"You, Miss Nikos, have a choice to make."

The voice isn't his and Oscar instantly recognizes this as a memory. One of Ozpin's. The dream was more intense than others he's had. He felt like he was actually there. He tasted the thick tension in the air, felt a chilled, creeping dread trickle through his body.

A red-haired girl in golden armor was wiping away a treacherous tear, giving one last mournful look at Jaune's back—and that's who it was too. Jaune, kind and brave, full of grief and heartbreak. Jaune, hair the color of straw and smarter than people gave him credit for.

The teenager didn't turn to look back, focused on the depths of the gloom before him.

Oscar had a grisly sinking feeling like he knew what was about to happen. He felt like he was about to suffocate. Breath short, bones heavy.

He, as Ozpin, looks over his shoulder when a tremor violently shakes the earth around them. Thoughts that were not his own tore through his consciousness. They were underground. So many innocent souls were about to die. Have already died. Beacon was about to fall. The echoes of chaos and panic above don't sound in these halls, but he knew they were there and he feels such debilitating desolation.

His… his students…

"Are you ready?" Ozpin asks, trying to focus, sounding more sure of this than he felt.

In the machine, Pyrrha nods, eyes troubled but resolute. A bravery worthy of a true Huntress and a courage that was asking far too much of a child to do alone.

For a moment, Ozpin wavers.

"I… I need to hear you say it."

A complex rush of emotions. Hope. Horror. Uncertainty. Self-disgust at the ethical violation this machine represented and his choice to use it in the end. Bitterness on his tongue, exhilarated anticipation in his chest. Another fleeting memory of the faces of his inner circle when James had straightforwardly explained the objective and mechanics of the machine, all uncertain, all guilty and hopeful in equal measure.

He could feel proud about that even if he wasn't proud of himself, that the others felt the horror of it. Even if that sentiment would become insignificant as history dogged on and brought his actions of this horrible day to light. A machine that captured Aura and subsumed it into something else. Or, someone else. There wasn't a null possibility he might artificially create a being unlike himself—two souls, one body. An undying curse.

Who would choose that?

He remembered the faces of Glynda, Qrow, and James. They were all soldiers in this war now and why the hell would you make a soldier who was incapable of guilt? Without guilt they were all no better than the monsters they fought. That they were guilty meant that they weren't as separated from humanity, as distant, as Ozpin sometimes felt during his lives.

In the back of Ozpin's mind, in the dark of the dream, Oscar was quiet.

Pyrrha spoke without even the slightest tremor in her voice.

"Yes."

"…Thank you, Miss Nikos."

With the press of a few buttons, he starts the machine. Almost instantly Pyrrha begins to cry in agony, a torture she should have never had to endure. He can't help but stare as if paralyzed at the Aura flowing through the tubes that they all so desperately needed to belong to someone who wouldn't use it for sowing evil and discord.

"Pyrrha!"

Jaune shouts in anguish, rushing over fearful and confused.

"I'm… so sorry."

Guilt. Grief. Regret. Fear. Anger. More innocent children caught up in a sickening war between him and a woman he once loved with all his heart, now a monster who felt neither fear nor fatigue. Oscar feels a tangle of emotion that does not belong to him which is brutal and sobering. Ozpin was also just a man, as great and as old as he was. Something inside him hurt. Something inside him never healed. Here are more children he's endangered by his actions, more pain he's caused. He recounts four forbidden names lost so so long ago and yet whose spark of life was extinguished far too early. He's failed again. He's given so much of himself to this war. His soul is worn too thin.

An arrow pierces through Amber's heart, cancelling the transfusion and her life.

And then, later—convincing Jaune and Pyrrha to run because if that's the last thing he can do in this life, then at least he won't have to see another child die—he's killed. The green colors of the world go up in flames. He was burning, burning burn—

Oscar wakes, mind in turmoil, and he can't stop the shaking or the tears.

Ozpin had never told him how he'd died.

Later in the same night, Oscar thinks he hears the words "…I'm sorry, Oscar," in Ozpin's voice. But they are so faint and stretched so thin over time and space and void that he is convinced he must have imagined it.

Oscar bit the back of his pen, using his low bookcase as a desk. He had never filled out an application before. He hardly did a lot of writing at all, mostly just reading instead. Ozpin had been the scholar. He was just the farm boy. He fixed tires, not spelling.

He worried about the uneven, blocky letters he spilled out haphazardly on the page.

He tried to imagine something reassuring Oz might say but could only focus on fire, the shaking of the earth, and grief-stricken apologies for several minutes as he stared with abject terror at the papers in front of him. Still no word from the real Ozpin himself and Oscar wasn't entirely sure at the state of their… merge when it came to time travel. He still had access to memories that weren't his, but it felt almost like a restricted library.

Do what you can, imaginary Ozpin finally breaks through.

"What if I don't get in?" he asks out loud, putting his head in his hands out of a growing sense of misgiving and far too used to one-sided conversations no one else could hear.

Then you try a different way, an application isn't a zero-sum situation. With our knowledge, we have a lot of opportunities to turn things in our favor. There's Haven and Lionheart with the false exchange students, too.

Oscar finally voices something he'd left unspoken all this time, holding his feelings back for fear of breaking down and succumbing to his emotions unchecked. It was a feeling that had slowly wormed its way into his heart despite his best efforts to look forward and do his what he could and he was so undone over it, so unraveled, that his voice was barely over a whisper when he finally said it.

"…I… want to meet you. I want to hear you again for real. I want to see Ruby and everyone else again. I… I miss them."

…Then start with your name.

"What?"

Your name, on the page. Write it. There is no going to Beacon if you falter at the first step.

"Oh. Yeah. You're… you're right."

So he tried to focus and worked through age, address as well as other basic information easily enough with imaginary Ozpin humming encouragement at the back of his mind, metaphorically looking over his shoulder. Then came the hard part.

Weapon and style of combat, semblance if unlocked, and a statement of purpose. He had to figure out how he wanted to arrive in Beacon. How much information he wanted Ozpin to have. Student? Student from the f~u~t~u~r~e~? Student with forbidden knowledge? He needed to get to Beacon and he needed to get in touch with Ozpin securely, that much he knew. What he wasn't so sure about was what he did after that.

He felt it had been easy to criticize Ozpin for keeping the secrets he had but being in a somewhat similar position was harder to handle than he'd thought.

Say he got into the school, what then? Tell Ozpin everything that happens? Tell him Beacon falls but he didn't know precisely how or when. Tell him Lionheart betrays him or has been betraying him for a long time and throw Vale's relationship with Mistral into disarray—something that would fall right into Salem's hands? Tell him he knows his darkest secret and his shame, that there's no plan, Salem is unkillable, and Ozpin fears being betrayed by those closest to him?

Do you trust me? the Ozpin he imagined asked.

"Not here," Oscar answers after a while, "Not yet. But I want to. I don't think any of us saw you as an enemy when we found out, we were all just hurt. I think they all loved you in their way which made it hurt more. I want to convince you to tell the truth sooner, like Ironwood."

He imagined Oz falling quiet and hoped the real Oz, the real actual voice in his head, couldn't hear him play pretend like this. At the thought of Ironwood, Oscar touches his chest briefly, pushing aside a sudden slew of anxious thoughts and bad feelings. He shakes his head. Not helpful, not today; he didn't have the time for his world to crumble apart.

"The way you rushed Ruby, you know, after she asked Jinn, you looked—well, felt, I can't see myself—but we felt scary. Desperate, enraged, betrayed. Your feelings were so strong. I know you hurt as much as all of us, but I don't know what you would do to keep your secret with your own body. I can't help stop Salem in the future if you don't tell the truth now. I'll need you to trust me. Or, the you in Beacon. And the you that's actually real. Not... the version of the voice in my head I'm imagining of the real voice in my head. That I… am talking to. Right now."

Imaginary Ozpin felt reluctant and Oscar felt like more of a crazy person than he normally did, which on any given day fluctuated between a six and an eleven, so that was saying something.

You need to convince me.

"I hope I can," he murmurs.

Additionally, he wasn't even sure Ozpin read the applications. Maybe some other Beacon administrator read and screened them, then passed them on? He couldn't risk that. He wasn't sure he could figure out a secret message to put in if he couldn't be sure it'd reach Oz's eyes, or that the applications weren't also monitored by the splinter cell that broke Beacon apart. So then that left… either getting Oz to notice the cane and be curious enough or needing to get in on the merit of his skills. Ruby had practically been a prodigy. Oscar was not.

Like he'd thought, that only left one answer.

Imaginary Ozpin was right. Failing here didn't have to mean failing everything. He had options and he had to try.

He's in what dream knowledge or past-future memory tells him is a stolen Atlas airship. His gloved hand is touching the earpiece he was using to communicate with his allies below. The sea swells beneath Ozpin and the ship, unrelenting waves crashing against the impassive rock of the cliff.

"I think I've finally found a weakness," his dream-self was saying from his place in the co-pilot's seat.

"Well, we're all ears," responds one of his companions impatiently over the communication link.

He speaks quickly, knowing time was crucial to their objective, "The cylinder on Cordo's cannon rotates and locks in a giant Dust cartridge every time she changes attack styles."

A blue beam bursts forth from the colossus the airship was engaged with, only narrowly missing as the old lady (his grandmother, maybe?) next to him, fearlessly guides them out of danger with the practiced ease of an expert.

The voice that answers from below is sharp and irked. "We noticed."

"Right," his dream-self answers, not even the slightest bit fazed by his associate's scathing tone, "but her missile launcher doesn't lock in, it pops out. Without her shields one well-placed shot could detonate the missiles while they're still in the launcher."

"We could destroy the entire cannon," another voice, male, answers with a touch of awe, "Oscar, that's brilliant."

Oscar. His dream-self was named Oscar.

There's a scratch in the record of his memory but he's still aboard the bullhead. Summer Rose—no, no, someone different. It had to be. A girl who was not Summer was in the hold now, the hatch of the airship open, the wind whipping her hair and cloak wildly about. She checks her sniper rifle, loading a cartridge, her expression hard and determined.

"Hey, Cordo," the old lady in the pilot's seat taunts her radio, her daring voice teeming with an irrepressible, cavalier spirit, and alarm bells are already ringing in his head. "I've got one missile left and I know exactly where to stick it."

A chuckle crackles through the radio. "One missile you say? That's a shame, Maria, because I have plenty!"

He finds himself shouting incredulously, throwing out his hands, wanting to refuse the reality before him and knowing it was futile, "ARE YOU TWO CRAZY!?"

"Sometimes the best approach is simply the most direct!"

The old woman next to him cackles, Summer-who-was-not-Summer gets into position, and he feels his heart threatening to leap out of his chest.

Is he… is his dream-self stealing an Atlas airship with his grandmother? Is that what was happening?

The girl takes the shot.

Ozpin wakes, the dream version of Summer Rose lingering in his thoughts. He got out of bed and decided he needed to contact Qrow about his niece.

Throughout the next few weeks, Ozpin thought about the name of the voice in his dream. Oscar… He rolled it on his tongue, imagined the letters that spelled it out and the person the name belonged to. Who in Remnant was Oscar? A boy, clearly, small and idealistic. But he wasn't a dream, and he wasn't a memory, not precisely. What did he look like? Where was he from? When was he from? Was he even real or were dreams like this a natural psychological manifestation after living as long as he had? The weight of too many lives that held two souls, one body, and far too many failures?

The thoughts whirled around his head until a few weeks later as he started to review applicants from potential Beacon candidates. (He felt more in touch with the world and the individuals that lived in it if he reviewed them personally.)

Oscar Pine.

The first thing he noted was his age. Too young. Far too young. He'd reject the application without a second thought if it weren't for…

His weapon of choice was… a cane. He'd listed no other combat form. Just. A cane. It wasn't a lot to go on, but for him the name "Oscar" and the dream memory of the Long Memory's comforting weight clipped to his belt was enough.

Ozpin did his best to find out everything he could about the boy, even going so far as to send Qrow to collect information. On paper, there wasn't much. Went to live with his aunt after a terrible tragedy befell his parents, raised and homeschooled on the farm with no other formal education, helped his aunt run both the agricultural and business side of the farm. That was it. Luckily Qrow found out a bit more than that…

Winter turned into spring and the lad was still a mystery. Doctor Ed hadn't known Oscar had seen his daughter's antlers until after the young man had woken up the first time. He'd been upset and afraid for her. Oscar seemed like a nice enough boy, he'd rescued his daughter even though he'd been in a broken mess of a mental state, but you can never tell with some people. Some people were only good to you until they found something about you they could hate. Like a second pair of ears. Or antlers. Ed wasn't a faunus, but his wife had been. And being a faunus had gotten her dead.

He wanted his daughter to be proud of her heritage, it shouldn't be a source of fear or shame, but he also didn't want her to get hurt. It was hard to grow up without a mother and even harder if you belonged to a group who were treated as things instead of people.

Fortunately, his fears were for nothing because the kid turned out to be alright. His eyes never strayed to Umber's hat, never tried to give him a questioning look, never even asked Umber about it in the following days. Either with him there in the same room or without (he'd quizzed Umber about it a lot in the first few weeks of getting to know Oscar and his aunt). That, thought Ed, told him a lot. Oscar was kind and thoughtful and surprisingly politically aware for his age even if he never said anything about it.

Still weird, though.

Dr. Ed wasn't as convinced as he had been before that the cause of Oscar's disappearance was a clean mental break, although he was convinced he'd returned in a fugue. There was a lot of trauma to unpack there. The boy was far too often lost in his own head for his own good and he was clearly uncomfortable even referencing what had happened to him. Emma said he'd claimed to travel to Argus and Atlas, Haven and Mantle. It was probably true. Oscar didn't like to lie, even if he did seem to be an unwilling keeper of secrets.

His aunt also said he was having nightmares. Emma and Oscar shared responsibility when it came to the animals on the farm and after their first lambs of the year she was often in the barn checking on them day and night. That's when she heard the sobbing. Emma hadn't wanted to intrude, but she also didn't want to pretend she hadn't heard anything or neglect her nephew if he was in need. So, risking his potential embarrassment, she asked him about it in the morning.

According to Emma, he brushed her off, sounding tired and maybe a little annoyed.

"Just dreams, Auntie Em."

It wasn't just dreams. Emma knew, Ed knew, even Umber could tell there was something going on. He could be moody and withdrawn if you caught him in the right moment. He was never mean, never cruel, but he sometimes had a hard time focusing on the people right in front of him and invented chores he suddenly had to do or had "forgotten" to do so he could evade having to talk about it.

It was consistent with trauma.

Which he would never work through if he never talked about it, but Ed didn't think it was the right time to push. Right now he needed support as he adjusted back to normal life instead of… what… traveling from place to place and getting shot at? Yeah. That.

Umber loved Oscar. She wouldn't stop talking about him. Oscar did this or Oscar said that, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. There's something a little romantic about getting your life saved by an older boy in a snowstorm who seemed a little troubled, Ed supposed. He was fairly certain Oscar knew, but to his credit the boy never acted like he thought Umber was annoying or her feelings were unimportant. The opposite, actually. As a father, Ed might feel a little more concerned about his daughter if he wasn't so certain Oscar was entirely disinterested.

He wasn't like other boys his age who might have been irritated about a little girl intruding upon his personal space and time or an old grumpy man openly going through all his personal belongings right in front of him. Although, Oscar had eyed him with a look that seemed to say, if you must, with an imaginary eyeroll attached to it when he'd done so.

Ed was just glad that his daughter was talking again after moving here, she'd had a such a hard life.

Oscar wasn't entirely surprised to find, a few weeks after he'd sent off his application, that there was a nosy bird following him around. It was really hard to pretend he didn't know it was Qrow. He had flown into the barn one day while Oscar was practicing solo techniques with his modified weapon. It would have been really easy to mistake Qrow for a regular crow since he literally looked like any other crow Oscar had ever seen, but no bird was ever this invested in his activities unless he was throwing birdseed around.

He decided to ignore him as much as possible. Putting his plans into motion now would be premature. That said, there were times where Qrow couldn't be ignored so…

Qrow squawked indignantly the day Oscar had gently scooped up his bird form and just as gently set him down just out of the barn.

"Mama Sheep is about to have her first lambs," he lectured Qrow sternly, crouching down so that he was closer in eye level with the bird and realizing this was probably the only time he would ever get to scold him without repercussion. "It's a private moment for her and I don't want you making her nervous if I have to help with complications. You can come back in later when she's done with labor."

The bird cocked its head to the side as if not understanding what he said, then flew off.

The lambing turned out to be successful. His aunt brought in a space heater while the mama nursed, Umber and Ed came over to see the new lambs, and he didn't even notice when Qrow flew back into the barn. Umber had turned a little green when Oscar very vaguely explained the lambing process, but he supposed anyone who didn't grow up on a farm wasn't used to the idea of supervising animal pregnancy. Ed had laughed uncontrollably while Oscar made his attempts. As a doctor he'd probably delivered more than a few babies before.

When they left, he cordoned off the nursing area, washed up and changed his clothes, then went to grab the Long Memory. He practiced a lot by himself even though he thought it'd go smoother if he had a sparring partner. He'd felt pressured to improve quickly due to knowing what the future entailed and how badly he needed to be ready for it. He felt even more anxious after seeing—experiencing—Ozpin burn alive.

"Can't let that happen," he pants to himself after a particularly rigorous session he'd run himself through. He'd been so reluctant to start training when he'd reached Haven, but now he more than understood the importance of it. He wanted to be on the level where he could really help fight with and protect the others in battle. He knew he wasn't even close. He had to get there. He didn't want to be the one who had to be protected all the time.

Oscar didn't mind fighting, that is, the physical act or the training that went into it. It was difficult because it wasn't like chasing around chickens or tilling land even though all those things involved moving his body. It worked different muscle groups and there was a lot of thinking on your feet Oscar hadn't initially accounted for.

Oscar wasn't a fan of fighting for his life, fighting for his friends' lives, fighting to save the world in an endless war. There was so much at stake that losing anything made it feel like losing everything and sometimes people around him came undone, broken into pieces he couldn't reassemble. But he'd told his aunt he couldn't do nothing. He had promises to keep and a world to save.

He was also a kid who wanted some reassurance that everything was going to be okay and some comfort, but he'd been around enough adults to know that that no one was really sure of anything. Qrow, Ironwood, Ozpin. So he had to reassure himself, and he did that with lots of practice.

Regardless, there was something about the physicality, improvement, and learning involved in training he enjoyed. It gave him something to focus on, here, in the past-present.

Qrow settled into a haystack overlooking the lambs and watched him until he went to bed.

Umber wanted to show Oscar The Creek once spring came. So one day they trekked across the fields and just barely into the forest beyond where they could dig up mica from the creek bed and try to catch sleepy frogs before releasing them. They could hear the rustle of birds in the trees all around them and the gurgling of the little stream. It was a rare moment of peace in his head where Oscar didn't find his thoughts wandering back to old memories. Or even older ones.

He was just living in the moment, the feeling of now and present comfortably settling across his shoulders as he smiled idly and swished a cattail along the water's surface.

From her place atop a big rock, Umber crouches down and almost reverentially places a frog back into the creek after going through the trouble of catching him. Oscar felt warm and touched that she so obviously felt comfortable and confident enough to take her hat off around him, even if she would only do so once they had cleared the tree line.

However, the little girl's mind was plainly ruminating on something while she was catching frogs.

"Are you okay now, Oscar?"

"Huh?"

"Um… Daddy said you were hurt, but when I asked him how he told me it wasn't like with me and my leg. It was something we couldn't see." Her face turned red and guilty, "A-And he said it was something I shouldn't ask about…"

For a moment, he was dumbfounded, the gurgling of the brook continuing without pause.

"No," he says, stubbornly fighting the tears that wanted to show, but after he sees the heartbroken expression on her face, he hastily adds, saying the first thing that came to mind, "…because I really want to drink some hot cocoa."

Umber looked at him strangely, and Oscar is suddenly grateful she's not yet able to fully read into others' emotional states, poor excuses, or contradictions.

"Why, um, don't you?"

Luxury good. Hard to afford. Oscar spent most of the money he saved up on high-quality superficial components for the Long Memory. Green leather straps wrapped carefully around the hilt topped off with a small red ribbon with silver edging because he was homesick for a time period that didn't exist yet and felt wordlessly, abrasively lonely for the people he had known and who now had never known him.

He'd decided to elaborate on the preexisting skeleton watch and clocktower motif; exposed gears, small moving parts, elegant craftmanship, anything that didn't interfere with its functions. He spent a lot of time making the stained glass crescent moon-shaped hunter-case with embedded green and gold gear designs interlaced with flowering vines set over the unexposed half of the circular face of the hilt. He thought it was neat. Auntie Em and Umber helped him come up with the pattern.

Dyed leather, nice ribbons, and staining pigments were costly. Glass was especially expensive whether you made it yourself or bought it from someone else and Oscar had no other option but to make it himself.

Umber didn't know most of that, however. She was ten. He hadn't known the vast difference in class economics until he'd left home, either, and both Oscar and Umber lived some pretty isolated lives out here in the back woods of Mistral.

Instead of explaining wealth differences, Oscar decides to answer with, "We don't have any."

"Oh! Um. If you want, you can come over and have some at my house. I'm sure Daddy won't mind."

"Yeah, sure," Oscar gives a genuine smile, once again touched by Umber's endless positivity and generosity. "That sounds nice."

Umber wipes her hands on her pants, puts her hat back on and then rushes over to grab his hand. She walks the both of them out of the woods and towards her house.

"Interesting kid," Qrow told Ozpin in his office, unscrewing the flask from his pocket and brandishing it at certain points in his report when he wanted to punctuate his thoughts. "Had some kinda mental breakdown and disappeared for a while. Came back in a snowstorm with combat gear," here, a short flourish of the flask, " a weapon that looks a hell of a lot like yours, and the skills to fight. Saved a girl, wiped out some Grimm."

"Hmm. Well, now that is somewhat unusual."

"No kidding. Everyone I've talked to spoke highly of him. Quiet, polite, kind. Little moody sometimes if you catch him while he's thinking. Doesn't seem like the type to start trouble. Works the farm in the day, trains with that cane in the evening. Chases birds out of barns when there's lambs. Still real polite about it, though."

Ozpin raises an eyebrow.

"Apparently, 'Mama sheep' was havin' babies. Said it was a private moment and shooed me out during delivery."

Ozpin chuckles, amused at such antics despite the mystery of the situation, "That's awfully innocent."

"Well, he is fourteen. Fights like hell, too, from what witnesses say about the Grimm attack. It's weird though. Real sensitive kid, cares about people's feelings, but goes real hard in training like he knows what's out there. Like he's seen it. Hell, maybe he has with all that missing time. Not one damn person I talked to knows where he went or what happened to him."

Qrow takes a long drink and looks at him meaningfully.

"Fights like you."

Qrow hands him a newspaper clipping.

"That's not all. You wanted to see him? Well… look at this..."

In the clipping, there's a photo of of a young boy carrying an even younger girl on his back, clutching…

Clutching something that was unmistakably the Long Memory in his hand.

Qrow taps the photo with force.

"It didn't look like this when I saw it."

"Who is he?" Ozpin wonders aloud, gaze fixed on the boy's youthful face.

"Dunno." Qrow tilts his head back and takes another swig before speaking again. "But I've got a feeling we should find out sooner rather than later. Want me to keep an eye on him?"

"No, unfortunately I have a more urgent task for you. It's about the Fall Maiden…"

Ed knew something was wrong the minute he stepped onto the stone footpath that led to his home. The porch light was on. The sun was setting, sky was streaked with pink and orange, and he hadn't been home for hours. He'd been busy making house calls, stitches, soothing balm on burns, wrapping wounds with gauze. It had been a busy day and he'd sweated under the sun. Umber was at Oscar's.

He didn't listen to his instincts and he should have. He should have.

He heard the metal scrape against stone before he heard the thin, warped voice that all but crawled into his ears like gnawing centipedes. He couldn't feel his heartbeat. He couldn't feel his heartbeat because all his blood had turned to ice.

"Doctor Edwin Llewellyn."

That voice. Familiar. Jolting. A chill goes up his spine. His hands shake helplessly.

He turns around, slowly, wide-eyed, dim-witted, as if he were moving in molasses.

"Your wife says hello from her grave."

The shadow of a man smiles a smile that is all teeth and no joy. A huntsman's weapon—no, a killer's weapon—in his hand, a massive and rusty oversized butcher's knife long enough to be a sword with a chain attached to its end, raked against the stone path, sparks trailing in its cruel wake.

Ed wasn't a fighter. He'd dropped out of combat school in the first month and pursued medicine and design instead. He took a shaky step backwards. Umber wasn't home, Umber wasn't home, Umber wasn't—

A high-pitched voice cries out.

"Daddy?"

Ed looks past the horror in front of him and sees Umber, eyes clouded with uncertainty, standing on the footpath holding Oscar's hand. The man of shadows jerks his head unnaturally to peer at her, bones in his neck loudly creaking like rotted wood in a haunted house.

He laughs without mirth, "Oh good, look, your darling daughter made it just in time for it to start and she's brought a merry little guest along. I'd hate for her to have missed this."

Ed pleads with his eyes for Oscar to take his daughter and run.

The shadow man raises the butcher sword, the last rays of sunlight glinting coldly off its edge...

[A/N: BTW, this fic is cross-posted to ao3 with the same title and author name. I post there first and there's 8 more current chapters for anyone eager to read past this point and will tolerate reading on a different site. I'm trying not to overwhelm anyone's inbox on FFN by a constant stream of updates here, but I imagine in time this fic on FFN will catch up to the ao3 one and I'll update them concurrently as I finish new chapters.

Thank you for your support!]