[X] Qrow decides to show her some more of the forest dream vision stuff. It continues making no sense, though...
"I can't believe we're being given an assignment already." Blast complained, laying face-down on the couch in the study room.
"At least you got one of the easy ones." Piran replied, as he typed something into his scroll.
"Easy?" Blast asked. "What's easy about this? I'm supposed to write an essay on elementally aligned Aura's, and how some people have an Aura of a certain element whereas others don't."
Piran shrugged. "The topic is broad. Write a difference in effectiveness. I'll punch you in the face, then Yang can punch you in the face, and you can write about the difference."
"I like this plan." Yang spoke up. "Though, I might need to punch him twice, so he can compare me when I'm on fire and when I'm not."
"Jerks." Blast sighed.
Yang took a moment to look around the study room. There were four people in it, at that moment. Blast, Piran and herself were obvious, but the fourth was someone she hadn't seen in a while.
Periwinkle Flowers. Peri for short, since she was kinda embarrassed about her name. Not the best fighter, but one of the best academic students. Yang had no idea why she needed to study with a group, but she wasn't complaining. Blast had a theory that she was there to enjoy being the smartest person in the room but that was unproven.
"So..." Blast wondered. "What are the rest of you doing?"
"We covered this five minutes ago." Piran noted.
"We were walking past a reflective surface, I got distracted."
Piran sighed. "Can we kick him out? I want to kick him out."
"Play nice." Yang said, as she looked at her own paper. "I'm doing a study on the manipulation of the soul. Ever heard of a Pact?"
Blast and Piran shook their heads, and Peri looked up after a moment.
"I think I recall reading about it once?" She asked. "It's an obscure topic. Something about fusing your soul with that of a beast? But the process isn't known, so it hasn't been researched in years..."
"Isn't known by humans." Yang pointed out. "Turns out, all those rare fantastic beasts that people don't know where to find? They know a lot."
"I get the feeling you had a more exciting trip than I did." Peri noted.
"If you can change the past I'll switch with you in a heartbeat." Piran said. "Trust me, it wasn't all that fun."
"Point is." Yang spoke up. "I actually know a... Pact partner who's not all together, but she was going through a rough time when she tried to strangle me-"
"What?"
"-And I mostly contact the people who are watching her." Yang continued. "So I have a source there in addition to any pre-existing ones."
Peri nodded. "I'd suggest looking into some of Professor Ozpin's published articles, then. He's done a lot on the nature of the soul, so he might have something relevant to the process behind the fusion."
"Thanks." Yang replied, tapping through her scroll to bring up Ozpin's list of works.
"What about you, Peri?" Blast asked.
"Healing." Peri noted. "I'm thinking of focusing on the nature in which a particularly debilitating wound, or one gained during an overly traumatic experience, can leave enough of an impact on one's sense of self that the wound heals in a way that leaves a mark. For instance, someone who's never been injured in a fight and then gets their arm cut may find a scar forming instead of healing."
"So basically you're justifying every action movie villain who has a scar over their eye?"
"I suppose I am." Peri mused.
"Well, you have fun with that." Blast noted. "Piran?"
"Inherited abilities." He replied curtly. "Why people can have similar abilities to their parents and how big an impact a person actually has on their children's Semblance."
"Cool." Blast said. "...Hey Piran, people tend to be more likely to have an elemental Aura if their parents have them, right?"
"If I answer you, you'll keep asking me question." Piran said.
"Come on, let's work together-"
"There's plenty of people you can work with." Piran said. "Yang. Peri. The others who're currently in the process of procrastinating."
"Fine." Blast sighed. "Have fun, I'm going to hang out with Cardin at the arcade."
He rolled off the couch, and then rolled towards the door.
"Stand up." Piran told him.
"Not the boss of me." Blast replied.
"So." Taiyang asked, as everyone sat around eating lasagna. "Not much longer until your birthday, Ruby."
The red cloaked girl nodded her head. "Uh huh. You're not doing the joke where you pretend to forget this year?"
"Need to give some time between each execution or you learn to expect it." Taiyang noted.
Yang nodded. "Uh huh. That's totally it. Nothing about feeling bad when you got upset, honest."
"Did you want anything in particular?" Her father asked.
Ruby thought on it for a moment. "...It kinda spoils the surprise if I ask for something like this, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, but it also means I don't misstep like, to use a completely random example, take your sister out for a haircut on her birthday."
"In my defence." Yang spoke up. "They told me they were looking for an excuse to replace those scissors and that mirror anyway. Also I was five."
She finished up the last of her lasagna, mopping up the last of the leftovers. "Anyway, I'm going for a walk. See you soon."
She rushed out of the house as her father said goodbye, and Ruby was going through her fifth sitting.
Where did she put all that food anyway?
...Some sort of riddle that history can deal with, maybe.
Walking by the river, Yang headed up to the waterfall for her usual Aura exercises. Approaching it, she saw a figure move in the shadows of the forest, and spun to the source.
Her uncle Qrow stepped out from behind a tree, a robot arm holding a bottle of beer.
"Hey." The old man said. "How're you?"
"Nice to see you, Qrow." Yang replied. "What are-"
"I think I'm a bit tipsy." Qrow continued. "Anyway, how's life?"
"It's alright." Yang continued. "Ruby's birthday's coming up, in case you have time for this one."
"Nah." Qrow replied. "I mean, maybe I'll try, but you know we're getting to that time of year where I just wanna be drunk for a while."
Yang sighed. Her father had advised her not to ask too much about it, but Qrow did seem to disappear for longer periods of time this time of year. Which was a shame because he'd been to maybe one of Ruby's birthdays.
"Anyway." Qrow continued. "I wanted to drop by real fast. It's been a while since we did the thing. Want to try training up the... Not-magic?"
...Yeah, that sounded like a useful trick. If she could figure out more of whatever it was, it could help her get stronger, and keep Ruby safe.
"Sure." Yang replied. "This is the part where you get me lost in the woods, ri-"
Suddenly, Qrow burst into flames and burnt to ash.
"...Right into metaphor dream land, I see."
"Stop pointing that out." A bird in the trees whispered in Qrow's voice, before flying away.
"...Okay then." Yang replied, going for a walk. "Wonder what this place is all about, then..."
She walked forward, through the forest, looking around in the process. The place seemed rather more ominous than before, the trees more twisted and the shadows more ominous. Which was probably something symbolic of something but Yang didn't really want to think about that. She passed a huge clearing, surrounded by a thick layer of damaged trees with golden leaves, with the red rose starting to wilt in the centre.
"So what exactly am I doing here?" She asked, as she passed a tree with a spear impaled through it. Which she knew full well was symbolic of the time she had a spar impaled through her.
A lot of bad memories, which she didn't want to think about it. She should figure out what exactly the purpose of this place was.
...Qrow had said something about souls resonating off of trees and animals? Maybe she should try experimenting that. Moving forward, she stepped near a tree and touched a small circle pattern on it.
Birds chirped, and the man and the woman walked past the tree, admiring the place.
Yang blinked as she looked around, stepping away from the tree.
The tree itself was looking less twisted, more like an actual tree she'd see in a place near here, and the ground seemed more lively.
"...Huh." She mused. "That was... Weird."
She took a moment to think, trying to remember what she could of the scene. There was two people, but she couldn't quiet put her finger on what either of them looked like...
Well that was frustrating. Maybe there was something else she could look out for? Maybe an animal.
Completely coincidentally- Possibly- A small rabbit bounced out of the woods, and Yang reached down and touched its ear.
The wolf growled as it drew closer, and the rabbit ran further down its hole as the wolf dug into it. The scent of blood was on its breath, and the rabbit feared for its life as-
There was a pause in the digging, and the wolf suddenly ran off. The rabbit kept digging, especially as it suddenly felt a sudden chill, the feeling of a Grimm walking past its hole...
Yang pulled her hand away in sudden shock, as the rabbit fled beneath the holes of a tree.
"...Anything else?" She asked, looking around. There was a bird watching her from the trees, so she walked over towards it. It didn't move, looking at it with it's mechanical wi-
...Wait, what?
The crow looked at her, and Yang looked at the crow.
"...Thank you." She said. "For this chance to make endless puns regarding you name."
The bird turned and tried to fly away, and Yang stumbled forward to grab its tail.
There was blood on the dusty path as he arrived, swiping out in a rage against the golden eyes staring down at him. Those eyes disappeared backwards behind a burning flame, and for a moment, he looked down.
*** tried to stand, but stumbled, *** **** glowing as *** looked at the golden eyes. Blood poured from *** chest, dyeing *** clothes red as she stumbled forward.
"Stay still." He said, the panic in his voice. "Ozpin's not far, he'll be able to help, he'l-"
*** collapsed, as *** breath stilled. The golden eyes chuckled, stepping forward, and he dashed forward with his scythe tearing through the air. The sudden shift extinguishes the flame, and his scythe hits a weakened Aura. With a shout, he broke the Aura, and the golden eyes widened in shock.
There was blood and anger and a hate that fell both ways, blame towards both feet, and a scream ripped from his lips as rain fell down on the-
The crow's tail left her hand, and Yang stared forward, for a moment.
It was raining now, and the trees had opened into a similar path to the one she had just seen. The trees either side of the dirt path had caught aflame, and the rain did nothing to extinguish it. A raindrop hit Yang's nose, and she looked up to see them falling from a clear, open, red sky.
"Behold..." Qrow's voice suddenly spoke, before trailing off sadly. "The... Ah, screw it."
He clicked, and suddenly, Yang was back at the river. Qrow was in front of her, drinking from his bottle.
"...What was that?" She asked.
"You've gotten to the first milestone." Qrow created. "You looked up. Trust me, harder than you'd think, and most who do don't notice the sky being red right away."
"I wasn't talking about that." Yang replied.
Qrow sighed. "...I had figured, yeah." He said
"What was-"
"Don't ask." He interrupted. "Just... Look after yourself, okay Yang? And don't mention this to Ruby, please."
He wandered off behind a tree, and disappeared. Yang watched the area where Qrow had stood for a moment, and noticed a crow flying away a moment later.
...Was that what she thought it was?
She didn't know. She was feeling tired. Sleepy. Needed to sleep. She could wake up and think about whatever that was supposed to be later.
If she still remembered, then. She'd already forgotten what the first thing she had seen it was, and there was some sort of gap in her mind already, when she tried to think about...
Something, about that last scene. It was weird.
Wandering off back home, Yang got ready to go to bed.
Over the next few weeks, coming up to Ruby's birthday, Yang did some more training. Specifically, she...
[X] Went out to the woods to train the thing Qrow had done. Had he turned into a bird there? Could she do that? Was that a possibility here?
[X] She needed finer control of her Aura, intensify her training. She should try and force herself to figure out the trick to keeping oxygen underwater.
[X] Weird magic nonsense and Aura control were good and all, but nothing beat fight experience. She should find someone to fight.