan decided in all her wisdom to launch and amplify that assault without my permission, and the White Fang capitalized upon it. That's why I made sure we were the ones who captured her: it was only right to make up for what we've done."
"Make up for—you killed thousands! They were innocent people!" As if released from a spell, her body finally fell under her control, every muscle working in overdrive towards one task: get away from this monster. "What could justify that!"
Cinder's hand was around her wrist in the blink of an eye, and she locked up again. All the energy once spent trying to escape instead now focused on watching every move—every twitch she made. Anger shone bright in her so-called leader's gaze. Her aura activated itself in instinct.
"I didn't plan to kill anyone. Before she interfered, it was meant to be distraction: a small breakthrough easily taken care of," she hissed. "Do you think I want them to die? He hides behind them, using the school and everyone inside as a wall to protect his own secrets. But if the students were putting down an issue in the city, he would've been unprotected. I did everything in my power to keep students from dying."
"Then why did you kill my team!" Blake shouted, and Cinder was quiet. The forest was dark, now. The only noise Blake could hear was her own panting and her heartbeat pulsing in her ears.
Cinder's anger turned to pity. "I didn't, Blake. The White Fang wasn't fond of your betrayal long before I guided them. I did take advantage of your misfortune though to bring you close, and for that? I apologize."
Blake grit her teeth. Her ears struggled in her bow trying to lay flat. "Why? Why even do that?"
"To ask you to help me."
Horror and offense twisted into a growing anger. "To help you kill hundreds more? I escaped the White Fang! I refuse to take another innocent life!" Blake went to yank her hand free, yet Cinder was the first to loosen her grip.
"That's why, Blake." Gently, Cinder took her hand. Confused, Blake didn't resist being guided to sit down again. "I don't want you to kill anyone at all: when the time comes, I want you to save people. Save as many people as you can from this, make sure as many escape." Cinder took Blake's hands in her own. "Even as Ozpin uses them as shields, please, Blake: take them away. The order that Ozpin has created reaches across the planet, and he's ensured it for hundreds of years, ignoring the pleas of everyone beneath him to hoard this power. This is the time to change it."
It was only now that Blake realized she could never tell when Cinder was lying beforehand: she always looked genuine, even now as she pleaded for her insistence. She didn't move, nor did she speak. Blake only focused with all her might to find a single flinch, even a blink at the wrong time.
"She chose you for your bravery, Blake: the ability to know when to walk away."
Blake looked away. "I ran from the White Fang."
"No. You refused senseless violence. Now, you can stop it. That's all I ask of you, Blake: to stop the violence Ozpin hides behind, and I know you will be able to save so much more."
When Blake had looked back, Cinder had leaned closer. By now, the sunlight had faded from the forest, leaving them in shadow her glowing eye stood out so much from. She smiled, soft and warm.
"You don't have to, Blake. I won't blame you at all... you could leave tomorrow and be free."
Comfort. Power. Fear. All the same things she'd felt when faced with the porcelain woman—the witch named Salem. The same Witch who also believed in her. She hated this. She hated every moment: having to even think of anyone else having to die... but if she didn't fight, then who else would? If Ozpin truly was the Last King who had the entire world kneeling before him, or this King of Mankind who tried to exterminate the faunus... her head hurt. Her head ached just letting those thoughts go through her head as if they were any other.
Comfort. Power. Fear. How many times had she stared into eyes that struck her heart with those feelings? How many times had she been wrong? How many times had she aligned herself with evil instead of what was right? But wasn't she wrong about Adam? All it took was one push and he had changed for the better.
All while she'd run away.
Gently, she pulled her hands from Cinder's own.
This was it, Pyrrha thought. This was what everything in her life had been leading to: the chance to change the world. Another fortunate coincidence, just on a much larger scale. She placed her hand on the thin barrier of glass separating her from the unconscious Amber. Their lives would be intertwined, their souls would be one, and Pyrrha Nikos could simply... cease to be. This was her fate? Her destiny? To die and be reborn?
She focused not on Amber but on her own reflection in the glass, and like an errant shot, a thought came to her.
No.
Fate might have been guiding her, but Jaune was right. She could still make this her own destiny... couldn't she?
And at that moment, despite the time she was given, deep inside, Pyrrha Nikos came to her decision.
"I'll do it."
And Cinder's smile grew wide. "Thank you—"
"Under one condition." Blake matched her gaze, refusing to look away. "Keep my friends safe... and tell me the truth about what's happening."
Ozpin walked up beside her. "Take the time to think on this decision. The assailant that attacked the Fall Maiden has made their first move... and there's no telling when their next move will be."
There were two things Cinder loved most of all: a job well done.
"Of course, Blake."
And a lie well told.
