Riverwood was… quaint Arlene had to give it that. When set against the backdrop of the mountains on one side, and the Whiterun plains on the other, she would even call it picturesque. But when one was as old and well traveled as Arlene was, all small villages like this tended to blur together. Simple farmers, smiths, woodsmen, and other artisans all trying to eek out a living, mostly likely never travelling any more than 10 miles from this village their entire lives.

But even though Arlene had seen a sight like this many times over, the people of Riverwood apparently had not seen an elf all that often as more than a few of the locals watched her with blatant stares. Of course that could always be the blood and ash stained armor she wore, but they were also mostly Nords so she couldn't be sure.

"Things look quiet enough here." Hadvar nudged Arlene from behind. "Come on, there's my uncle."

Approaching the riverside smithy, Arlene saw Hadvar's uncle Alvor. Like Hadvar he was a tall, burly nord, though she sported a thick beard and long swept back blonde hair. Even underneath his dirty red tunic and worn leather apron, Arlene could make out the elder nord's well worked muscles.

"Uncle Alvor! Hello!" Hadvar greeted as Arlene fell behind him, allowing the legionnaire to take the lead.

"Hadvar? What are you doing here? Are you on leave?" Alvor then saw the blood, ash, and dirt covering his nephew. "Shor's bones, what happened to you?" Alvor then looked to Arlene. "And who is this?"

"Uncle please, keep your voice down. I'm fine, but we need to talk." Hadvar tried to calm his uncle.

Alvor seemed to remain suspicious as he eyed Arlene up and down, Arlene feeling herself shrink under his gaze.

"Gods dammit boy she's not pregnant is she?" Avlor grunted.

Both Arlene and Hadvar flushed red while the young nord sputtered out. "What?! No Uncle she's not! She's just a friend. One that saved my life in fact. Come on, I'll explain everything inside."

"Okay okay." Alvor put up his hands. "Come inside then, Sigird will get you something to eat and you can tell me about it."

Once inside, Arlene found that Alvor and his family were nice. Or at least Alvor and his daughter were. His wife Sigird was weirdly jealous of Arlene even speaking to the smith, but at least she still got her her food and drink.

Hadvar updated his family on what occurred at Helgen, the dragon attack, their escape, and his plan to return to Solitude. With Hadvar returning to the Legion, Alvor then offered Arlene free supplies and training at his forge if she went to Whiterun and asked Jarl Balgruff to send more soldiers to protect Riverwood.

A very large part of Arlene didn't want to go meet with a Nordic Noble, especially since the last one she met almost got her killed. But Alvor's family did take her in and feed her, so it was the least she could do. The job sounded simple enough, food, supplies, and training for essentially playing a glorified courier was something she was more than willing to do.

After a well deserved night's rest at Alvor's, Arlene spent the morning learning how to forge some basic weapons and armor. Like any soldier, she was trained in maintaining her gear, but creating something from scratch was a new experience. After selling her newly forged and some scavenged Imperial equipment to Alvor, she had enough gold to head to the local general store, the Riverwood Trader, for additional supplies. After all, all of the supplies she did have were lost when the Empire captured her.

Before she left however, Arlene decided to say one last goodbye to Hadvar. She found the Nordic soldier sitting by the Alvor's fireplace, eating some stew for lunch.

"Hadvar." Arlene greeted as she entered the house.

Turning from his seat, Hadvar nodded and shifted his chair over, gesturing to the open seat beside him. "Arlene. Have a seat, Sigrid made a new batch of apple cabbage stew."

Arlene actively grimaced. While she had to adopt eating vegetables, fruits, and other such foods into her diet since leaving Valenwood, she was raised on the all-meat diet of the Wood Elves and did not find vegetarian dishes particularly palatable.

Shaking her head, Arlene said, "I'm fine for now. I just wanted to stop by and let you know I'm heading out. Probably stop by the trader's before heading to Whiterun."

Hadvar nodded as he stood. "Aye that makes sense. No reason to loiter about when there's dragons on the loose." He then walked up to Arlene and extended his hand. "Well then Arlene, it was an honor to fight by your side. Look for me in Solitude if you're ever in the area. Regardless if you want to join the Legion or not, it's always good to see a friend."

"I might just do that." Smiling, Arlene clasped Hadvar's wrist. "May the Nine watch over you, Hadvar."

Hadvar was briefly taken aback by Arlene's words, before he nodded and smiled in return. "And may the gods watch over your battles, friend."

With that, the two parted ways. Leaving the Nordic homestead behind, Arlene moved to her next destination, the Riverwood Trader. As Arlene stood outside of the two-story cobblestone and wood building however, she could hear the sounds of an argument from inside. Part of Arlene hesitated to enter. She really didn't want to get involved in some familial argument, the idea of it sending a wave of social anxiety through her. But she was also on a bit of a time crunch, and needed to stock up before heading out. So, resolving her nerves, Arlene entered the store.

"Well one of us has to do something!" Arlene heard a voice yell out, obviously female.

"I said no!" A male for shouted back, obviously tired of the argument. "No adventures, no theatrics, no thief-chasing!"

"Well what are you going to do then, huh? Let's hear it!" The woman yelled once more.

Entering the store, Arlene saw the two who were arguing. Both were human Imperials, the woman an attractive younger woman with brown hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a simple yellow dress. The man had a similar facial structure, obviously marking them as kin, most likely siblings, sporting a short crew cut and well kept facial hair, wearing a simple light red tunic and vest.

"We are done talking about this!" The man motioned to yell again, before spotting Arlene out of the corner of his eye. He immediately stopped himself, and somewhat bashfully turned to face the elf. "Oh, a customer. Sorry you had to hear that. The name's Lucan. If you need anything, my sister Camilla or I will be happy to help."

"No trouble." Arlene shook her head, wanting to get away from the awkwardness as quickly as possible. "I'm planning a trip out to Whiterun very soon. I'm well stocked enough on food and weapons, but I'll need some more general gear. A backpack, tent, bedroll, rope, tinderbox, torches, as well as any potions and spell books you may have." The sale of all of her equipment to Alvor netted her about 70 gold, which she hoped would be enough to pay for everything.

Lucan grinned widely at the high spending customer and said. "Of course! I can get all of that together and more! I will say though things like potions of healing and spellbooks are rather rare, but I'm sure I have a few laying about. If you want anything advanced you'd have to go to either a Jarl's court wizard, or the College of Winterhold." He then moved to gather all of the requested supplies.

Arlene simply nodded her head as Lucan went to work. As he shuffled about, pulling supplies and placing them on the counter, Arlene, growing bored, asked, "So… did something happen?"

Lucan stumbled a bit at Arlene's question and nervously laughed. "Yes, we did sort of have a bit of a… break in. But don't worry! We still have plenty to sell. Robbers only some ornamental, solid gold dragon's claw. Anyway, here's all of the supplies you asked for, as well as 4 potions of healing, and I found two spell tomes, one that teaches a spell called Clairvoyance, and another called Oakflesh. I couldn't make heads or tails of either, but maybe you'll have better luck. The total will run you… let's make it an even 150 gold."

It was now Arlene's turn to choke on air as she nervously laughed. "Uh… I can't afford that. But!" she quickly interjected as she saw Lucan frown. "I am, in fact, a sellsword. Perhaps there is some favor I could do for you in order to help cover this, such as help you get your claw back?" It irked Arlene to get distracted with a side job like this, but sometimes they were necessary.

Lucan stroked his beard as he thought, looking Arlene up and down. "Hmm. I think that does sound fair. Tell you what, you give me what gold you have, and I'll let you take all the gear. I have some coin coming in from my last shipment. You bring my claw back, we can subtract the difference, and you can get the rest of the coin as a reward. Deal?" Lucan asked, holding out his hand.

Arlene nodded and shook it. "Deal."

"Good. From what I know those thieves are held up in Bleak Falls Barrow, Northeast of town."

"So this is your plan, Lucan?" Camilla cut into the conversation from behind Arlene.

"Yes. Now you don't have to go, do you?" Lucan smugly retorted.

This only seemed to anger his sister. "Oh really? Well I think your new helper here needs a guide."

"Wh...no...I" Lucan sputtered out. "Oh by the Eight fine! But only to the edge of town!"

Smiling at her victory, Camilla turned to Arlene and gestured to her to follow. "Come on, this way. I'll show you the way there."

Arlene let Camilla take the lead as they walked through Riverwood's main road. Camilla gave some basic directions to the barrow, most importantly showing that it was on a mountain rather close to the village. As they walked, Camilla went off on some tirade about the thieves and how dangerous the ruins were, and about the claw itself, but in all honesty, Arlene wasn't paying attention. She paid more attention to the sway of Camilla's hips as she maintained a constant distance behind her.

"Well here we are." Camilla said as she stopped moving.

"Huh?" Arlene snapped out of her stupor and quickly raised her gaze.

"This is the bridge out of town. The path up the mountain to the Northwest leads to Bleak Falls Barrow. I should be getting back to my brother before he throws a fit, but thank you again for agreeing to help us. Skyrim is a harsh place and not everyone would be willing to help their neighbors." Camilla smiled.

Arlene felt herself flush a bit at how positively radiant Camilla looked in the midday sun. "Yeah well. It's… you know, what I do. Fight monsters… and stuff." Arlene fumbled out, causing Camilla to raise an eyebrow. "You know what, I'm just going to go kill some bandits now. I'll be back with your claw."

"Good luck." Camilla chuckled a bit at Arlene's awkward response. "Lucan and I will be waiting for you back in the shop." the Imperial then turned around and made her way back to her store.

Sighing in frustration at her own inability to flirt, Arlene made her way up the mountain pass to Bleak Falls Barrow.

Arlene practically collapsed to the ground as she stood over the body of the Draugr Overlord at the end of Bleak Falls Barrow. As impressive and intimidating as the Barrow was on the outside, once Arlene was within the ruins, she found it wasn't too different from the many Ayleid and Dwemer ruins she explored across Tamriel. Following her usual pattern of sneak in, assassinate any hostiles, then advance, Arlene made a quick headway into the grave.

Several dead bandits and lots and lots of dead giant spiders later, Arlene found herself standing within Bleak Falls Barrow over the body of Arvel the Swift, with the Golden Dragon Claw in her hands. From there, she was beset by the Nordic undead known as draugrs. The first draugr that jumped her caused Arlene to scream in a panic, but after killing a few of them, she found them to be not much more trouble than skeletons or zombies. She continued forward, and quickly solved the ancient Nordic "puzzle" of match the pictures, allowing her access to the Barrow's inner sanctum.

Within the inner chamber, Arlene was greeted with the magnificent sight of a cave that had been carved into a majestic tomb. The top of the chamber had a small opening to the outside, allowing natural light to illuminate the room. There was even a small waterfall in the back, that flowed behind a massive stone wall that had some kind of carvings on it.

Curious as to the writing, Arlene broke from her cover, inadvertently triggering the powerful Draugr Overlord entombed nearby. The overlord proved a far more difficult foe than Arlene could have anticipated. Unlike his minions, the overlord retained much more of the dexterity and skill he had possessed in his living years, allowing him to fight toe to toe with Arlene.

Arlene also did not expect the strange magic the draugr seemed to possess. As the two dueled, with Arlene attempting to slip her way passed the draugr's defenses to no avail, she was blasted backwards as the draugr seemed to shout… something at her. The blast of force that hit her was unrelenting, knocking her to the ground as she couldn't resist at all. Dazed and confused, the shout almost spelt her end as the draugr slammed his axe into her prone form.

It was only the Oakflesh spell that Arlene had the foresight to cast on herself, that saved her life. The alteration spell slowed the attack enough that the blade didn't tear her in half, allowing Arlene the time to draw her iron dagger and stab it right into the draugr's eye, killing it.

Arlene remained motionless on the ground for a few seconds, the only noise in the chamber that of her heavy breathing. An easy job. This was supposed to be an easy job. Sneak in, maybe kill a few bandits and animals, and retrieve the stolen goods. Fighting an ancient, undead warlord was not something she expected she had to do today.

But, like any good adventuring hobo, Arlene had learned to roll with the punches that life threw at her. And so she picked herself up, and moved to loot the body of the overlord. The draugr's greataxe was freezing to the touch, and Arlene distinctly remembered the icy pain when it hit her. It was obviously enchanted with some Frost magick, and while she wasn't one to use great weapons, she was sure she could get a good price for it.

As she examined the axe, something else on the body caught her attention. On the draugr was some kind of pentagon-shaped stone tablet. Bending down, Arlene grabbed the tablet, and saw that it had some kind of map carved on the front, but it was rather faded and hard to tell what it was a map of.

Flipping the stone over, she found an inscription. It was not a language she'd ever seen before, but as she read it, her mouth moved automatically.

"HET NOK UN MAHLaaN DROGGE ERei SULeyK SE ALDUIN VOKRii." she spoke. She did not know the language, but she knew the meaning. Here lie our fallen lords, until the power of Alduin revives.

Arlene raised her eyebrow at the inscription and shook her head. Crazy ancient nords. She then stuffed the stone into her bag, thinking she could sell it to a historian or wizard or something. As Arlene then cleared out the rest of the tomb for treasure, getting quite a bit of gold and jewelry from a nearby chest, she then moved to the stone wall in the center of the chamber.

After a quick look over, she saw no immediate treasure, but as she looked something shining caught her eye. One of the words on the wall was glowing. Scowling, she moved closer and closer to the wall, not paying attention to how the word glew brighter and brighter and the world around her grew darker and darker. As she stood in front of the wall, Arlene almost collapsed as she felt the word force itself into her mind. And force was a good term for what just happened, as she read the word as FUS, or force.

Shaking off the confusion and headache, Arlene stood up. "What in the name of Y'ffre's leafy balls was that?" Looking back at the wall, she saw that the words were no longer glowing, leaving only a stone monolith.

Almost immediately, Arlene decided to just completely ignore what just happened. This entire thing just reeked of magick, spirits, and a bunch of other stuff that she just did not want to deal with. She knew in her adventuring bones, that if she investigated this she'd get involved in some crazy quest that'd probably kill her. That was the exact opposite of what she wanted to do. All she wanted to do was some good old wholesome sellswording, killing bandings, protecting nobles, scouting wilds, and the such.

And so, with a silent prayer that this wouldn't lead into anything else, Arlene left the Barrow out of a convenient exit she found at the end of the chamber.

Present day…

Arlene stirred in her bed, awakening to the sound of stifled giggles. Waking up, she saw her beloved Serana, currently reading something on her scroll with an amused grin on her face.

"What's so funny?" Arlene asked with a yawn, stretching as she awoke.

Rather than responding, Serana held out her scroll to Arlene. A bit confused, Arlene took the scroll and began to read. Serana was reading an article written on the Vale News Network's website titled, "A new era of progress at Beacon Academy."

Raising an eyebrow, Arlene quickly read through the article. The article was reporting on Arlene's appointment as a professor in Beacon Academy, talking about how Headmaster Ozpin was "breaking down racial barriers" at Beacon. The author was quick to praise the Headmaster for his actions, and ended with a message hoping that Arlene's appointment will help lead to greater inclusion of Faunus within the huntsmen profession, an increased respect for faunus across Vale, and a reduction in tension between faunus and humans.

Arlene snorted. "Ozpin's public announcement of my hiring was a good play. Not only did he get a new, highly skilled professor, but by making it a public spectacle, it put him in the limelight, increasing his own reputation with the faunus and their supporters outside of Beacon." Arlene couldn't help but smile as well. It was only her second day at work and Ozpin already used her for his own benefit. "Seems Ozpin may make for a fun opponent after all. He's apparently not just some senile, old wizard." Arlene said as she revised her threat rating on Ozpin.

"You only say that to justify the fact that he pulled one over on you." Serana teased.

The dragonborn pouted in response. "I'm not making excuses."

Serana leaned forward and pinched Arlene's pouting cheeks. "That's a lie. And I know every time you lie, Arlene." She let go and sat back as Arlene rubbed her cheek in pain. "Besides, even if I didn't, I know how much you hate losing. You physically cannot accept it when someone outsmarts you."

Arlene tried to come up with some kind of response, but didn't have one. So she opted to reply simply with, "Bitch."

"Child." Serana snapped back.

"Please I know you love me." Arlene smirked.

"That may be true but that doesn't make my previous statement false." Serana deadpanned.

Again, Arlene didn't have a retort. "Okay, fine, whatever." Arlene rolled her eyes as she conceded the argument. "Now if you excuse me, I need to go get ready for my first class."

Arlene stood at the edge of the Emerald Forest once more, this time surrounded dozens of students who all looked at her with varying degrees of expectations. Arlene cast her gaze over them, checking them against her roster as she called attendance. As was expected, most of her students were the freshman first years who just started, but there were a few exceptions.

Specifically, Arlene looked at a bunny-eared second year named Velvet and her team CFVY. It was curious because according to Arlene's records, team CFVY had already taken Wilderness Survival 101, and passed with flying colors. Arlene assumed they, and a few other upperclassmen, were being allowed to retake the course as Arlene could teach them far more skills than what they've already learned.

Finishing the roll call and finding everyone in attendance, Arlene began her opening speech. "Hello everyone. For those of you who don't know me, I am professor Arlene Volkihar, Beacon's newest professor of Pathfinding and Wilderness Survival. And this is Wilderness Survival 101."

She paused for a moment for everyone to take in her words before continuing. "For those of you who don't know what this class is about, despite its very clear name, this class is meant to teach you how to survive in the wilderness. And by surviving I don't mean fighting grimm and other such beasts, but by living off the land, remaining unseen by opponents, and sheltering yourself from the elements."

Arlene paced in front of the students as she spoke, gauging the students' reactions and attention. As she expected, most of the students were paying her the necessary amount of respect and attention, with the few faunus in the class looking at her with admiration, and a few humans looking at her with contempt.

She then continued her introduction. "This class will be harsh because the wilderness is harsh. I will be harsh, and because I am harsh, you will learn. You will know suffering, and you will know pain, but you will become stronger for it. And by the end of this class, you will know how to survive. Any questions?"

At first there was just stunned silence. Obviously they weren't expecting the professor to be so… intense. At least there was silence until one exceedingly brave, and stupid, voice called out.

"Yeah I got one. What's Professor Ozpin thinking letting an animal teach us?" the voice of Cardin Winchester spoke out, smugly looking at the professor as his team snickered around him.

Almost everyone in the class felt their jaws drop at that. The sheer disrespect and racism was so sudden that it took many students a few moments to actually recognize what was said. Said students then began glaring at the leader of team CRDL, particularly the faunus students and their teams.

Arlene however, barely reacted. She was at most, just mildly unamused. She had learned about the discrimiation of Faunus in this world from Doctor Oobleck, and she wasn't surprised by the fact that there were a few bigots in her class. And this was far from the first time she had experienced such intolerance.

In her experience, whenever the varying races and cultures of Tamriel intermingled there was almost always stress and conflict. That was the reality of the tribal mindsets of mortals. The Nords proved this time and time again with their treatment of the Khajiits and Dark Elves, or every time someone called her "elf" with nothing short of pure disgust. And it wasn't limited to just the humans either. The Altmer were famous xenophobes and elven supremacists, while the Dunmer were more than happy to enslave the argonians and any other unfortunate "N'wah" they could prey upon.

All in all, Arlene found that she honestly did not care about the discrimination of the faunus here on Remnant. What she did care about however, was the utter lack of disrespect this mayfly was showing her. That was unforgivable. He needed to be taught a lesson.

"Hm. Cardin Winchester, leader of Team CRDL correct?" Arlene asked as Cardin nodded. "Front and center team CRDL. Now."

Cardin snorted as he swaggered up to the front of the class with his team, standing before Arlene.

Cockily, Cardin said to the dragonborn, "What teach? You going to punish me for using my freedom of speech?"

To his surprise, Arlene did not yell at him, or get angry. Instead she only smiled.

"Cardin Winchester. You must be quite the comedian, a real joker." She said with a pleasant tone.

"I try my best." Cardin smugly shot back.

Arlene's smile only grew bigger as she got closer to Cardin. Being a short wood elf, she had to look up to the boy to meet his gaze. "You know, I appreciate someone with confidence. Someone who isn't afraid to speak his mind. In fact, I like you. Why don't you come over to my place and you can fuck my sister."

"Wha-" Before Cardin could even finish his confused question, a deafening CRACK rang out as Arlene's fist met his stomach. The punch was so sudden and so hard that not only did Cardin's aura instantly break, but his armor indented and cracked as well. Cardin fell to his knees immediately, gasping for air before he emptied his stomach on the grass.

The rest of team CRDL watched in horror as their leader vomited his breakfast out, choking on his spit.

"What, no longer feel like laughing!?" Arlene yelled at them, causing the rest of the team to snap to attention and look forward, too afraid to meet her gaze. "I thought you were a team of comedians!? A group of real chucklefucks!" No one in team CRDL made a noise as they started to sweat. "Why aren't you laughing!? Laugh mayflies!" Arlene commanded.

Russel, Dove, and Sky glanced at each other, obviously confused.

"I said laugh!" Arlene yelled again.

"HA HA HA HA HA!" The RDL trio began to scream out into the air.

"LOUDER!"

"HA! HA! HA! HA!" The boys forced out, their voices straining to scream at that volume.

As they screamed Arlene looked back down to Cardin, who was struggling to his feet. "What Winchester? Can't take a single love tap from a girl? What in the name of Oblivion are you going to do when a Grimm comes by and says hello? Bend over and die?"

Cardin couldn't respond however as he coughed out more spit, still recoiling from the sucker punch.

"What, no more jokes? I haven't been this disappointed in a recruit in a long time. I bet your mother just wishes she had swallowed you. Stand the fuck up." Arlene grabbed Cardin by the crook of his arm and yanked him up. "Now, because you are all such a group of comedians, you are no longer Team CRDL. From now on you shall be called Team Chucklefuck! Everyone here is to refer to you as Team Chucklefuck! You will only respond to Team Chucklefuck! If you respond to anything else I will make it my personal mission to destroy you. Any objections!?"

Cardin was still sucking in air while the rest of his team was too scared to say anything.

"Good." Arlene then turned to the rest of the student body, all staring at her in a mixture of fear and shock. "I want to make one thing abundantly clear! I do not care if you are a human or a faunus. I do not care if you are a man or a woman. I do not care about the color of your skin, what gods you worship, or how rich your daddy is. To me, you are all equally worthless! I will teach you all how to survive, but more importantly I will teach you all respect. And maybe one day, you will be worth more than the shit you excrete out daily. Now, unless anyone else wants to end up like Winchester here, the only back talk I should hear is, 'Yes Ma'am!' Have I made myself clear!?"

"Yes Ma'am!" the entire class spoke in unison, some even saluted involuntarily.

"Damn right." her head then snapped to Team Chucklefuck. "Collect your leader and get back to your spot."

Immediately Team Chucklefuck moved to collect their leader and swiftly returned to the crowd of students. However, everyone around them gave the team a massive berth. The team was as good as radioactive as no one wanted to get near them and draw the ire of the eccentric professor. The rest of the class was silent and unmoving, actively avoiding Arlene's gaze, not entirely sure how to react to what just happened..

"Now then, let's begin class." Arlene immediately switched to teaching mode as if nothing just happened. "First things first, besides grimm, what's most likely to kill you when lost in woods like this one? Freshmen only, upperclassmen should already know the answer to this."

The various students looked at each other, unsure if they wanted to participate. Slowly, Jaune was the first one to raise his hand, and Arlene called on him.

"Uhh, wild animals?" he unsurely supplied.

"Wrong." Arlene flatly said, causing the boy to groan. "Anyone else?"

"Starvation?" Yang called out.

Arlene shook her head. "Better, but still wrong. The body can go days without food, so you can put that off to start with. No, the two ways you'll most likely die will be either from falling, or from exposure. Now, I can't help you if you're too dumb to look where you step, but I can keep you from freezing to death.

"We can start with the most basic type of survival shelter." Arlene said as she quickly began to assemble her shelter. It was in fact a very basic shelter, essentially a wooden tent made out of branches leaning against a tree, big enough for one, maybe 2 people. "There are three things you need to make sure you protect yourself from when building a shelter. The cold ground, the cold wind, and the rain. Any one of those will sap your body heat from you and weaken you."

She then began piling leaves atop the shelter as a roof and within it as bedding. "When sleeping on the ground, the dirt itself will drain your body of heat. If you have a tarp or cloth you can make a bed using that, otherwise a pile of leaves works fine as well."

Weiss, having been sufficiently intimidated by Arlene, politely raised her hand to ask a question.

"Yes, Miss Schnee." Arlene called on her.

"Thank you professor. I wanted to know why building shelters or bedding like this is necessary when our auras protect us from extreme temperatures." Weiss asked with a respectful tone of voice.

"Good question." Arlene nodded, causing Weiss to preen. "The reason this is important is that relying on Aura to do everything for you is an easy way to die young." Weiss then deflated a bit. "What if you were fighting and were out of aura? What if you were being hounded by enemies, and needed to conserve your aura? Would you continue to use it just to constantly stay warm?" Arlene shook her head. "No, because that would be a waste. Remember, aura is a tool, but can become a crutch if you use it for everything."

Looking to inject some levity into the situation, Yang elbowed Weiss and said, "Hey don't worry. If you get cold at night Weisscream, you could cuddle up next to me."

Weiss rolled her eyes and was about to retort when Arlene interrupted. "No, that is actually a good strategy. Sharing body heat is a classic survival tactic, especially in arctic lands and winter months."

"Oh uh, yeah. That's totally why I said that." Yang somewhat bashfully said, rubbing the back of her head and somewhat embarrassed that her lewd joke was taken seriously.

"So why not just keep a fire going?" Jaune asked. When Arlene's head swiveled to face him, he nervously looked away.

"A fire, while useful, is far more difficult to get started than most people think. An untrained person with no resources outside of wood and kindle can still spend all day on it. Now, I will make you all trained, but that's not until later. Any other questions?" A general silence was the response. "Ok then. You all saw me make this shelter, and I've had some notes on the construction sent to your scrolls. Every team is to construct their own shelter, and have it finished before the end of class."

Immediately the students got to work, not willing to get on the professor's bad side with laziness. Arlene watched as the students constructed their shelters, occasionally giving notes and answering questions when asked. After about roughly half an hour, Arlene called time and moved to inspect the student's work.

Team CFVY easily had the most impressive shelter. Of course they had already taken this course, and most likely had experience in the wilderness, so that was to be expected. Arlene could see pride well up in the young Velvet Scarlatina as she complimented their shelter and gave them a pass, something her leader Coco immediately began teasing her for.

Arlene left team CFVY to their devices. Good natured teasing and joking helped build camaraderie after all, something important in a battlefield. Next she approached team JNPR, who similarly had a structure of rather decent quality. However, unlike team CFVY, when JNPR worked on their shelter, Arlene saw that Ren and Nora had done all of the work, while only Jaune and Pyrrha watched.

"A well built shelter." Arlene said as she inspected it. "But tell me, why were Ren and Nora the only ones building it?"

Both Jaune and Pyrrha grew a bit red and looked away in shame and embarrassment as Ren responded. "You see professor, both Nora and I have experience in crafting makeshift shelters such as this, as a byproduct of our childhoods. Because of our experience we found it was best for us to take the lead on this project." Both Nora and Ren beamed a bit with pride.

Arlene's face was impassive. "You say you took the lead, I say you prevented your teammates from learning. Rather than guiding them with advice where needed, you simply did all the work for them, and their skill sets now suffer as a result." Arlene bluntly hammered them, causing Ren and Nora's face to drop. "Team JNPR, you receive a failure for the day." Arlene then walked away before JNPR had a chance to argue for their grade.

Moving on, Arlene made her way to team RWBYs spot, where the team nervously stood around their shelter. When Arlene watched team RWBY work, it was obvious to her that none of them had any real experience as outdoorswomen. She saw Weiss constantly bickering with her leader Ruby about the correct way to assemble the shelter, while Yang just seemed lost. The only one who had any semblance of an idea of what to do was Blake, but unlike Ren and Nora, she was not skilled enough to carry her whole team.

Arlene approached their shelter, which only made them more nervous. Once she was there, she understood why. With a sigh, Arlene gave the shelter a slight push and the entire thing collapsed. On the outside, the shelter looked relatively usable, but it was not properly propped into the ground nor was it secured with bindings.

Team RWBY all winced as their shelter collapsed, unable to look Arlene in the eyes and she turned her blank stare at them. "You didn't secure it." Arlene simply said.

When no one responded, Yang elbowed Ruby in the ribs. The younger sister glared at the elder, before realizing that Arlene was now staring directly at her. "Uhh." Ruby started as she collected her thoughts. "We didn't have any rope, and we couldn't find any plants that were flexible enough to be a tie."

"You don't have any rope?" Arlene incredulously asked. "What about your shoelaces or ribbons. Your cloak or the hems of your skirts could also be torn and used as bindings." Ruby seemed horrified by her suggestion as she grasped her crimson cloak. "Part of surviving is improvising with what you have on hand, something which you all failed to do. Team RWBY, you fail for the day." All of team RWBY hung their heads in defeat as Arlene moved on.

Leaving them behind, Arlene didn't even need to go see what team Chucklefuck was doing to know that they had already failed. Cardin was still incapaciated over the beating he received, and his teammates spent more time bickering over what to do than actually doing anything.

Once her inspections were all over, Arlene gathered her class up. Majority of her class failed to live up to her standards and failed their first assignment. The atmosphere of the class was one of gloom and disappointment, rather different from the start.

"So…" Arlene began, drawing attention to herself. "I hope you all now understand what this class is, and what I expect from all of you. What you learn here can mean the difference between life and death in the wilderness. You should never assume you can find shelters and inns during your missions and adventures. Be glad that failing to build a structure here only resulted in a bad grade, and not death." Arlene noted that no one was really brought up by her words, but she didn't really care.

Arlene continued on. "Now, your homework is to design blueprints for a makeshift shelter. It can be the one we did in class here, or different designs you can find in your own research. You are then to write a paper analyzing the structure, primarily its strengths and weaknesses. Minimum 800 words." Multiple students groaned at the amount of work she was piling on them. "Shut up I wasn't asking for opinions. This will be done and submitted by the start of next class. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am." several students barked out, while a few others groaned it out or silently nodded.

"Good. Now get out of here." Arlene gestured her head back to the main campus.

Many of the students immediately followed her orders and took flight, returning to Beacon as fast as they could. All in all, Arlene thought this was a pretty good first class.

"Would you care to explain yourself, professor Volkihar?" A somewhat enraged Glynda Goodwitch asked as she stood over Arlene's desk. Meanwhile Arlene tried very hard to maintain eye contact and not let her eyes drift over the senior professor.

"Whatever it was, it was Serana's idea." Arlene immediately denied, despite having no idea what Glynda was actually referring to.

Glynda cocked an unconvinced eyebrow. "Oh really? Serana was the one who convinced you to scare half of your students into requesting class transfers after the first day, as well as physically assaulting one of our students?"

Arlene rolled her eyes. So that's what this was about? "Please. The Winchester boy is at best just another body for the meat grinder, and at worst a detriment to every huntsman and huntswoman he will work with."

Sighing and shaking her head, Glynda pinched the bridge of her nose. "Mr. Winchester may be a delinquent, as his abhorrent actions and attitude towards you very much proved, we as a school have ways of handling harassment and disciplining students that do not require physical assault."

"There's no need to get all uppity about this Glynda." Arlene sat back in her seat. "Winchester was being a little shit, so I just taught him the pecking order. It's just like what I had to go through in basic training."

"This is not the army." Glynda deadpanned.

"Really?" Now it was Arlene's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Here I thought that we were training children how to fight and kill by the hundreds. Sounds like building an army to me."

Glynda took a calm breath before responding to Arlene's jab. "They are here to become defenders of Remnant, to protect it from the Grimm."

"Defending Remnant would also mean protecting it from the humans and faunus that mean to hurt it." Arlene countered. "Last I checked bandits were the second most common prey for huntsmen, after the Grimm. And no single huntsmen can fight all of these terrors alone, ergo the need for an army."

"Huntsmen aren't controlled by the government like soldiers are." Glynda fired back. "We cannot be ordered to go to war. We choose what jobs we want to take."

Arlene shrugged. "Fine you're building an army of mercenaries, not soldiers. My point still stands."

A frown immediately marred Glynda's face before she sighed, taking another deep breath. "I am not here to debate the morality of being a huntsman. What I am here to do is ensure that no physical altercations will occur between you and the students again."

"I won't lay a hand on the mayflies so long as they don't give me a reason to." Arlene honestly said. "But Winchester needed to be brought down a peg or three. I could tell he was the biggest fish in a tiny pond before getting here. He was arrogant and misjudged his strength against his opponent. Something you would agree would be lethal in the field. Better I give him a cold dose of reality than a Grimm."

Glynda's countenance remained blank. "You know, we have a saying here in Remnant about pots and kettles. It's meant to teach about hypocrisy."

Arlene barked out a laugh in response. "I may be arrogant, but I am at least fully aware of my abilities and what I can do. Winchester wasn't."

"This doesn't change the fact that you not only brought down Mr. Winchester's arrogance, but you broke his confidence. That is why I am saying you should have handled this differently. We are here to build students up, not tear them down."

Arlene dismissed Glynda's point with a shake of her head. "If Winchester winds up dropping out because of something like this then he's not huntsman material anyway. Otherwise, he'll have to pull his head out of his ass, learn some respect, and actually become something. Win win either way."

Seeing that this conversation was going nowhere, Glynda sighed. "Do you truly not feel any remorse about what you did?"

"Nope." Arlene immediately responded, popping the 'p.'

Glynda's face immediately hardened into an even colder and more professional mask. "Fine then. Because Mr. Winchester started this with his bigotted behavior, I can overlook your actions just this once." Glynda then withdrew her riding crop and leaned in close to Arlene. "But if you so much as harm a hair on another one of my students, you will answer to me."

Looking into Glynda's eyes, Arlene couldn't help but feel rather surprised. Glynda's gaze was serious and focused, not intimidated by Arlene in the slightest. If Arlene stepped out of line, Glynda was more than willing to intervene to protect her students. In all honesty, it was refreshing having someone stand up to her like this. She was so infamous back in Tamriel that anyone who knew her walked on eggshells around her, for fear of waking the dragon.

"You know Glynda, I think I misjudged you." Arlene said with a smile. "I thought you were, at best, a minion for Ozpin. But you have a fire in you. Do you want to get a drink? Maybe come back to my room after for some fun?" Let it be known that the Dragonborn was not one who pursued easy targets.

To her credit, Glynda did not react at all to Arelene's blunt flirtation. "No." she coldly declined before turning around and walking away.

A/N, 12/06/20: And we're back. First I would like to say that this fic is not dead. I had just found that writing 3 fics simultaneously was a bit too much work, and wanted to see if I could finish my other fics before returning to this one. While I haven't finished them yet, I just wanted to write up another chapter of Spinner of Webs so you all know that this fic isn't abandoned.

Anyway, we have our first class and the good old racist Cardin Winchester. I went through a few ideas of what Arlene would do to Cardin, ranging from simply charming him to even poisoning him. In the end, I felt like a "Full Metal Jacket" reference was the way to go.

Review Responses:

JCtherebel: Thanks!

GiantPsychoGecko: I hope you enjoyed the way I had her handle Cardin!

Sneky: Thanks! I very much enjoy writing Arlene and Serana. As for the type of Faunus, they believe that they are both Bat Faunus, since they're vampires.

Mpyrkh: Lol I should make a deadpool for people betting who gets bit first.

Celticmagi: Glad you enjoyed it!

AurelLor: That's a great compliment. Thanks!

Pitou-Senpai: Here it is!

Oleron: Thanks!

With this, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, stay safe, have some happy holidays, and I'll see you in the next one.