Joanna was raised on tales of heroes and legends. Fantastical tales of giant monsters and the ordinary people, just like her, who grew up to vanquish them.

Years later, she learned that heroes were real. The monsters she'd read about were real too, and she'd found they were everywhere.

There weren't always Grimm to be fought, but there was always something threatening people somewhere. Sometimes it was just a particularly dangerous person. Sometimes it was oppression. Sometimes it was famine or malnutrition or poverty. No matter the name or the face of the monster, Joanna wanted to protect people from it.

A hero was supposed to be someone brave enough to stand up and protect the weak. And there were no shortage of "monsters" around. That was true in the metaphorical sense as well as the literal sense.

The threats of the largest scale were of course, swarming outside of Mantle's walls. Hordes of Grimm prowled, eager to consume the lives of the people inside. Heroes like the one she was training to be would be armed and ready to go out and fight them off.

Sometimes, however, they didn't make it back.

A couple of days ago, she'd gotten word of a hero who didn't make it back.

No one she knew, but someone from the district where she grew up. She'd walked the same streets as him, and passed by the same neighbors. If her recollection was right, she'd even passed by the front of the store owned by his grandparents every day on her way to school.

The part that really brought it home for Joanna, however, was the simple fact that this hunter was a graduate of Atlas Academy.

It shouldn't have been all that unnerving to her, really; every huntsman's license issued in Solitas belonged to an Atlas graduate, after all- and there was no deadlier line of work she could have chosen than becoming a huntress. She knew all of this going in.

Still, only now had she been confronted with the reality of the loss that came along with her chosen career, if only so indirectly. And how much stronger would the tragedy have hit had she had a more personal connection to the deceased huntsman? What if, instead of simply someone from her district, it had been an old schoolmate? A neighbor? A friend?

What if it had been Robyn?

Or Fiona?

Or gods forbid-

She slammed her fist on the desk and clenched her temples. Her tense lungs sucked in a gulp of air and she tried to force out the negative thoughts swarming her mind like a murder of giant nevermore.

She wouldn't let that happen. Not to Robyn, not to Fiona, and damn sure not to May.

As her resolve hardened, she looked around her. The room was empty. Her team was off going about their various tasks. She had plenty of time to be doing something proactive.

She should be training.

'Damn it all...'

Joanna sighed and smacked her hand to her forehead in defeated frustration. Defeated was just how she felt; her lungs and throat were hoarse with how much air had been forced through them over the past hour-and-change. She felt sore in more muscles than she knew she had and now she could feel a spell of both dizziness and upset stomach. It was taking the last of her resolve to will herself back into her room so that she could collapse in bed.

'This really sucks...'

And the worst was yet to come; painfully, she had to reply to May and decline to visit tonight. There was no way she would be able to use her body for anything, let alone clean up to spend time with her girlfriend, no matter how much she had been aching for it.

When she finally got to her room, she let her body fall with the grace of a freshly chopped tree. She threw an arm over her face and hid her eyes in the inside of her elbow. She let out a groan realizing that tumbling into her freshly washed sheets like this was going to give her more work to do later.

Ugh.

For a good while, all she could do to stave off nausea was lay still and motionless in bed, and slowly try to convince the walls and ceiling to stop spinning.

Finally, she took a deep breath and felt that the worst of it had passed. But now it was time for something that made her feel even worse.

She picked her scroll out of her pocket and pulled up her messages with May. With another breath, she started driving the final stake into

Sorry May... I feel like shit tonight. I can't come over.

It sounded so curt and standoffish, she thought. But she had already spent so long agonizing over it. And the longer the holo-screen stared at her, the more her eyes begged to be shut. Finally, she decided to send the message as is, following it up with a simple :'( emoticon.

Exhausted emotionally as well as physically, she turned her head over and dozed off into a lucid, semi-conscious rest.

She was returned to full consciousness when the sound of a knock at the door stirred her. It was faint enough not to startle her, but caught her attention all the same. Then a buzz on her scroll. She flipped it open and sighed.

18:23
May: Hey. Can I come in?

Joanna quickly agreed and soon the door slid open and light from the hallway briefly lit up the room.

May quietly slid the door shut, removed her shoes and and sat at Joanna's side with the only chair she could find in the room that didn't have bags or presumably less-than-clean clothes draped over it.

"I... made you something." May placed a glass of a pale liquid in the small cubby embedded into the wall next to Joanna's cot.

May couldn't cook worth much at all, but she did learn how to make one thing. When she was a little kid, she had always had this made for her, and she loved it. So much so that when she was feeling down, she would sometimes pretend to be sick just to taste it again.

When she got older, she begged and pleaded, and finally the poor evening butler consented to let her watch and teach her how it was made. When it finally came time for her to leave for the academy, she had made sure she brought everything she'd need to make it herself, should an emergency call for it; a milk steamer, vanilla extract, nutmeg and small stock of oranges for a few drops of freshly squeezed juice.

Finally, her obsessive planning had paid off, and she couldn't be more excited to share it with Jo!

Joanna graciously sipped the concoction and couldn't help but beam out a small smile at the gesture.

"I uhh..." she hesitated, "might have pushed myself a bit too hard in training today." Her eyes fell to the side, still feeling guilty over having to cancel their plans. But she couldn't be upset for long when she thought of how May had taken it upon herself to visit her anyway.

Joanna felt the now-familiar fingers sliding between hers and looked back at May, the sweet smile on her face conveying all of the forgiveness for her.

"Are you okay, Jo?" May asked, her thumb gently caressing the outside of Joanna's hand. "I don't mean physically..."

Joanna was quiet for a moment. May didn't seem to be bothered by it, if her adoring face were any indicator.

"It's dangerous..." Her words had a sobriety to them and May soon seemed to intuit what she was referring to. "What we're doing... What we want to be..."

"I know, Jo."

"Sometimes, people just... don't come back home..."

May moved up and sat on the edge of Joanna's bed. There was just enough room as she had scrunched herself against the wall. "Jo..." Her face was a still shot of openness and compassion as she tried to console her. "Did something happen?"

"Someone from my district..." She started as her hand slowly took purchase along May's arm for comfort. "He was a stranger, but... he graduated just a couple of years ago..."

May could see where this was going. Her features relaxed with somber acknowledgement as Joanna revealed what had been troubling her.

"I started to think..." Her voice was as strong as ever, but in the dimly-lit room, May could still make out the glimmer of tears shining in her eyes. "What if it had been one of us?"

May took in a deep breath. Her face sank slightly into an ever-so-faint frown, but she still reached out to comfort Joanna even more. She brought her hand up to her girlfriend's face and rested her palm on its cheek.

"I realized... I could lose you."

For a moment, those words just hung over them, still playing out through the empty room. They sat still like that- not smiling, but slowly feeling comfortable as they relaxed in each other's touch.

Finally, May spoke up with a response to the dire topic.

"So, cherish me while I'm still here." She shrugged and attempted a small smile. "And I'll do the same."

Joanna slowly smiled in turn. "... Deal."

May leaned in to give her a soft kiss. "And we'll get stronger... for each other." She delivered a soft bump of her fist against Joanna's shoulder. "Just don't break yourself doing it too fast."

"May..." Joanna softly spoke out, her face still dead serious. "Thank you."