The four of them decided to stay put for three days before they made any decision to move again.

When the decision to leave was made, it had to do with the fact that they were running severely low on resources and needed to get to a town before they could do anything. Hazel and Tyrian had managed to hunt things for them to eat, but that was something that could only last for so long. And even then, staying out in the sticks couldn't last them forever in general. Not with things the way that they were.

Despite the supply of food and the resembled stability of the situation, Cinder was finding it extraordinarily hard to calm down, all things considered. Sleep had been elusive, and eating had been even more so. Even days later, she was in too much pain to be able to keep going or do much of anything else. It was a sort of weakness that she wasn't able to get past, and so when they started moving back towards society and mankind, for Cinder it felt more like an exhausted stagger forward.

There was very little that made her feel like she was actually managing to get anywhere or do anything correctly. It almost felt like she was just floating.

The others had been talking to her a lot over the course of the last few days. It had been almost constant, it had been a constant explanation of everything that could have had anything to do with her newly earned injuries. She was glad that the others were doing her best to help her out, but it was incredibly difficult to get past what had happened to her.

The fact that most of the talk was done completely as theory didn't help her much, though. If anything, it left her feeling more scared and alone.

Cinder hadn't gotten a chance to see herself in a mirror or anything similar since she'd woken with her skin on fire. Considering the pain and some of the whisperings that she had heard, Cinder couldn't help but be afraid for what was going to come ahead. A few times, she had caught the others staring at her to see how she looked. None of them had said so much as a direct word to her about her condition.

Mostly, she'd seen the staring coming from Tyrian, but the man had been surprisingly quiet around her lately. Of all of the people involved in their group, Tyrian had always been the most quiet of them- although Cinder couldn't help but think that had more to do with his status as the collective kicked dog. At least, that was true until the two of them were alone for whatever reason. He would allow himself to edge in with her and tell her things.

So often, it was adoration towards the Goddess that he claimed had reached out for them, for her.

Cinder hadn't been able to bring herself to respond. If they had been contacted or touched on by some sort of Goddess, then why would that goddess choose to appear in her form?

It was the lone thought that had been bouncing around in Cinder's mind the entire time that she travelled with the others. The fact that they were going to a town was good, but Cinder was afraid. What happened when they found themselves in a situation where people did nothing but stare at her?

The good of it all was that Watts was surprisingly good at getting people to understand their predicament and getting them to work with him regardless of the situation. He managed to get them a room without the others even coming in, and when the others went in so that they could go up to the room that they'd gained to stay in, they weren't stuck there in public for too long.

Almost immediately, Cinder was being dragged off to the bathroom by Watts and seated so that he could get a better look at her eye in a relatively clean environment. Hazel and Tyrian didn't say anything on it. The only thing that told them that there was any sort of changes was Hazel's announcement that he and Tyrian were going off to do something.

Cinder didn't pay it the most attention.

"So." Arthur's voice was the first thing to snap her attention away from everything else and onto him instead. "How are you feeling?"

Cinder opened her mouth to answer, but she didn't get a chance to say anything about her pain level before Arthur was cutting her off. Cinder wished that she was more frustrated by it than she was in that moment. Right then, she was mostly just concerned with avoiding the mirror to find out what was going on with her face.

"It's awful, I imagine." Arthur said quietly. "I know when I got my brand-" Cinder finally got a glimpse of the mirror, and she was able to see the scar that had formed on the back of Arthur's neck. "The injury was nowhere near as severe as this." He hesitated for a moment as he ran some water over a washcloth. "You know that you will have to tell us about what you went through eventually."

"I know." Cinder croaked. Her voice was so hoarse from disuse that it barely managed to come out as anything more than a whisper. She grimaced, unable to do anything but worry that it was yet another injury that she'd managed to win in her dream.

Or nightmare.

The way that Hazel, Arthur, and Tyrian talked about it, Cinder supposed that the most relevant way to explain what she'd gone through was 'vision.'

Arthur nodded along. "How bad is the pain?"

Cinder swallowed and thought hard to try and find a way to explain just how bad it was, but nothing came to mind that fit correctly that she could use to explain herself to Arthur. How could anything match up to what she was feeling?

Cinder stared down at her hands, searching for the words that she needed to be able to say to Watts at some point and feeling frustration bubble up in her chest at the realization that what she needed wasn't going to come easily. Nothing could ever match up to what she wanted to say. Nothing could describe it, and even if Arthur had experienced a branding at some point, Cinder knew that it wouldn't be a proper comparison.

He'd said it himself- the damage that he'd suffered was nothing like what Cinder had gone through or received.

"Unbearable." Cinder forced the word out, because it was the only thing that came to mind that she could give to the man that was doing the best to treat her injury. "It's-"

"I expected as much." Arthur replied with a frown creasing his face as he wet a small square of gauze and moved in just a little bit closer to Cinder. "Hold your hair away from the wound, if you would."

Cinder frowned, mostly because she knew that she should have been expected to be put into a situation whre she wasn't going to be able to get a word in edgewise regardless of what was going on and what needed to be done. No matter what, Cinder had learned that being around Watts would always come with a bitter edge. She'd had the time to watch him ever since she'd first united with the group.

He was very much the type that was sure that he knew what was best for the people around him, and didn't care if someone else might know better about him otherwise. No matter how much Cinder knew about herself and how much she thought that she could change his mind on how he approached issues, Doctor Arthur Watts would never allow it.

At the end of the day, in his mind, he seemed to be a professional.

And his skillsets seemed to be enough to back that up on some level. Arthur displayed abilities that told her that he had been trained in medicine in some manner. Cinder wasn't sure if she'd go as far as to call him a doctor, but at the very least he was a more than competent field medic.

For that reason alone, Cinder allowed herself to raise a hand and carefully hold her hair away from her face. The eye was bandaged over, and that did absolutely nothing to be able to stop the pain, but at the very least it was being kept relatively clean and the bandages kept her hair from irritating the wound further.

Cinder was sure that at some point she was going to have to find a more permanent solution for that little issue.

Arthur leaned in and Cinder kept herself as still as possible as the memories of the night that he'd gotten the injury arose in her mind. Back then, Arthur had threatened her about what would happen if she didn't manage to stay still.

He'd never had to follow up on that particular threat, but Cinder had absolutely no interest in finding out what it was all about or where it would end up going if she flinched away too much.

"This will take some time to heal properly, it seems." Arthur said, and he sounded deeply irritated by it. "Ideally we would be able to just cauterize the wound but-" He paused and pulled back away from Cinder. From her one good eye, she was able to see the color of her own blood staining the gauze that he'd been using. Cinder's stomach turned, and she couldn't help but wonder whether he'd managed to clean up some dried blood, or whether it was fresh.

Based on the fact that Arthur was talking about the possibility of going ahead to cauterize the wound, Cinder was more than willing to bet that it was fresh.

Was this wound not able to heal?

"But what?" Cinder asked, keeping her voice down and knowing that Watts probably had to strain himself to be able to hear her.

"The placement is difficult." Arthur said absentmindedly. "It seems that She knew what she was doing when she selected it, though. He stared at her face, and Cinder wanted to run or do something to get the man to go away, but he said nothing else. If anything, Cinder was willing to bet that he was doing whatever he could to examine her eye and see how severe the damage was.

If there was something else that he was looking for there, Cinder didn't know what it was.

"The eye is gone, right?" Cinder asked, feeling like she still needed that confirmation despite the fact that the others had been telling her that was the case for several days now. The strong possibility that she might make herself sound like a fool because of it was a complete footnote in the back of Cinder's mind.

"It is, I'm afraid." Arthur replied. "And if there's anything left of it, I'm sure that there's absolutely nothing of use there." He hummed in frustration. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that the optic nerve is intact, but without an eye there it doesn't matter so much..."

His voice trailed off, and he got a faraway look like there was something on his mind that he didn't want to speak to. Cinder watched the man's expression, and the way that his brow furrowed in deep annoyance before he decided to double back down on his work. "Theoretically if you were in Atlas and chose to enlist with their military a bionic eye could be attained but-" He frowned. "Well, you don't look the military type, do you?"

For a moment, Cinder wondered about that. Why would Watts be concerned with the military? Why would he even think that there was some sort of option to be found there. Why would he look at it as though there was some sort of solution to be found there?

Cinder made the decision not to answer, and if Arthur cared he certainly didn't do anything to show it as he decided to keep on talking about whatever was on his mind as he treated her wounds, reaching for a gel of some sort.

"You know-" Arthur began. "The reason that the pain is so intense aside from the location is that wounds gained in this nature tend to ignore natural healing by aura." He paused.

Cinder couldn't help but to wonder about what Arthur had said. Over the course of her life, she had never heard of any sort of injury that was able to ignore the aura without it taking advantage of some sort of rare, very banned, very secretive technology.

Simply put, what he was suggesting was all but impossible.

"How?" Cinder hissed the word out as loudly as she could manage, and Arthur picked his head up so that he could stare at her, for just a little bit. Cinder knew that he had to be thinking of the best way to explain things, but she also couldn't help but wonder what else the doctor was thinking of.

Cinder wouldn't have been surprised for a second to be met by teasing from the older man, based on how he'd acted around her in the past.

But he didn't make her wait together. When he began speaking it was only following a quiet sigh. "You couldn't have possibly chosen an easier topic?" He asked the question with all of his usual harshness, and CInder couldn't be surprised by it. If anything, it was perfectly in line with how the doctor tended to act with the other two in their little group.

Cinder didn't answer. As much as she wished that she was able to, it was too difficult with her throat aching and pain worming its way through her entire body and getting more and more intense with every moment that she sat there with Watts.

The man's scowl became more severe, but soon enough he began the explanation.

"You must understand-" he started, not hesitating for too long. "There is a great deal that we don't yet understand about Her… nature."

"What do you mean?" Cinder prodded as gently as she could manage. "You three keep talking about a her but..."

"I wish I could answer that as easily as you ask." Arthur replied. "Her name is Salem." He began, his voice kept low. "She's... not like most people or things. Otherworldly, in the simplest sense."

Cinder thought back to the dreams that she'd had where the woman had appeared and all too quickly decided that 'otherworldly' definitely fit the bill for what she had seen. She found herself balling her hands into fists, but didn't let it show too much, mostly out of her own fear.

Arthur leaned in towards her again to dab at the injury on her eye. "Stay still, would you?" He asked as he began to bandage the injury over. "I can't do anything to help you if you keep on moving."

Cinder wanted to retort, but she couldn't bring herself to. It was pushing the man a little too much and he'd already demonstrated to her multiple times that Arthur Watts only seemed to really care about one person.

Himself.

So Cinder did everything in her power to sit there, shock-still and not even allow herself to shift when she breathed.

"Very good." Arthur muttered as he found a roll of medical tape. "What you need to know about Salem is that She is powerful, girl." He began again with his explanation. "And you've been having the same dreams as the rest of us so we have to assume that we're heading in the right direction."

Cinder didn't let herself nod, despite every urge in her body that told her that was what she was supposed to do in a situation such as this one. "Why is She.."

"We don't know." Arthur replied, but for a moment his face seemed to screw up in even further frustration as he began to attach the makeshift eyepatch bandage for Cinder's face. "And if there is anyone among us that does know, he's been hiding it from us."

"Tyrian?"

"No," Arthur said, finally pulling away from Cinder and giving her the space to breathe. "Can't hold a secret and he's..." He paused, and looked over at Cinder before raising an eyebrow. "How old are you anyways?"

Cinder paused, and for the first time she realized that she had never really told this particular man all that much about herself. Sure, when she'd first encountered Hazel she'd answer all of his questions, but now it was different.

"Twenty one." Cinder replied finally, and it was enough to answer his question.

"Hm." Arthur said as he stood up and stretched his legs. He took the first step towards the door and reached for the knob so that the two of them could leave for the more comfortable space of their room. "I suppose that makes sense. But as I suspected, you are much too young to know."

"Young?" Cinder paused, stepping up and ignoring the aches through her body as she moved a little closer to the door. For the first time she got a look of herself in the mirror, and she absolutely hated what she saw there.

Her stomach did flips and falls, but she didn't let herself focus on it for too long.

Cinder tore her eyes away and stepped out of the bathroom, following close after Watts. The man walked across the hotel room with his kit and laid it down on one of the beds that was nearest to the window. He looked back at her over his shoulder. "Yes," He confirmed to himself. "Too young."

Cinder looked at the four beds and decided to take one of the ones towards the middle of the room. It was two beds away from Arthur's and she seated herself there before setting her hands on her legs. "What does that have to-" Cinder tried to speak up, but she quickly realized that her voice was too quiet for Arthur to hear.

But he was smart if nothing else. He picked his head up and looked to her before letting out a heavy sigh of frustration before beginning an explanation. "Back when we were younger men, Hazel and I brushed shoulders with Her for a moment or two. You would have been a child back then."

That was surprising, but Cinder didn't know how to read into it so much. How could they have met Salem in person if she was, as Arthur had said, otherworldly?

Arthur seated himself on his bed and reached into his jacket, finding the breast pocket where he quickly found his quarry. "It was a surreal experience. We've been..." He paused, and looked towards the door, almost like he was expecting for Hazel to come in at any moment to speak to the two of them. "Trying to find Her again for some time."

Cinder was about to open her mouth to ask a question, but the door opening snapped her out of her question as the others stepped into the room. Hazel was carrying a parcel of something, but she could smell the scent of spiced meat wafting off of him.

Perhaps Arthur's explanation would have to wait, Cinder thought to herself as she watched Hazel set the package down and unwrap it to begin portioning out whatever he'd managed to acquire for all of them to eat that night.

First thing in the morning, the currently unnamed team was out and they were ready to head out on their first proper mission together. While Ruby seemed to be bouncing off the walls with excitement for what was to come, Yang was staying back a little bit since it was the best that she could do to give the other two members of their team some space.

She hadn't failed to notice a lot of things over the last few days. Blake seemed to keep a lot of secrets. Weiss seemed to be doing everything that she could to be able to avoid something, but she'd never said what it was. Yang knew that it had something to do with that man in the hallway.

But Weiss kept herself quiet and refused to elaborate, and so that left the rest of them with only so much to go on. Yang was hopeful that getting away from Beacon and getting out on a mission might be enough to help the four of them to start bonding.

The four of them were waiting by the gates of the city, since they were supposed to be meeting a more seasoned huntsman to go with them. Yang had gotten frustrated over that little detail the night before.

Her and Ruby's dad claimed that he knew who they were supposed to be going with, but he hadn't even began to consider telling them about it. Because of that, Yang was more than a little bit annoyed.

Ruby seemed excited by the knowledge that it was a surprise though.

And that was what she'd been chattering on about for several minutes as she paced by the gate. "What if we end up with Uncle Qrow!" Ruby called, bouncing slightly and looking up at the sky. "Oh, or what if we end up with Ozpin themself, or the general, or-"

"Ruby." Weiss spoke up, and Yang couldn't help but think that the white haired girl didn't look like she was ready for a big mission at all. She was still dressed in her fine clothes that didn't belong on a big mission. They didn't belong outside of a high-society manor, really.

As for Blake, she looked ready, but she was pacing and looking all too nervous herself. Yang didn't know why, since Blake was absolutely allergic to telling them anything about herself.

Yang was sure that whatever was going on in Blake's head was probably important, but she didn't know how this was going to work. If Blake was off in her own world, then it was entirely possible that they might stumble into trouble. But that was just going to be a part of the job, it seemed.

Ruby had quieted down easy enough, and she crossed her arms over her chest. "Right." Ruby said quietly before picking her head up to look up at Yang. "I can't believe that Dad and Uncle Qrow won't tell us who we're going with."

Yang wasn't able to hide the smile that began to bloom onto her face as a response to Ruby's words. "Well," She began. "I'm sure that whoever it is, they'll be happy to stay with us and I dunno..." Yang blinked and looked down at the ground, digging the toe of her boot down into the gravel. "Maybe they'll stay back."

"Either way," Weiss spoke up now, shifting uncomfortably herself from toe to toe. She was gripping her sword all too tightly. Yang didn't like that either. It seemed like she Ruby were the only ones that weren't nervous about the job that was coming ahead of them. "We're going to go out for this mission and return successful."

"Successful?" Blake spoke up now, and her voice sounded as incredulous and annoyed as ever. "You all realize that this is just a recon mission, right?"

"Uh, yeah." Ruby piped up, stepping forward so that the four of them were standing in a circle of sorts. "But it's still our first mission together. If we just have to go and walk around and see if there's something wrong, then we can do that-"

Blake blinked and picked her head up, looking off in the distance like she could see something there coming already. Yang couldn't help the weird feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach which told her that there was something wrong. Something that Blake still wasn't going to tell them.

And because of that, Yang couldn't help but worry about whether or not they were going to be able to get along as a team.

"Hello girls!" A voice called, and Yang was able to recognize it in a heartbeat. She'd heard this man a thousand times, always in her father's kitchen or standing at the front of the classroom for a lecture. Yang was the first to turn to face their mentor properly.

Standing there, looking like he was wearing his normal clothes aside from the addition of a worn overcoat and a hat, was Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck.

Well, Yang thought to herself, that at least explained how her dad and uncle knew about who they would be going with. She did wish that she was heading out with someone that was a little bit cooler than Oobleck.

"Professor Oobleck?" Ruby exclaimed, turning and almost jumping in place at the sound of their professor's voice. "You're the one coming with us?"

"I am." The man took a step forward and looked between the four of them. Yang normally would have felt some sort of discomfort over the scrutiny, but this time, none of that came. She decided to just stand back, cross her arms over his chest, and waited. "And I suppose that you are the two new students. Very well, it's nice to meet you Miss Schnee, Miss Belladonna."

Out of the corner of her eye, Yang saw Blake's amber colored eyes widening at her own name. It was like hearing her own name was somehow foreign to Blake, and Yang didn't know that she really wanted to read into what that all meant. At her side, Weiss also seemed to shift uncomfortably, but Yang couldn't even imagine why. Weiss was a Schnee, and she hadn't been afraid to wave that fact around quite yet.

But whatever feelings Weiss was feeling were pushed down quickly enough. She shifted and lowered herself down into a curtsey and bowed her head. It was something that Yang never would have imagined doing, but she didn't know how to read into it yet. She and Ruby were just from a different world from Weiss, and it was entirely likely that Blake wasn't even from their universe.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Professor Oobleck." Weiss said, her eyes sliding shut almost gracefully in greeting.

"It's Doctor Oobleck, miss Schnee." The man corrected just as Weiss was beginning to stand up straight now. "I didn't spend all that time getting a PhD for nothing."

Weiss blinked, her cold blue eyes going wide for a moment as she stood up properly. The girl laced her fingers together in front of her and she nodded. "I understand." Weiss said. "My apologies."

"No, there's no need for apologies." Oobleck said, his voice all too calm and him almost speaking even slower than he normally would have. There had to be a reason for it, but Yang couldn't think of one. This wasn't how the professor would normally go about things. "I suppose that you've all been spending time preparing yourselves for your mission?"

"Sure thing, Doc." Yang spoke up, deciding that the least that she could do was draw any attention away from her teammates.

"Yeah!" Ruby exclaimed, almost bouncing where she stood. "I didn't know that we were going to be with you-"

"I know." Oobleck answered, smiling slightly as he turned to face the road and take a good look out at what was there on the horizon. Yang turned slightly so that she could see what else was out there, but couldn't see anything. "Now, I'm sure that you've all been made aware of the mission objectives for this assignment?"

"We have." Blake spoke now, keeping herself calm, but even through that thin veneer she was reaching back over her shoulder to reach for her sword. Why would Blake already be feeling the need to fight when they hadn't even left Vale yet? Yang couldn't think of one, but she didn't let herself get too worked up over it. "How long should it take?"

Doctor Oobleck stopped in his place and turned to face Blake, something unreadable on his face. The glare of the light against his glasses only served to make his expression even harder to understand. Yang couldn't help but feel somewhat frustrated by all of it.

"Is there a reason for your haste, Miss Belladonna?"

Blake's eyes seemed to widen in something that was all too akin to anger, and Yang couldn't help but to give Ruby an uneasy look. Her little sister seemed to have picked up on the fact that there was something wrong, and Yang wasn't sure how to read into all of it.

Yang just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong that Blake wasn't going to tell them. While it was possible that Blake was just feeling anxious about the mission ahead of them, Yang wasn't so sure. There was an electricity that she couldn't just ignore.

"No." Blake finally answered, her amber colored eyes darting down to the ground and her expression furrowing and growing more and more stressed with the word. She gripped her sword a little bit tighter, and finally, Blake gave an answer of her own for Doctor Oobleck's question. "I just want to start."

Doctor Oobleck seemed to take a little too long to come up with something that he was supposed to say to Blake. It was like he was thinking hard for some reason. Yang tried not to think about it too much, but finally the doctor was speaking up, and he somehow managed to sound as excitable as he always did.

"I see." He said, turning on his heel again and beginning to lead the way out towards the road. "Very well then." Doctor Oobleck was just under the gate when he stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to face the four of them before he paused. "I suppose that I should let the four of you lead rather than take the point, shouldn't I?"

"We've got it, Doc." Yang answered, walking a little faster so that she could make her way up to the front of the group. Ruby was quick to join her at her side, and Weiss and Blake fell in beside them soon enough.

And almost carelessly, the four of them were able to begin the trek out beyond the city gates for the first time as a group of teammates.