Chapter Forty-Six: Cabin in the Woods


Balls of fire controlled by Phoenix hovered around the group to try and keep them warm as they trudged along the path that had been pointed out by Maria. However, the storm around them was getting worse, and they had not come across anything along the path. "I thought trails led somewhere," Yang said to the old woman.

"Do you have nothing better to do than to harass a defenseless old lady?" Maria replied. As she spoke, Phoenix heard what sounded like creaking metal ahead of them. Ruby heard it as well and told the group to be quiet so it could be heard better. The quiet allowed the rest of the group to hear it too. Continuing along the trail revealed the source of the sound. The rusty unlocked gate of a farm was being blown by the wind. The sign above the gate said the name of the farm: Brunswick Farms.

"Well, at least one good thing happened today," Blake said as they approached.

"It looks abandoned," Weiss said.

"It's better than this," Phoenix pointed out. "Besides, it being abandoned means that we don't have to worry about the owner complaining about uninvited guests." Nodding in agreement, Qrow held the gate open for the group and encouraged them to get inside and rest. "I have a bad feeling about this," Phoenix couldn't help but think as he walked through it. This feeling wasn't helped by the fact that the storm quickly started to become worse the closer he got to the house. Another thing that concerned him was that unlike other abandoned settlements he'd seen, this one appeared to be undamaged. Ruby noticed this as well and brought it up to the others.

"Maybe everyone left in a hurry," Weiss suggested unsurely, "before things took a turn?" Qrow tried to open the front door.

"Stay on guard," he told them.

Phoenix extinguished the flames he had been controlling and reached into his coat. "I'll pick the lo-" before he could finish speaking, Qrow kicked in the door. "Or you could just kick the door in and let any threats know that we're here. That works too," he muttered as he drew his swords and entered. Everyone except Maria prepared themselves for combat, but no attack came.

"Close the door already!" Maria ordered once it became clear that there was no immediate threat. "It's cold enough in here as it is."

"If only there were a way we could have opened the door without breaking it," Phoenix grumbled as he and Qrow pushed a nearby drawer against the door so it would stay closed. The damage Qrow's entry had caused the wind to keep blowing it open. Qrow gave him an annoyed look but didn't say anything.

"I saw a chimney from the outside," Blake pointed out once they had finished. "Maybe we could get a fire going?" Everybody looked at Phoenix.

"Alright," he agreed to the implied question of if he would light it. Before he left to search for a fireplace connected to the chimney Blake mentioned, Weiss said she would go search for blankets.

"Yang, go with her," Qrow requested as she left.

"Nobody should go anywhere alone until we're sure this place is secure," Phoenix added, mentally cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. "We need to stay on guard. We might not have been attacked yet, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any enemies hiding from us." The others nodded in agreement before splitting off into groups. Phoenix, Oscar, and Maria searched for the fireplace, Yang and Weiss searched for blankets, and Ruby, Blake, and Qrow looked to see if there were any clues about what happened in the entryway.

The first group's search didn't take long. It was in a room right by the entryway. "Looks like a study or a library," Oscar observed as they opened the door to it.

Phoenix quickly got a fire started. "We should help the ot-" Phoenix started to suggest, but Weiss' scream from upstairs cut him off. Drawing his weapons, he made his way up the stairs as quickly as he could. When he reached the top, he saw Ruby, Blake, and Qrow standing at a door. Looking into the bedroom that it led to from behind them revealed Weiss' reason for screaming. Dead bodies were lying in the bed.


After the discovery of the bodies, Phoenix and Qrow tried to take control of the situation. They ushered the others back downstairs to the fireplace. The search for blankets had not yielded any results before the discovery of the corpses, so they would continue it. The two of them were far more used to dealing with dead bodies.

"How about we split up to make the search quicker," Qrow suggested when they reached the top of the stairs.

"I thought we agreed that nobody goes anywhere alone," Phoenix pointed out.

"We'll still be in rooms right by each other. That counts as sticking together, right?"

"That kind of logic is exactly what gets people killed in horror movies. We're not splitting up."

"Aren't you being a bit paranoid, kid?"

"We just found two dead bodies lying in a bed. I think being 'a bit paranoid' is justified," Phoenix replied before sighing. "Look, I want to get this over with quickly as well, and we would probably be fine if we did split up. If the others find out that we broke our own rule though, then they may decide it's alright for them to as well. Would you want Ruby or Yang to be wandering around here alone?"

"Fine," Qrow agreed, sighing as well. "We've had more than enough hypocrisy for one day." Ignoring the obvious jab at Ozpin, Phoenix entered the room where the bodies had been discovered.

Qrow immediately started to search the room, but Phoenix went to get a closer look at the corpses. "Hey, you gonna help me or what?" Qrow said when he noticed this. Ignoring him, Phoenix took hold of the blanket covering the bodies. "We're not bringing down the corpse blankets," Qrow told him.

"Obviously," Phoenix replied, slightly annoyed that Qrow thought he would consider that. "I'm trying to get a better look at the bodies. I don't have what I need to perform a proper autopsy, but I may still be able to find some clues about what caused their deaths."

"You can do that after you've helped me search. The others are waiting for blankets," Qrow reminded him, "and your little examination will probably take a while. I could go off and search on my own, but someone insisted we stick together."

"Fine," Phoenix agreed, going to help him look for blankets that weren't being used by corpses.


The others were still shaken up about the discovery of the bodies when Phoenix and Qrow returned with the blankets they had found. They had also found three additional corpses that likely belonged to the owners' children.

Phoenix wanted to try and comfort Ruby, but he was unsure of what to say. Instead, he decided to sit down next to her in front of the fire and put an arm around her. She leaned into him in response.

The moment was quickly interrupted though.

"Hey Phoenix, we can go check out those dead bodies now," Qrow told Phoenix. The others looked at him questioningly.

"I'm going to see if I can get any clues about what might have caused their death," he explained before turning to Qrow. "Did you really have to phrase it like that?" Qrow shrugged at his question. He got up with a sigh, telling Ruby, "I'll be back soon."

He and Qrow made their way up the stairs and into the room where the bodies were found. "I'll just let you do your thing," Qrow said, taking a seat in a chair in the corner of the room. Nodding, Phoenix moved over to the bed and removed the blanket that covered the bodies, tossing it to the floor.

Something that he noticed the first time he saw the bodies that was much more obvious now was how much they had decomposed. "They appear to be somewhere between the active decay stage and the advanced decay stage of decomposition, but the state of the farm suggests that it's been more than long enough for the bodies to have decomposed much more," he thought. "The bodies being inside and the cold weather most likely slowed the decomposition. That'll make determining how long they've been dead much more difficult.

Both the bodies are in the same state of decomposition, so they must have died at around the same time. There are three possible ways that they ended up like this. The first possibility is that they could have died together. The second one is that one of them died before the other, and the survivor decided to kill the children and then themself. The last possibility and the one that I like the least is that someone else killed all of them and positioned all of their bodies.

There aren't any injuries on the bodies that would be lethal, so the cause of death must have been something else. Poison maybe?" He gave a defeated sigh and walked away from the bodies, unable to find any other clues.

"That was quick," Qrow pointed out. "You find anything?"

"Yes, that sigh was the sound of discovery," He answered sarcastically.

"So you didn't find anything?"

"Nothing that I hadn't already suspected."

"We should probably check the other houses to see if they're the same," Qrow reluctantly suggested. Phoenix agreed, though he was equally reluctant to go out into the storm.


Phoenix's flames were able to somewhat lessen the effect that the storm had on him and Qrow as they made their way from house to house. He didn't protest when Qrow broke down the doors to these houses. "It's not worth the effort," he told him. The residents of all the other houses were dead as well, all lying in their beds.

"You have any ideas yet?" Qrow asked Phoenix

"I have even fewer ideas than before," Phoenix answered frustratedly. "My original theory was that the owners killed themselves after the farm failed and all the other residents left them. Everyone else being dead disproves that though. The only other possibilities that I can think of are mass suicide, or something in the food or water here being poisoned without the residents knowing," he explained. "I haven't seen anything other than the state of the bodies that would suggest either of those possibilities though. Stil, we should probably avoid eating or drinking anything here to be safe." Having finished their search, the duo returned to the house they were staying in.


"It's like the whole place went to sleep and never woke up," Qrow concluded the explanation of what he and Phoenix had found to the others.

"Then we're not staying here, right?" Weiss asked.

"We don't have a choice," he responded. "Storm outside is only getting worse. We'd freeze to death before we made it anywhere."

"I can only do so much," Phoenix added before anyone pointed out that he had kept them warm before. "The storm wasn't nearly as bad earlier. Anything I made that was big enough and hot enough to cancel out the effects of the storm wouldn't be able to be kept up as long as we would probably need it to be. I'd run out of aura," he admitted.

A silence fell over the group as they contemplated their next move. This silence was broken by Maria. "Well, might as well get comfortable,'' she said as she got up from the couch she had been sitting on and went over to one of the bookshelves.

"Yeah, fat chance," Yang responded, not pleased with the idea of sitting around and doing nothing.

"Okay then, let's do something, Ruby suggested. "If this place wasn't abandoned, then there still may be supplies we can use." Oscar agreed with her, hopefully suggesting that they may be able to find a car.

"I'll do another sweep of the grounds with Phoenix," Qrow said. "No one else goes anywhere alone." he reminded them. With that, he and Phoenix went out into the storm again.


Phoenix and Qrow's second search of the farm hadn't yielded any results. The other duos had all discovered something though. Blake and Yang had found a trailer to connect to Yang's bike so they wouldn't have to walk tomorrow. Ruby and Weiss had found the cellar of the house which was filled with alcohol. Maria and Oscar had found the journals of the farm's owner, and Maria was currently reading the first one. Phoenix was tempted to ask to read it instead to see if he could find any clues about what happened, but he decided against it. "She's way too stubborn to just hand them over, and getting into a fight with her over it isn't worth the effort," he thought. "It doesn't matter anyway. We'll be out of here tomorrow."

Ruby, who was sitting on the couch with him, leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He noticed she was shivering slightly when she did this, still cold despite the fire. Quickly making a decision, he took off his gauntlets. Ruby removed her head from his shoulder to give him a questioning look. Before she could ask what he was doing, he had gotten up and taken off his coat. "Here," he said, handing it to her. "It may be a bit big on you, but it'll keep you warm."

"What about you?" Ruby asked, concerned that he would just end up instead.

"Don't worry. I'll be fine," he reassured her. Though not entirely convinced, Ruby relented and got up to put it on. As Phoenix predicted, the coat was too large for her. The bottom of it was a lot closer to the ground and the sleeves covered up most of her hands. The rest of the group that was currently present couldn't help but chuckle at the sight despite the somber mood.

Before Ruby and Phoenix could sit back down, the sound of glass hitting the floor was heard. Both of them let out annoyed sighs, having a good idea of the sound's source. Their suspicions were proven correct when they went to the source of the noise. Qrow was sitting in a chair by the door, drinking from one of the bottles of alcohol from the house's cellar. A second bottle placed next to him was what had caused the sound.

"I thought I said that things here may be poisoned, and we shouldn't eat or drink them," Phoenix said to him, anger and concern both evident in his voice.

Qrow took a moment to finish the sip of his drink he was currently taking before responding. "You said yourself that was unlikely. Besides, there's no way that everybody here was drinking this stuff. That means it didn't cause the deaths, and the booze is good," he rationalized.

"That is terrible reasoning," Phoenix pointed out. Qrow shrugged and took another sip. He and Ruby both clearly wanted to protest more, but they also knew that trying to separate Qrow from alcohol was almost impossible. They were both too tired to get into a fight with him about it that they were bound to lose.

"Storm's cleared up for now," Qrow changed the subject. "We should be able to leave by morning."

"That's good," Ruby said

"No… I don't have a good feeling about this place. Especially with me around."

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked her uncle.

"Sure," he answered sarcastically with a scoff. "Get some rest. I'll wake you guys up just before sunrise." Phoenix doubted that he would be in a condition to wake them up given how much he was drinking but didn't say anything. Ruby gave Qrow one last worried look as he took another sip before she and Phoenix returned to the others to tell them what Qrow had said.

Everyone was relieved that they would be leaving tomorrow. Maria, however, was annoyed that someone much younger than her was telling her to go to bed. She sat down in a chair and continued her reading. Phoenix was equally reluctant to sleep. The possibility of nightmares, concern about their current location, and not trusting Qrow to wake them up in the morning all played a part in this.


Phoenix decided to pretend that he had gone to sleep in order to satisfy the others and was very close to actually doing so despite his best efforts. While lying awake, his thoughts drifted to Ozpin. He had done his best to avoid thinking about him since his initial reaction, instead focusing on the task at hand, but he was no longer able to keep his thoughts at bay. "I understand why he kept his past a secret. He was worried that his allies may turn on him if they found out about his history with Salem. I'm the last person to judge him for doing that.

What I'm mad at him for is not telling us what about Salem's immortality and what will happen if she gets the relics. We have a right to know what we're up against and what we're fighting to prevent. If he doesn't have a plan to deal with Salem, then he could've gotten help with his plans. He may be centuries old, but that doesn't mean he's all knowing. The only slight consolation in all of this is that it wasn't just me that he didn't trust with information this time.

What am I to him anyway? Am I just another pawn in his game? Was telling me about things like his reincarnation and Salem's existence not worth the effort? Did he think I would betray him if I found out about her?

I may not be happy about this situation, but I'd never betray him because of it. He's a father to me, someone I love. I could never tell him though. I know that him adopting me was just for a cover story, and I'm not egotistical enough to think that he actually sees me as a son. Telling him how I saw him would just make things awkward. The closest I ever came to that was telling other people he was my adoptive father.

I always thought that he took me in because he thought I could be useful. Did he actually do it so he could keep an eye on me and make sure that I wasn't reporting back to Cinder. Was he worried about what I would become if I wasn't kept under control? Is he right to worry about that?"

With these thoughts in his head, Phoenix lost his battle against the urge to sleep


This chapter definitely came out a lot faster than some of the other recent ones, but that's honestly not saying a lot. It's longer than some of the other recent chapters though.

I honestly wasn't sure about including Phoenix's thoughts as he tried to figure out what happened. I was worried that it might be seen as boring but obviously decided to keep it in the end.

I decided against him being able to figure out about the Apathy for a couple reasons. Maria, a professional huntress with lots of experience fighting all sorts of Grimm, wasn't able to figure it out until she found out about it in a journal. She may be out of practice, but that doesn't change the fact that she likely still knows a lot about them. The second reason is that the confrontation with them is important to the plot. It's the first time Ruby consciously uses the power of her eyes. They wouldn't have wasted time arguing about the lamp and throwing it down the well if they knew that a group of Grimm under the house were draining their will to do anything, so the confrontation that caused her to use them wouldn't have happened.

I know that Phoenix's thoughts may seem especially angsty, but there are reasons for this. Finding out what the information he had stolen for Cinder had been used for got him questioning what else he's done without realizing it. He promised Ruby that he would try to stop blaming himself for those things and feels like he's disappointing her by having trouble with that. Abyss is worsening his feelings of guilt while also bringing up a lot of his other insecurities and fears. He also just found out that Ozpin, one of the people who he trusted the most, has kept important information from him for the second time. This is on top of all of the other issues he has. The Apathy are also having an impact on his thoughts.

Like I said before, If anyone's interested in a summary of what would be in a Flaming Shadow story, let me know. Thanks for reading!