Short chapter. Basically, it's my mother's surgery today – on her heart and not at all a guaranteed thing. She had the pre-op earlier this week and since my father's car broke down, I've been ferrying them around all week to help out with it.

More of that yesterday and today, with today spent taking him to the hospital to spend time with her. Obviously, I didn't want to rush him or myself with regards to that, so time spent on this chapter is a whole lot less.

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 6

His father gave him a solid nudge to the back, no doubt mistaking Jaune's slack-jawed staring as ill-timed attraction. It wasn't. The girl looked like she'd been dragged through mud and bushes backwards, with little cuts and bruises and tear tracks to mask any natural beauty. It was the eyes – those damn eyes – that every single fibre of his being was telling him were familiar.

Impossible. At least for him it was. He knew every girl in Ansel, as he did every boy, man, child and woman. The place was too small to hide anyone else, and he'd never in his life travelled further than the footsteps. The Dark Lord had, or his previous incarnations had, but this girl couldn't have been old enough to have met with any of those, let alone built familiarity with them.

Nicholas and Mayor Cobbin rushed to the wounded man's side, the mayor speaking quickly to Old Martha while Nicholas took the soaked cloth from the woman's old hand and helped to dab at the man's wounds. The sudden action spurred Jaune as well, making him swallow and approach the clearly distraught girl.

"We should let them work on him."

He wasn't sure what else to say – she must have been thirsty, tired and clearly needed a good wash, but he'd have rejected any of those were it his father dying on a cot.

"But dad-"

"Is in good hands. The best he can be." Jaune leaned down to whisper "We'll just be in their way. They need to clean him up and you're covered in blood and dirt. That might just make it worse."

It was a cruel thing to say but it sparked a reaction, making the girl's silver eyes widen. She quickly scurried up along with him and backed away. Cobbin and Nicholas were already working on the man's wounds, cleaning them to the best of their ability, so he hadn't lied. They looked horrible, however. They were deep, but that wasn't what had Jaune feeling so defeatist. The edges were tinged yellow, with crusted pus over the cuts staining the blood a dark, muddy red.

He'd come all the way from Patch or so she said, and that was no short journey. Much of it had to have been on a boat. All that mucky water, then the forest and whatever was on the claws of the Grimm that caught them. Mud at the very least, but maybe even blood and gore from other animals or people. That kind of wound would go bad fast if not treated, and it was obvious the man had been focused on getting his daughter to safety first, his own health after.

He's not going to make it, Jaune thought. For once, the shades of memories of past lives worked not to mock him but to agree. He'd dreamed of trying to pull people back together, the wounded and the dead, and he was beginning to think one of the past Dark Lords had been a healer and that they were his memories he was witnessing. There were few other reasons for him to know at a glance the state of the infection. It will be a miracle if he wakes up before passing on. The infection has already reached his blood and has put him into a deep slumber.

Small and dirty hands clutched at his sleeve. The girl wasn't overly young, but she was petite, only reaching up to his chest. "He'll be okay, won't he?"

No. He would not be.

"Dad and Mayor Cobbin will do everything they can," he said, and hoped his evasiveness didn't show. "We need to make sure you won't collapse now, or then they'll have to split the treatment."

"I'm fine!"

"You're bleeding." Jaune pointed to her face.

"It… It was just a branch…"

"But if it gets infected, we'll be looking after two people." He firmly steered her out the front door and into the cold, violent snow. The girl shivered and clutched her cloak about her shoulders. "I'll take you to my family's place and we can heat up some water there. My sisters should have some spare clothes to fit you and then you can eat."

"I'm not hungry." No sooner did she say it than did her stomach rumble. The girl's silver eyes scrunched shut, frustration and anger bleeding out as she grit her teeth together.

"Try and force some down anyway. Your body needs it."

"I… Yes. I'm Ruby…"

"Jaune. Nice to meet you." He could tell the introduction was her way of apologising, not that she needed to. "That was my dad back there. He knows how to look after injured people." Before, he'd assumed it was because of how often hunting injuries happened, but now he knew better. His dad must have helped to heal people after big fights in his mercenary company. "What's your father's name?"

"Taiyang. He's strong. He once fought off an entire group of bandits on his own," she boasted.

"Really? Did you see it?"

Ruby shook her head, her black hair peeking out from under her hood as she did. "It was before I was born, but everyone on Patch remembers and talked about it so I know it's true. They'd come to the village and demand tribute. Dad went out alone to fight their leader for a whole two nights. They left without anything after, and dad was called a hero."

Wow. Ansel wasn't wealthy enough to have to deal with bandits, but everyone grew up being warned about them. There was no telling whether the group that attacked Patch were strong or not – they might have been a desperate, rag-tag group, but it was still brave for one man to walk into their camp and demand to fight their leader.

And now he's given his life to get his daughter to safety.

Juniper met them at the front door, having heard the commotion, and she was thankfully quick to whisk Ruby away and inside, crooning over the state of her and shouting for Saphron to start heating up some water for a bath.

They didn't have a metal tub like at the tavern, but a waterproof barrel that would be heated by dropping hot rocks from the fire inside and then placing another plank of wood down so as not to step on them. He was grateful his sisters took that out his hands, and Ruby was quickly drawn away so she could have some privacy. Then, Juniper cornered him and demanded to know what was going on. He told her as quietly as he could.

"That poor girl. Is the father…?"

Jaune looked back to make sure she couldn't hear him. The hissing of rocks being dropped in the water was loud enough, as was Saphron's chatter as she offered Ruby new clothes a room or two over. "It doesn't look good," he whispered back. Juniper's eyes closed softly. "I don't think he's going to make it."

"Have a little hope yet. Your father knows what he's doing and by the Goddess' grace the man will come out of it alive."

Jaune sincerely doubted the Goddess would have anything to do with it but kept such potentially blasphemous thoughts to himself. Juniper hadn't seen the man and didn't know how bad it was; she was just trying to keep everyone's spirits up. He shouldn't have been able to tell how bad it was either, so he kept it to himself.

"They've been travelling for a long time," he said. "Can you help me cook up some food for Ruby? She doesn't want to eat but she must be starving."

"Yes!" Juniper perked up, eager to have something – anything – to do to help. "I'll handle that – you go out back and collect some extra blankets from storage, will you? We'll need to set her up with a cot. Poor girl must be dead on her feet."

"I'll get on that."

/-/

Ruby cleaned up well.

The girl was as petite as he'd first thought, and it turned out her pale skin wasn't just because of the cold and long travel; she was naturally fair, with dark hair that reached her shoulders to offset the colour and her silver eyes focused on a plate of cooked meat and vegetables that she wolfed down like a starved animal. Her ragged and bloodstained cloak had been replaced with brown animal skin hose with a cream-coloured blouse just a few sizes too large over the top. She'd tied that in with a black leather corset, one he was sure hadn't come from his sisters and must have been her own.

She was striking – not a classical beauty or even the prettiest girl in Ansel, but he didn't know anyone with hair such a shade. It wasn't purest black, and the tips of her hair even seemed to show a little reddish brown when the light caught them. And still, that damned feeling that he'd seen her before, that he knew her from somewhere. It just wouldn't go away.

It was sometime during her meal that the door creaked and pushed open. Ruby dropped the food instantly, and Juniper glanced over at her husband with clear disapproval for the interruption.

"Is dad okay!?"

Nicholas paused in the doorway, confused for a moment and then catching his bearings. Jaune knew him enough to know what the brief tightening of his lips meant. "We've done what we can. The rest is in the Goddess' hands. If he has the strength to fight off the infection, he will wake."

A part of Jaune reacted viscerally to the words. Unnaturally and violently so. Strength. Pah. The man had strength enough to escape Patch and carry his daughter to Ansel, and what little was left would be drained. Superstitious nonsense. Strength was not what would deliver Taiyang to life or death, but the severity of his infection and whether herbs had been applied quickly enough to treat it. The reaction, and the anger he felt, weren't his own, however, and he stamped them down.

"He's strong!" Ruby nodded her head assuredly. "He's the strongest – he'll fight this off. Just you wait and see."

How Nicholas managed to force a smile Jaune had no idea. Jaune was grateful Ruby wasn't looking his way. "I'm glad to hear it, lass. If you don't mind, would you mind telling me about what occurred at Patch. I'll need to protect the village if there are Grimm out there."

"It's just the one. There were more at Patch, probably still are, but it was only one here. It… it started two months ago. We had huntresses visit the island to look for those with the talent. I wasn't chosen. No one was. They didn't look too surprised by that and left a day later. After, we continued as normal. Fishing, farming, trading – but one of the ferries went missing one night when it was transporting horses and traders across. There weren't any storms, so it didn't make any sense."

"Could they have fallen off?" Nicholas asked.

"They found the ferry later, or what was left of it. It was just a flat boat, but apparently it was covered in blood. Dad said it was like a war happened on it, but there weren't any bodies."

Nicholas drew in a heavy breath. "And then what?"

"Other things started happening. Farmers disappeared, dogs would bark wildly late at night and one of our hunters didn't come back after going to see what it was. We found tracks. Or, well, others did." she mumbled. "Dad kept me inside where it was safe. He told me they were big, though. Grimm. We sent messengers to Vale after to ask for Huntresses to come help us. They arrived three days later."

"They came?" Jaune interrupted. He wasn't sure why he hadn't believed they would – it was their solemn duty – and yet he was surprised.

"Uh. Yes." Ruby was less so, and more than a little confused as to his shock. "They sent four Huntresses. Two of them stayed in and around Patch to keep us safe while the other two went alone into the forests and meadows to hunt them out."

"Were they not able to find anything?" Nicholas asked. "You told the gate guards that Patch had fallen."

"Oh, they found something alright." Ruby said. Her hands balled into fists on the table. "They found a lot of things. They were… They were amazing," she whispered. "They fought with the strength of ten people each, but when the Grimm came…" A panicked laugh escaped her. "It wasn't one or two. There were almost a hundred."

"Goddess!" Juniper gasped. Around the table, everyone made the sign against their heart. Jaune did as well, as much as his stomach roiled at doing so. More feelings not his own.

"Goddess protect." Nicholas echoed dully. "A hundred? Are you sure? You couldn't have been mistaken? Fear makes the bravest see things-"

"It was lots!" Ruby said defensively. "Maybe not a hundred but close! It wasn't just one or two or even ten, but they were able to keep the Huntresses busy and get into the gates. It… It was a massacre. All the women and children were put onto the last ferry and sent out. The men stayed to buy time."

"Weren't you on that ferry?" Saphron asked.

"No." Ruby snapped. "I could fight. A-And I wasn't going to abandon dad to die alone. I grabbed a scythe and went to join him."

"That was foolish." Nicholas said.

"I don't care! He's my father!"

"It's okay, sweetie." Juniper hushed her while shooting Nicholas a firm look. He gave it up with a sigh, though Jaune knew he was likely imagining one of his own children refusing to heed his advice and coming back to fight and die. "Your father got to shore safe, so I imagine there was no dying there a last stand."

"No. When he saw I'd come back he knew he had to get me out himself. And him too." Ruby's tight and weary smile told him she'd known he would. Perhaps that had been her plan all along to ensure they both escaped. "We took one of the fishing boats and rowed out. There were another two as well, but they abandoned us on reaching shore."

"Why?" Nicholas asked.

"Dad was already wounded then and moving slower. They said we'd only drag them down!" Ruby's snarl shared her thoughts on that. "They even took dad's sword and the money we had. Robbed us right there – our own neighbours!"

"Men become little more than wolves when their lives are on the line." Jaune said. It felt the right thing to say, even if everyone turned to look at him, clearly shocked.

Where the hell did that come from!?

"He's not wrong." Nicholas eventually said. "Though I'd question how and where you learned that. Aye, you can trust a man in times of plenty but it's in times of need where those bonds are truly tested. One who stands by you in those times is a friend indeed. And so you trekked here alone? Through the sleet and snow, carrying your father the whole while?"

Ruby shrugged. "What else could I do?"

"And the Grimm you mentioned here…? The one that attacked you?"

"It didn't attack us."

"It didn't?"

"No." Ruby shook her head quickly. "That man on the gate assumed. I was babbling to be fair," she added. "I just wanted to get dad inside."

"Then there isn't one?"

"No. There is. We saw it. Or I did. Dad was already out by then. It was moving through the trees and it… it was like it sensed us. I was quiet, and dad was passed out, but it kept sniffing the air despite us being downwind in the middle of a snowstorm. It came closer – a big, wolf-like thing."

"Beowolf." Nicholas growled. "I've seen 'em before. It didn't attack you, you say. Why not? Sounds like you'd have been easy prey."

"We would have and… I don't know. It was about to, I'm sure, but then it just sort of… didn't." Ruby's face scrunched up. "It looked away as if it had heard something. Like something else caught its attention. Then its eyes seemed to glow even brighter, and it loped away and left us."

"Odd behaviour." Nicholas thumbed his jaw. Jaune had the feeling he wasn't fully convinced Ruby had seen what she had at all. It did sound almost too unbelievable to be true. "Which way did it go?"

"I wasn't really paying attention. I could see smoke above the trees and wanted to get dad there."

"It was within range of the village!?" Nicholas asked quickly.

"We were at your gates not four minutes later. It even looked this way before leaving. It looked straight towards the village."

Nicholas stood with a clatter as his seat tumbled down. He turned and grabbed his coat back off the wooden hook by the door and swung it over his shoulders. "I have to go talk with the guards and the mayor," he said brusquely. "Saphron, Coral, Sable. You three are having an early night tonight – I want you rested and ready to come scouting with me in the morning."

The three girls nodded, though Jade predictably said, "I can come-"

"No! Your sisters are older. More experienced. You're all staying – and don't you get any ideas, Jaune." He pointed firmly. "You should have learned your lesson the last time you snuck out and nearly died. If it happens again, I'll drag you back home by your balls."

"I'll stay!" Jaune squeaked. "Do you think this Grimm followed them from Patch?"

"No. It would have attacked them sooner if it had. No," he said, "I think this is the last straggler of our own visit by the Huntress' two months past. It probably came because it felt their aura, and now it can't find them and is confused and sticking around. We're fortunate those two dealt with the Ursa that came with it. One Grimm is a problem we can deal with. More, and we might face the same trouble Patch did."

Juniper covered her mouth with her hands. "You don't think-"

"That is what I, Saphron, Coral and Sable will discern tomorrow. The snow will leave tracks. If it's just the one, we'll be fine. If it's more, we'll have to reach out to Vale ourselves for support. No point worrying about it now," he said. "Unlike Patch, our harvest is in. Ain't no one here got reason to go out beyond the walls and put themselves at risk. But for now, I'm going to have more men on the walls and make sure they're paying attention. We won't be taking any risks."

With his piece said, Nicholas opened the door to the blustery wind again and stepped out. The wintery breeze caught the door and slammed it shut behind him, casting the small homestead back into quiet but for the crackling of the nearby fire.

/-/

You couldn't have nightmares without sleep. Jaune wasn't sure if any of them could fall asleep that night, but he knew he could not. The low crackle of the fire and the warmth fought against the howling wind outside that buffeted the thatch roof. The long, echoing and mournful howls of the wind became Grimm in his mind, hauntingly calling out for him outside the walls, calling out that they were here for him, that they wanted him to come outside and face them.

The door opened and closed downstairs, and quiet conversation lay just out of reach. It must have been Nicholas returning and talking to Juniper, but it didn't last long and soon the door opened and closed again. Mayor Cobbin and the guardsmen must have been just as worried as he to have Nicholas coming and going through the night.

Or they could have been checking on Ruby's father. The man was on death's door and something greater than Jaune's own paltry knowledge of medicine seemed to be what was confirming it.

Could one of the previous Dark Lords have been a healer? Doesn't really make sense with the image of him, but maybe they were like me – a normal person before he took over.

Could he heal the man…?

It was a fanciful idea, one born of too much time on his hands and a late night with nothing more to think on. Pyrrha had said aura could heal, though. She'd done that to his cut, reducing it to a scar that was now nothing more than a thin red line. The Dark Lord was a man with aura – he was a man with aura – so didn't that mean he could do the same thing? Jaune closed his eyes.

If you really are in there somewhere, how could I heal that man? Could I save his life…?

Images. His hands glowing, a deeply wounded man gasping for breath and opening his eyes. It lasted a fraction of a second and Jaune's own eyes snapped open after. He hadn't expected an actual answer, and in truth he hadn't wanted one. Seeing nothing at all would have let him cling to the hope he was wrong about all of this. That it was one ridiculous mistake.

"I can heal him…" Maybe. In theory. Seeing one vision did not mean anything, but now he was laid in bed with the absolute knowledge that a man would die if he didn't do anything, and that he might be able to stop it. If he was willing to risk exposing himself. Jaune groaned and slung an arm across his eyes. "What now, genius? Does this plan of yours have a part two?"

It didn't. At least, it hadn't. Another hour ticked by with his thoughts on the girl a room over, who would be driven to heartbreak if – when – her father died, and him having to watch it, knowing he could have tried to do more.

It was that which finally drove him out of bed, downstairs and to the front door. As expected, Juniper was still up. Waiting for Nicholas and to see if she was needed. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Old Martha is looking after Ruby's father. I thought I'd go see if I can't be useful."

Juniper smiled softly. "Can't sleep either?"

"Not a wink."

"Well, better to be useful than not. Here, take some food to her while you're at it." Juniper moved to the kitchen and wrapped up some of the leftovers, along with a fresh cut of meat. "If he does wake, he's sure to be famished, and Martha deserves a little something to warm her old bones as well. Check on her firewood as well. She isn't as young as she used to be, and you know how stubborn the old folks can be at accepting help."

"I'll make sure she has plenty." Jaune took the package and wrapped it under his coat. It would be even colder out this late, but Martha wouldn't be sleeping with a dying patient in her home. Not with Mayor Cobbin and Nicholas knocking on her door every hour to check on him. What hours one slept really didn't matter in the winter, so he was sure Martha could catch up.

Come morning, assuming he survived, they might try and move Taiyang to another home or even a room at the tavern. It wouldn't be too suspicious if he did, would it? If Jaune was actually able to heal him and bring him back to health then people would chalk it up as the grace of the goddess and Ruby's father being a tough old bastard. A happy little miracle.

Come on, Jaune thought in his head, Show me that you're more than some monster in my head. Show me you're worth it.

If Ozma, the Dark Lord, heard him then he didn't reply. Jaune opened the door and stepped out into the blustery night wind, wrapped his scarf up over his nose and mouth and began the trudge toward Martha's home.

There we go. Very late update tonight, I know, but I've been out most of the day and just too busy to write or update.

Next Chapter: 6th March

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur