A Raggedy Cloak

I don't own RWBY. This Episode is unrelated to any other Episode in the series. Spoilers for Volume 6. Special Thanks to Silent Magi for helping me with the bits I was stuck on.

There was a lonely girl trapped in a tower. That much was common enough as far as such stories went. There was, however, the winds of chance and destiny to take into account, and the red cloth that had been picked up in those winds. A single bit of happenstance could, at times, cause the largest of differences.

The girl, Salem by name, was sitting quietly, mourning the lack of any companionship as she silently prayed for someone, anyone to end her loneliness. It was at that moment that the cloth blew into the room. For good or ill, it landed in the room, seeming a strange answer to her prayers. In little time, she had fashioned the cloth into a cloak, which she made float as if it were filled with the form of a person.

In this way, she found a companion of sorts, or at least something she could pretend was a person. She puppeteered the cloak, giving it 'moods' to match her own as she pretended to have discussions with it. And so she passed the time, still consumed by loneliness, but able to at least pretend.

It was at this point that a young hero named Ozma entered the castle, wishing to rescue the lonely girl that he had heard of in stories, but the story of their love, the tragedy of what befell them, that was the same as all other such tales and is too disheartening to repeat.

Instead, it would be best to focus upon the tale of the cloak, for when Salem had been cast into the pool of life by the Brother of Light and sentenced to eternal life, she had been wearing the cloak that she had kept during her imprisonment, the cloak that she refused to abandoned and treated as an old friend, and a miraculous thing occurred. The cloak could now move under its own power, Salem's years of enchanting it and the blessed pool creating a soul within the cloak. The cloak could not speak, yet. It was not yet complete.


It was, quite fittingly, when the Brother of Darkness visited his wrath upon the world for what Salem had made them do, leaving her the last soul alive, that the cloak was given the final enchantments it had needed, but still it would not speak, not yet aware that it was even capable of such a feat.

Alas, had it known, all that came to pass might have been avoided. Instead, Salem, seeking an end to her eternity, removed the cloak and cast herself into a pool of destruction. When she arose from the pit, now stained with the Darkness that birthed the Grimm, Salem was surprised to be greeted by her cloak, which floated over to her quickly.

"Mistress Salem!" the cloak shouted, "Are you hurt?"

"Miss Cloak?" she asked in surprise.

"Are you hurt, Mistress Salem?" the cloak repeated.

"Come along, Miss Cloak," Salem said, "And do not call me 'Mistress Salem.' Salem is enough."


Salem traveled through the world with her enchanted cloak, wandering an empty wasteland until she settled down in a cottage in the forest. Even when people returned, Salem remained where she was in the changing world, the cloak her only companion until Ozma returned due to the machinations of the God of Light.

Had fate been kinder, this tale could have ended better.

With the lovers reunited, a kingdom was formed, for good or ill, and from the kingdom came an empire, born of the blood of those who opposed it. Peace, Salem assured her husband and her friend, was worth the cost, and both accepted this logic uneasily.

Salem and Ozpin had children, the family they had been denied when he had died the first time, and the cloak was treated as a beloved honorary aunt by the children. All seemed well, albeit unsteadily so.

The conflict became inevitable once the children showed a proficiency with magic.

"Why bother uniting humanity," Salem said to Ozma, "When we can replace them with something better than they could ever be?"

"Salem, I think Ozma…" the cloak began, only to be cut off.

"I don't seem to recall asking for the opinion of a pile of rags," Salem stated coldly, causing the cloak to visibly wilt and lower herself closer to the floor.

It was after this conversation that both truly realized that the Salem they had known was truly gone, and they spoke privately, forming a plan to get the children out of her clutches. The night Ozma was to spirit the children away, however, was the night that the tragedy finally came to pass.


As Ozma led the children towards the door under cover of darkness, he felt eyes watching them. Turning, he saw Salem standing there with rage in her eyes and a tattered, burned, mass of red and white fabric in her hands, on which the scent of bleach was unmistakable, a fabric which was barely recognizable as having been anything until it softly said, "S-Sorry, Oz… C-couldn't hold out…"

Salem tossed aside the fabric in disgust, letting it fall to the floor as she raised her hand to attack Ozma, who raised his staff. As they readied for battle, the remains of the cloak weakly tried to fly over and shield the children from the magic, but it was too late. All that was accomplished was the death of the children and the cloak being torn and burned beyond what any tailor could repair.

What scraps were left were carried off in the wind, out of the view of Salem as she stood alone after all was done. It seemed that the miracle of the cloak had been finally brought to a conclusion. One could understandably assume that the life had been ripped out of it.

But the cloak, enchanted by the Wizard and the Witch, and imbued with the essence of a soul by the actions of both Brothers, was not to be so easily destroyed. It reformed itself, over time, passing from wearer to wearer, but it was not what it once was. The magic had diminished, and it could no longer move wholly under its own power. Instead, it needed a host to wear it, giving it a human form to speak through and through which the soul could interact with the world.

And so it came to pass from hand to hand, until one fateful day, when it found the right soul, a soul that it could give itself to wholly, allowing the child to have the memories as if they were her own while the cloak, still alive, became a part of Ruby Rose.


It was, in the simplest of terms, a sheer bit of happenstance that led to this moment of fate. Qrow Branwen had been headed home when a pristine red cloak billowed in the corner of his eye, caught in a powerful wind. He grabbed it as it nearly blew past him, curious about what he had just come across. When he couldn't find a body that could have been wearing it, he determined that it must have belonged to one of the other residents of Patch and blew away in the breeze. The strange tingling that he felt coming from it put that idea to rest. It felt almost like magic…

Even if his line of thinking could have led to the realization of this cloak's nature, however, it was cut off by the sight of his nieces about to be attacked by Grimm a few yards away from him. He rushed to the scene and made quick work of the monsters before checking the girls for injuries. Once he was absolutely sure that they weren't hurt in any way, he began to take both of them home, putting them both in the wagon. Perhaps it was his Semblance, or perhaps it was a greater force at work, but, as he was focused on getting the children to safety as soon as possible, he didn't notice when Yang took the red cloak and wrapped it around her still-sleeping sister like a blanket.

The cloak had worn many faces in the intervening centuries since the second death of Ozma, who was now known as Ozpin. None of those who wore the cloak lasted for long, despite the cloak's best efforts, and as a result, the cloak would replace the soul until the body was destroyed. This time, however, the situation was different.

This time, the soul was a purer, simpler soul that no magic could sway , no barbs could pierce it, and so the cloak and the girl were joined, creating something new.

If the girl's eyes had been opened, they would have noticed that they shone with an intelligence that was far beyond her years, yet still sparkled with an innocence that was solely her own. As it was, they did not realize what was going on, nor what would come to pass in time.