Captain Arc bent down to clear the wet moss and brush off an ancient tombstone. The word 'headmaster' was still visibly etched onto the stone. The name was distant but he understood that it belonged to the founder of Beacon Academy. Around him, some of the engineers toiled carefully, churning up mud and ripping up mossy sludge, to unearth the forgotten epitaphs of some of the other graves littering this often unspoken expanse of the institution.

"Whose is that?" asked First Lieutenant Rose.

"First headmaster."

She was silent. The Captain stood with his hands clasped and head bowed in a long belated gesture of respect.

Beacon had its own cemetery. Other than the custodians and staff, very few people ever bothered to come back here—a wide open grove dotted by tombstones, shrines, and epitaphs surrounded by drooping trees that have since transformed this entire area into a small swampy marsh.

Heavy squelching on the quagmire ceased short behind them. The two senior officers turned to meet the somber expression on Staff Sergeant Winchester. "Not that many sleeping here."

"How many graves so far?"

"Between Twenty to thirty. This was always a small cemetery."

Jaune sighed. "I never really fancied this place."

"Yeah. You tend to ignore it," Cardin added. "Just reminds you of our impending mortality...and everyone else who didn't make it."

"There was a reason why they kept it this way," Ruby remarked calmly. "Sadness was hardly ever a form of negativity but the other emotions that places like these can evoke: anger, resentment, bitterness from regret. They're Grimm nectar."

The Captain trudged through the rain-soaked grass and mud to the other cleaned graves. Another headmaster. Some former Beacon staffers. And then the names of previous students. He looked away to control his thoughts. Some of these potential Huntsmen and Huntresses met their fates while at the Academy. Either they didn't pass Initiation, or they didn't make it back from a training mission, or perhaps the unfortunate casualty in some freak accident or bloody spar.

Some of them probably thought they were invincible, high on their own expectations and deluded perceptions of heroes to the people. Much like them. He exhaled upwards. They were young, hopeful, eager, determined, and—in his case—daftly unprepared. How dead wrong they all were when reality kicked down the door.

The Fall of Beacon ensured that.

"Mulling?"

Arc grunted. Normally he would be asking his subordinate that question but it seemed fitting to have her confront him over his own musings. "Yes, Lieutenant."

Rose found her place beside him, gazing down at the name of a senior who passed away several years before her first step on Academy grounds. "We could have been resting here."

He scrunched his brow. "I know."

"We...almost did."

"It's all in the past."

"There's a lot of open ground here."

The Captain knew what she was insinuating. He felt uneasy about it but nonetheless accepted the impending task of notifying Brigadier General Winter Schnee. Maybe discuss utilizing the open unused acre to lay to rest the remains of the unidentified corpses they came across in their operations. Fallen soldiers would always be returned to their families or closest relatives. But the ones who had neither?

"I'd rather be buried elsewhere," he told himself.

"Likewise," echoed the First Lieutenant.

"I've reserved a plot of land for myself," piped the Staff Sergeant.

Jaune and Ruby regarded the lumbering mercenary with raised brows.

Cardin shrugged, his trademark smirk absent. "I'm just thinking ahead."

"You seem so sure about it," Red remarked.

"We're all going back to the dirt, anyway. It's only a matter of time." With that, he left them, tracing his way up the makeshift wooden bridge assembled by the engineers to the Academy ruins.

The two senior officers lingered behind, following his silhouette until he disappeared behind the collapsed columns and broken concrete.

"He was...very solemn today," observed Rose.

Arc nodded sympathetically. "I might find him at the bar later. Or not."

She wore a doubtful frown. "Where else could he be if not the bar?"

"His old dorm room."

The First Lieutenant blinked. "... I see."

"We're all survivors, Ruby," Jaune reminded her as he started up the same path back to the ruins. "We all lost our own teams over the years. Let him sulk. He hasn't done so in a while."

The afternoon fog began to settle in the wake of the early morning rain, restricting her vision and cloaking the crumbled institution in thick dirty white. In the thickening mist, Ruby considered buying flowers for Cardin to lay down on the graves of his own teammates. Then again, she still had to do the same for her own.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 21, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 21, 2018

INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 21, 2018

NOTE: Monsoon season kicked up some thick fog over the past couple weeks. I live on the lower side of a mountain facing a valley so I have a bit of a scenic view of the town. Sometimes, I get these thoughts when I look out my window and I see nothing but white fog in the wake of heavy rain.

Sounds slightly poetic but I couldn't help myself.