The sun gives ground

To a long cold night

Screw up your courage

For another fight.

One — Screw Up Your Courage

Her kiss lingered.

The taste of it — cinnamon and apples. The sensation of it— warm and firm, and colored by a sense of impending fate. Every time, every time. The same thing. Cinnamon and apples, warmth and fate.

So many repetitions that I had no idea how many times it had been— allowed me to marshal the courage not to sob in relief and bitterness both. And not puke my guts up.

"— prestigious academy—" Time to go again, Jaune-boy, I told myself. Something heavy and dreadful settled in my gut, and I wondered if I'd ever see an end to the endless repetition of the thing. It doesn't matter. An Arc doesn't run from a fight. Even if it was a fight I dreaded, loathed, wanted to run from, wanted to curl up and let them all die without me getting to know them this time around.

An Arc never runs. Wasn't that why we used the sword and shield? Hunters that used swords and shields didn't run, never ran. They died standing. Died fighting. I had burned with the desire to be a Huntsman that first, the very first time around, but had done nothing to set myself up for success. And in the lack of success, I had earned failure. An Arc was not defined by his failure or his success, I responded to the Father in my head. An Arc is defined by the fight itself, and whether or not he dies fighting. Well, I'd died. And died again. And died again, and again, and again. I burned with a hundred times a thousand defeats. And few, glorious few: victories. They shone bright in my mind and memory, victories where no one had died, though some came out the other side gravely wounded. And when I'd celebrated the victories, thought safe at having triumphed— back to the start.

I took a breath, ignored the people that have been— are— would be— were— my friends.

These, then, are the pretty lies I tell myself to justify doing this again, and again, and again and again. I'll get it right the next time. No one I care about will die the next time. Things will be different next time. They tasted like ash on my tongue, and I longed for cinnamon and apples. Memories of glorious last stands, doomed forlorn hopes into huge nests of Grimm, memories of the Fall would keep me awake. It had happened, last time, because I'd been content to sit, to try to wait and see what I could and enjoy the time we had together.

Not this time, I told myself. This one will be correct. Last time counts for all. It felt right, thinking that. I didn't know why, I didn't know how. But deep in my gut, the instinct that drove us to fortify against the Grimm, and then begin using Hunters to drive the monsters away from civilization— I knew. Somehow.

I sat back into the seat assigned to me by the airship crew, and settled in to wait for the final approach to complete. I didn't watch the approach to Beacon. It loomed large in my mind, in all its myriad shapes and forms. Beautiful in the late summer of the beginning of the year, riotously glorious in the fall. And then wretched, destroyed by the time of winter.

She wasn't on this flight. She never was. Something to be thankful for, always. It gave me time, time to think, to settle my nerves and the foul mood that always haunted me when I returned.

Except something was different this time. There, sitting across from me after I opened my eyes—

"Hello, Jaune."

I blinked once, twice. Almost stood. And then I caught the truth of the matter. Blood, on her chest and heel. Sword-spear and shield gone. I reached a hand up to my face, tried to rub sleep, or delirium, or illusion, all and none, from my eyes.

"I've missed you, Jaune."

"I— " didn't even know where to begin. I'd missed her, missed her like the broken moon ached and longed for the sun in all the myths from my home. Bright, shining, red of hand and victorious in war, gentle and soothing in peace.

Sing o goddess, of the death of Pyrrha, daughter of Arimnestos, she who was the best of us all, which caused ten thousand upon ten thousand griefs.

I blinked again, unsure where the scrap of verse in my mind had come from. Perhaps some niggling memory of a play or film or book. I swallowed my sudden fear, trepidation, nervousness. I reached out to her with the only thing I could think of. Her second— but not last— gift to me stretched out with a minor exertion of will, just a silent, invisible tendril, reaching— reaching—

I recoiled visibly, stomach heaving at everything I'd felt. The unnaturalness... And how right it had felt to only brush her Aura with my own: all, indubitably, wholly, completely— Pyrrha, I thought, and wanted to sob with relief and grief and love and all things I had never told her that first, so, so long ago, first time.

"I told you, Jaune. Infinite in distance and unbound by death."

A noise like thunder split my brain, my head. I felt something drip down my face.

A nosebleed. I smiled at her through the blood and pain. I'm so happy to see you again. You, you. Not the yous I still love and fail. And I love all of you. Her Aura had felt jagged and broken, but still tasted of lazy weekend afternoons spent under an oak, of bringing in the harvest and knowing the village would be fed through winter, of harvest feasts and thanksgiving to the Brothers and holy Hunters that kept us safe, sheltered, secure. It still smelled of fresh-mown hay for the horses for winter, of apple pastries and mulled cider for a cold but not yet winter night.

Pyrrha, I thought to her. And then, before I could stop myself and despite knowing now how intimate unlocking someone's Aura could truly be, despite knowing how intimate it could be to share—

[LoveGriefLongingLoveLoveLoveWanttoProtectMissYouLoveWillProtectGriefRageatWorldProtectYou—]

And then she was gone, But there was one final discordant, jarring note in reality: the smell of her perfume, of her. Rain— fresh rain, and jasmine; marred by a note of blood, coppery and thick on the tongue.

I swallowed my fear. I missed you, Pyrrha, I thought at her. Then I shoved a handkerchief under my nose to not bleed on anyone.

"You okay, guy?" I didn't catch who was asking, but I waved them off with a mutter of being fine, despite being anything but. Pyrrha's shade was something... something new, something I had never seen, never felt, never sensed before. The feeling of dread settled back into my gut, and I tried to think about what Mom's uncles would do, what Father would do. Mom's uncles would break the law in as many ways as they thought necessary or needful on their way to doing the right thing, and they, too had died standing— gunned down by a Mistralian crime family muscling into Vale's underbelly. Father would— what? He wasn't dead, not yet, not ever that I remembered. But he'd slowed down in age from the days he had single handedly relieved a Grimm siege of one of the agri-towns that fed Vale close to our home.

So what would the men I looked up to do? It doesn't matter, I decided. Pyrrha being here both— alive and— and—

I'm going to fucking fix this, I promised her. Both of her. All of her. It didn't matter.

I finished swabbing at the blood dripping from my nose, and tossed the handkerchief into a convenient trash bin. I left my head tilted back a bit, so as to keep the blood from flowing freely, and adjusted the sword at my hip so that the tip was as close to my leg as possible while I walked. I had no intentions of offering any unintentional offense to one of the innumerous Beacon students that still, still, every time, outclassed me.

"Do you believe in destiny?"

I saw her keeping pace with me out of the corner of my eye, and I smiled. "Of course," I told her. "You're here, again. Why shouldn't I, now?" She was silent, and between one step and the next, she was gone. I smiled, though. She had been gone, and then came back, and now she was gone again. If this new thing remained true, then she would return.

"Are you sure you're okay, guy?" I looked to my other side, and the speaker was a taller, brown-haired boy around eighteen or nineteen. He was broad in the shoulders, too.

"No," I smiled. "I'm not sure I'm okay at all. But it'll be alright in the long run." I let out a laugh at my own private joke. He laughed with me, out of politeness if nothing else.

"I'm Cardin. Cardin Winchester," he said, offering a hand to shake. I took it, gave him a nice firm grip. "I haven't seen someone hold their sword like that except for my mom's uncle. He was one of the last knights from Vale, y'know? It's kinda cool you do it. Hell, if I had a sword, I'd do it too." He chuckled.

"I do know," I nodded. His own grip in the handshake was solid, reassuring. "Jaune Arc," I gave my name.

"It's good to meet you, guy. You sure you're okay?"

I nodded. "I'm good," I said. "Look, I'll catch up with you later, yeah? I've got something I need to go do." I parted ways with him after another handshake, and headed deeper onto Beacon's campus. I ignored the beauty of the campus, the central tower standing proud and tall. My goal was something a little less... grand. The Chapel at Beacon was meant to provide spiritual services for students of all religious backgrounds, and so it was built like a modern library, with specific rooms set aside for most of the major religions. But the centerpiece of the building, the main room...

That? That's dedicated to the glorious dead. Not Huntresses or Huntsmen, but the nameless, faceless dead of the past centuries of human civilization— the tercios and regiments that went into the Wildlands, the Grimmlands, with naught for protection except the courage in their hearts and songs on their lips. Their colors, their regimental standards, are laid up in places of honor, lining the walls and with an eternal flame burning beneath them. They are shot-torn, blood-stained, and tattered and shredded where Grimm claws and Grimm teeth took their toll on both the banners and the men. Every year there is a special service on the anniversary of the destruction of each unit. It is in honor of those nameless men who went into the Wildlands to drive back the encroaching darkness besieging humanity, who went forward to buy time for the rest of civilization, who died defending love and laughter and art and music and pastries and mead and harvest festivals. It is quiet, and it is short.

I had never been to one, only read about them. And I would never go to one. Those services are not for Huntsmen or Huntresses, save those who have relatives that died under the colors. Heavenly Brothers, though the names of the men who marched beneath this banner are lost to time, the memory of their sacrifices and devotion are cherished henceforth to time immemorial. Keep those men close to your loving hearts. Amen.

I entered the Chapel quietly, with reverence for the gods that dwelled, or didn't dwell, within. I found my preferred bench in the smaller room dedicated to the defensive war deity, Areia.

I was only there for peace and quiet. And the vague hope that she'd make herself known to me. I'd discovered the Chapel one sleepless night so many times ago, and now I made it a point to drop in every reset in order to pay my respects. Someone— or something— had clearly been unhappy with how things had played out. Why else would I be here again, with a living Pyrrha so close I could find her and reach out to touch her? Why else would I be here again, with a dead Pyrrha haunting my waking moments and likely my nightmares, when I slept next?

I thought about those brave men that had died standing rather than lead the Grimm to the closest village or town, thought about my mother's uncles, my father.

I'm going to die standing, I promised the Pyrrhas in my mind. I'm going to die standing and fighting, and you're going to live. I ran my tongue over my lips, and nodded quietly to the depiction of War, War the bloody-handed, War the destroyer of men, War the defender of hearth and home. I wondered if I was hallucinating that she looked like Pyrrha or not. Nah, I told myself. As I stared at Areia, something happened— I felt my doubt drop away and the hope get higher.

Whatever happens, I promised Areia, Pyrrha, both of them, all of them. Whatever happens. I'll see you safe.