There were only four people in the arena. Two of which were unimportant Hunters, the sort that would be put in the same unmarked grave that held so many other sacrifices. If it is any consolation, the fates of the two students that stood in front of Taiyang, having fought each other past the point of aura leaving each other bloodied and bruised, were intertwined. Their emotions burning so hot that they were destined to partner for life, and die a lonely, scared, and pointless death for no particular reason.
Taiyang dismissed them, watching as they walked in the direction of the infirmary. While one had a broken arm and the other a broken leg— they helped one another along, for that was their relationship in physical form. A flame destined to burn out and die with a whimper after being deprived of oxygen.
The young but aging Qrow jumped down from the stands, approaching Taiyang with the sort of unusual walk gained by those filled with concern for another.
"Has Ruby been acting weird lately?" Qrow asked, skipping the pleasantries.
"You talk to her more than me. She's been weird ever since... you know..." Taiyang sighed. "Why? Did something happen at the funeral? My condolences by the way."
"Thanks. She's... acting a little too much like an eight year old."
"Probably because she's an eight year old?"
"I mean that she's acting irrationally." Qrow said, rubbing his neck.
"Qrow, Ruby's eight years old. She's a smart kid, but that's just a fact of life. What happened?"
"She doesn't want to be trained as a Huntress."
Taiyang breathed a selfish sigh of relief. "Oh, thank the gods. That's... as long she gets some self defense training, I can rest a little easier."
"No, she still wants to fight. She just doesn't want anyone to train her." Qrow corrected flatly.
"Huh? Why?"
"I have no fucking clue." Qrow said, making use of his flask for the first time that day and reveling in the burning ichor down his throat. "I asked her and she wouldn't tell me."
"That is strange..."
"Told ya. She told me two days ago that she wanted to be a Huntress— but now she doesn't?"
"Let's take a seat." Taiyang said, mostly for his own steadiness. They sat on bleachers that had held students for decades. They'd sat on the same ones as fledging Hunters no more than 15 years before. Infernal bleachers that would hold countless forgotten Hunters that no one wanted to know the names of, but demanded their life of them all the same.
"She seemed adamant about it. She wants to be a Huntress, but doesn't want anyone to train her. Are you starting to see the issue?"
"I'm signing her up for Signal." Taiyang said firmly.
"Huh. I thought I'd have to convince you for that."
"She's eight, but naive and smart enough that if she really believes that she can somehow become a Huntress without any help—"
Taiyang burst into hot tears, so abruptly that he hadn't seen it coming. "I just don't want her to end up like—" He waved a hand, wiping the tears away.
"Summer." Qrow finished, just beyond the other man's hearing. "Alright. Classes start soon. She and Yang can stay with me at Patch. I was planning on heading there soon anyway."
"Why?" Taiyang asked, sniffling.
"I... wanted to take up teaching again. Had some thoughts about it, and I was about to send in a formal request."
"You'll do great." Taiyang, clapping him on the back. "Just um... cut the drinking during school hours."
Taiyang was calmer now, and soon there would be no evidence of the momentary grief for his wife besides the deadness in his eyes.
"Didn't know you had that little faith in me." Qrow grinned. "And I'll make sure to take care of them. Where were you going to house Yang before that, out of curiosity?"
"Uh... I was kinda hoping to ask you at the last minute..." Taiyang said sheepishly. Qrow laughed at that. "You really never change, do you? I thought you might do that. I'll go break the news to Ruby, and Yang I guess too. You okay?"
"Yeah. I'm good. Really."
Qrow clapped his friend's back a little too hard. "See you later."
Taiyang was left alone in the arena. Classes were done for the day, and he had nothing better to do than stare off into space and dream of better times, past times that would never recur.
The middle aged man was too overcome with grief to cry. His two wives absent for reasons beyond his control, and he was willingly giving up his two daughters. He briefly wondered what he had done in a past life that had been so wrong to deserve such a fate.
And then he considered the fate of his daughters. Victims of cruel, unchanging destiny. Their home and mother dead, leaving nothing but an alcoholic uncle and a well meaning but absent father in their place. They were a poor replacement. Yang refused to see a therapist, and while Ruby seemed fine on the surface, she was always in her room, working or sleeping away the day.
There was nothing left of Taiyang's second love. Summer's possessions were nothing more than ash, and with only an empty casket at her funeral. Taiyang wanted so badly to see her one last time. Not to see her smile, but to know that she was at peace with herself. At peace with the fact that even though her family was going through a rough patch, they would get through it and be stronger for it.
If only the poor bastard could see the shade in the corner, a white specter that was only a remnant of the false cold-blooded Hunter that she once was. Driven by fear and desperation, it was only a matter of time until those two driving factors overtook her personality. Overwriting the very will that had created them in the first place, and becoming nothing more than a spectre of hate for mankind and the gods above.
But these are of what is yet to come, and are not of immediate concern.
What is of immediate concern, is not Taiyang, nor what remained of Summer Rose. It was her two daughters that should be your main focus. Both were in a forest that never lost its leaves no matter the season. They were alone, with nothing but the setting sun for comfort, which was already close to leaving them for the day. There was already little to be seen of their third companion, the sun's reach just barely touching the treetops before most of the rays were caught and devoured by the thick canopy.
Yang's tiny hands clenched the handle of the red flatbed wagon. She had no flashlight, no plan, and no motive. She wore clothes that were far too sparse for this time of year, thinking only of her younger sister, who was bundled in clothes as she rode in the wagon, the roots and uneven ground lulling Ruby into an uneasy and haunted sleep.
"They don't even care." Yang complained, kicking the ground. "They won't even notice we're gone." She lied to herself. "Mom would care..."
Yang's eyes no longer switched from red to lilac. They were a static red, heat coming off her in waves that replaced her need for winter clothing.
The trees didn't change as she went further along, but her perception of them did. They felt more encroaching the further away the sun walked, leaving her and her sister behind in the following darkness and moon. Their roots seemed designed to trip and harm, as if to ensure that any unwary traveler inexperienced enough to travel by them would find their resting place beneath their roots.
Yang's aura had already been unlocked, as a courtesy of her mother before she had left. Ruby had been too young, but Yang's pleading had gotten to Summer, and after being sworn to secrecy, Yang was given access to the miracle power of Aura. Yang had not been sworn to secrecy on the nature of her Aura being unlocked. The promise was regarding Summer's mantra. Not the one relevant to her name, a fragmentary and misunderstood poem from the remnants of another time, but one that she had only come up with after reflection and pain. It was only in this one instance was Yang allowed more than a glimpse through Summer's mask.
"It is through fear that you achieve immortality. Never knowing truly of love, heroics, or humanity, I assumed the role of a martyr, a false cold-blooded Hunter. Kneeling to present but lazy gods, I pray you are not my heir. I unbind your soul from flesh, forever damning thee to the path of a Hunter."
Although Yang forgot this small detail from months ago, Summer blinked as if she was out of a daze, her mind not allowing her to believe that the path of a hero was both righteous and pointless. Summer was unable to explain the tears flowing down her face, and went off to bake cookies, not even glancing as Aura gathered around Yang for the first time.
Yang nearly tripped over a root as she dragged the wagon carrying Ruby, cursing as naturally as a sailor would. She thought of her mother's mantra from time to time, wondering why her mom would have such a bleak outlook on a job she was so proud of. She was unsure why she remembered it at that moment, but it did little to calm her nerves. Even just thinking about her mother's chant made her angry, although she didn't quite understand why. She wasn't angry at her mother or anyone specific as far as she could tell.
At that moment, Yang was a ball of negativity. Having never been trained, she had yet to conceal her feelings beneath a veil of any sort. Her raw emotions leaked out into the air, satiating the wind and arriving at the snout of several grimm. It was a miracle that she had survived that long with her anger at the world itself.
But that time would not be long now. Grimm were galloping throughout the forest, howling at the now present moon that hung in the dark sky, applauding the actions of the monsters that sought to wreak havoc and fear.
Fear locked Yang's legs in place. She badly wanted to run, and for a split second she considered leaving her sister behind. After that split second she hated herself, moving past fear in a manner different than her dead step mother. She moved past fear with sheer anger, her eyes pulsing and burning a red so deep that it rivaled the sun.
Ruby began to wake as she heard the piercing howls and felt her ride become rougher. Yang was still managing to pull her along, but she was shouting something beyond Ruby's hearing. Something urgent, but pure gibberish to Ruby while she was half asleep, not unlike listening to someone in a dream.
A cursed root tripped Yang sending her into a spiral that ended at a tree trunk, resulting in a sickening crack when her head hit the bark. She was limp as her small body slumped against the tree, her fire out, forced into a lapse of consciousness.
Summer watched coldly, standing next to the beowulfs that wanted nothing more than to feed on her flesh and negativity. To be more overt, white and red beowulfs stood next to Summer, drool dripping onto the ground below as they hungered, held back only by Summer's command.
Summer strode forward, disturbing not a single leaf as she made her way past the pack of beowulfs to stand in front of the half asleep Ruby.
"It looks different." Ruby commented, rubbing her eyes. Her dreams of death and carnage had yet to leave, so it was only natural that she assumed this was a continuation. "And Yang's here too? I think she's dead. Good thing this is a dream!" She smiled at the white cloaked spectre.
"I require a weapon." She said, as she had said many times before, even at her young age.
Petal clattered to the ground in front of her, fully loaded. What would be a sweet smile on any other young child looked more like the face of a demon when Ruby picked up the weapon, surrounded on all sides by red eyed grimm.
"Trust no one other than me." Summer whispered, before releasing her hold on the Grimm.
The scene played out in slow motion for the heir to the throne of the reaper, having experienced a scene almost exactly like this an immemorial number of times until she had finally survived, just barely, beaten and battered, at only 8 years old. Forced to mature rapidly in a world that demanded bloody evolution, she raised a weapon that her mother had once regarded as trash.
With hands beyond her years, she extended the scythe, feeling its smooth metal against her cheek and hand. It wasn't the weapon Ruby wanted, but it would have to do.
The first beowulf that jumped at Ruby she didn't even bother moving for. She simply moved her scythe to the correct position parallel to the ground, and squeezed the trigger.
She spun, slicing the head of the beowulf clean in half, as well as embedding the tip of her scythe in the fur of another Grimm waiting just behind her. Its torso was cut clean in half with a pull of the trigger, sending the blade in an arch over Ruby's head and clean into the ground.
Ruby waited, staring at her scythe stuck in the hard dirt. The collective grimm took this as a mistake, snickering at her supposed miscalculation as they closed in around her, ignoring her knocked out sister for the moment in lieu of more interesting prey.
Ruby made no motion to pull out her weapon. She only stared at her feet, hearing the encroaching grimm, their footfalls loud and monstrous.
She felt one of them breath hot air on her, salivating at the thought of devouring the young reaper. Her own breath was calm and normal, as her mind had protected her from the reality of the situation.
Ruby leaned her weight backwards, pulling the scythe back with her and pulling the trigger. With a practiced movement the scythe dug further into the ground, and with another bang, it uprooted itself from the ground at a diagonal. Making a full revolution around the girl, it cut through the grimm's face, slicing it clean off.
The remaining Grimm growled, more than half their pack gone. Ruby leaned on her scythe as she refused to look at the grimm, her moonlight colored eyes facing the ground.
Making the correct decision, the monsters scampered off, leaving Ruby alone with her sister.
Waiting for the dream to end, Ruby yawned, collapsed Petal, and held it tight as she went back to sleep in the wagon.
A/N: I'll finish this no matter what, you can count on that. Always appreciate feedback and criticism.
