CHAPTER 8 – Closing the Show
The Young Wolf peered down from his new position midway up the oak tree.
He had sheared nearly every twig and middling sized branch on the lower canopy to hurl at the pair below.
Usually the rotund one as he was a larger target.
They paid them no heed, barely making an effort to dodge.
The projectiles merely glanced off their Aura at worst.
Most if not all of them wouldn't have done damage anyhow.
This was to plan.
He was much stronger in this human form than he remembered, an advantage he immediately applied.
Once they were adequately lulled into a false sense of security, The Young Wolf had ripped a fifteen-pound limb from the trunk and tossed it in quick succession before they could react to the noise.
His pursuers had quick reflexes.
The fat man had stepped back to narrowly avoid what the boy had been certain was a sure hit.
Young Wolf had tried again three more times with larger tree limbs, snapping them off then waiting a varied amount each time to hurl them, trying to catch those below off guard.
It didn't work.
There was a boisterous outpour of what he was certain were curses from the woman each time… but they weren't leaving.
The boy growled in frustration, blinking away the dysphoria he felt when his animalistic ears and tail bristled in response as he did so.
The Young Wolf began purposefully choosing branches now searching for acceptable straightness and a certain width.
After three were gathered he rested two in the crook of the thick tree limb he crouched upon, then began to strip the bark from the end of one with his fangs and the claws on his hands.
As he worked the boy grouched internally about the claws on his toes and pondered ways to dispose of them.
There was heat behind his eyes from the confusion, stress, and terror, but he bound all of these into submission with a focus on a piece of a distant normalcy he once knew.
'…I want to wear boots again someday damn it!'
/\/\/\
A ceiling wasn't what he had expected to see when he opened his eyes.
He was honestly surprised he was opening his eyes at all.
It hurt to exist in such a state as he was.
Reconciling the memories of two separate lives, no, entire existences with one another.
A retired bastard sell sword living in a frontier village with his son.
A great bear stalking the forests with a wolf as his only company.
Which of the two felt real and the other a dream drifted back and forth.
The man he was wished to be the dream.
For he had failed.
Lost the only battle that mattered when the only thing of value he ever had was his ability to fight and kill.
He let his village burn and his son… his son…
The beast he had been shifted into stark clarity, felt the realer of the two now.
He had achieved Apothesosis.
The tendrils of the Hunger did not rake his mind
He had… succeeded? It didn't taste like victory.
It was the flavor of ash and bile.
He had left the Young Wolf alone.
A sympathetic guilt was shared; The first thing to begin binding them together.
One being a lie, a dream was more palatable, because… they couldn't both be real, could they?
It was almost irreconcilably cognitively dissonant, but it was what it was.
It had to be.
Both were real as both were true.
He was what he was whatever that may be.
The objects of his split psyche's guilt snapped into place like the pieces of a puzzle.
A pattern was recognized of the son and the wolf.
The fleeting forlorn hope of them being the same was dashed by the impossible chances of it.
It would not be fair to ask of the Young Wolf to be someone he was not.
His son may be dead, but the Young Wolf was alive, alone, and listless in the wilderness.
What was the Young Wolf if not a second son to him after all this time?
The Young Wolf needed his mentor, friend, and… father.
The Young Wolf needed Old Bear.
He gripped the shards of his shattered consciousness and crushed them together into a sense of self enough for his surroundings to come into focus with a razor-sharp clarity.
The first thing he noticed was how uncomfortably warm he was.
This was due to his snug entombment in a mountain of blankets.
A passing glance at them bespoke of such quality he simply had to be in some noble's estate.
There were two voices in the room.
His hearing was far greater than he expected in this human form. He'd been too rapt in emotional desolation to pay it any mind before.
One was masculine, nearby overall but at some distance, while another feminine voice was very close by.
He couldn't understand the language… but it was undeniably Mistrali or some derivative therein.
His eyes narrowed in reflexive distaste, fingers twitching to grasp a weapon that was not there, only to be reminded of his new claws' presence.
Holdovers from his time as a beast. He hadn't any idea how to best weaponize them in this form.
But they were something.
He could work with that.
All that could be seen without moving his head having been observed, he angled his head as slowly as possible towards the woman's voice.
He found the source to be a beastfolk woman sitting in a luxuriously comfortable chair.
Her brunette hair continued up as a coat of fine fur on a tall pair of rabbit ears atop her head.
She was looking away from him.
Her Eastern Sanus features made him want to relax, but he simply couldn't assume she wasn't a threat.
The woman snickered about something.
There were two curved swords at either of her hips which were forcing her to awkwardly sit at the edge of her seat.
The woman had stopped talking.
He began to slowly loosen the blankets around him by squaring his shoulders and pushing out lightly with his arms.
His eyes snapped up to her face just as she began to look down at him.
Their gazes locked and a spurious thought in him appreciated meeting eyes with another person after so long.
Another long dormant part of him savored the beauty of her steel grey irises.
'Ah well,' he nonchalantly thought to himself before hurling the blankets at the beastfolk and leaping to his feet.
/\/\/\
The early afternoon was warm from the sun shining in the cloudless sky, with a refreshingly cool breeze blowing into the port town, wafting the scent of sea salt through the streets.
This kind of mundane perfection is what one could expect the day after a storm here.
Indeed, it was a beautiful day at Aguille Point.
That fact was something Taiyang Xiao Long was revelling in, among other mundanely perfect things.
After having breakfast at a diner with his daughters he had quickly run out of things he needed or even could do before they returned home.
As such they took to meandering down the main street, visiting each establishment that struck either Yang or Ruby's fancy.
Aguille was the largest organized settlement on Patch, and by virtue of that, the point where all airships and sea vessels docked at the island.
Despite this it was not a bustling hub of civilization.
It was a place perpetually on the cusp of becoming a small city akin to the trade hub of Northern Anima, Argus, but due to Patch's place in the world would never warrant such an expansion.
All of this is to say there was not much in the way of entertainment for two young girls beyond obvious attractions such as the local sweet shop and the toy section at the supermarket.
Travel agency, antique shop, clothing store, not one enough to hold the children's attention for long.
Eventually they had exhausted all material for exploration on the main street and resorted to meandering about the side streets.
Crime, much less violent crime, was so rare it felt foreign as a concept in a town like this so the father of two felt safe enough doing so.
Nevertheless, Taiyang remained vigilant, always keeping the girls in front of him and in sight, Ruby skipping along in front with gusto as per usual.
There was a point where he began to feel the 'meandering' to be rather deliberate, however.
This intuition was proven correct when they stopped in front of the place Tai should have assumed they would find themselves eventually.
The trio was standing in front of the weapon forge and shop 'One for All Armory Works.'
Looking down at the smug face of the crimson cloak clad Ruby Rose told Taiyang one thing.
His youngest daughter knew she had leverage.
His eldest daughter, meanwhile, was looking at him with a quirked brow for expecting any other outcome.
/\/\/\
The pressure of the plastic cord handle of the bag in his hand reminded Taiyang of a fact.
Ruby was very… different.
After being told in no uncertain terms she would not be getting a weapon of any kind with a tone she knew a pout would not change, Ruby immediately picked out her apparent fallback option.
Textbooks.
A very expensive textbook covering modern weapon design theory for Huntsmen as well as supplementary texts covering standard military weaponry, equipment, and the history of said hardware's development throughout Remnant's history.
One could not fault Taiyang for assuming these would ultimately end up as costly Huntsmen memorabilia to decorate Ruby's shelf once she saw how dry the reading material was.
It must have shown on his face, as the girl scowled before proceeding to list new or updated sections from the table of contents, comparing it to two previous entries in the series from Taiyang's academy days she had found in their garage.
Lo and behold that she had nearly memorized, and more importantly comprehended, four-thousand odd pages of semi-modern weapon design theory at the studious age of seven.
Ruby's price for her silence and cooperation during this tumultuous 'operation' at their house was paid in full.
The entire time Tai was paying the store owner for the books he was internally strangling the treacherous part of him that wanted to stymy his daughter's obsessive efforts to become a Huntress.
His only solace from the mental assault from the very idea of Ruby fighting Grimm, criminals, and anything else deemed worthy of violent attentions from a super warrior was the distant hope that this was a phase that she would eventually grow out of.
Ruby giggling about something with Yang brought the man back to the present as they found a bench next to the fountain in the town square to rest.
'Alright idiot, stop boxing the future and tackle the problem in front of you...'
Something he had noticed throughout their entire excursion was Yang's reservedness, even now she was staring down at the pavilion's flagstones.
'Yang' and the adjective 'reserved' in the same sentence was alarming.
There was a fiery passion that burned in everything Yang did as if she was a living breathing celebratory bonfire.
That enthusiasm being absent for so long worried Taiyang greatly.
He looked over towards Yang, "Have you thought about what you want while we're out today, firecracker?"
His eldest looked up from the ground and fidgeted in place at the question, "Mhm. Yeah… I have."
"What'cha thinking of?" Ruby asked, leaning forward from her seat in interest.
Yang glanced over at her father without fully facing him, "I want to buy some roses… a-and visit Mom. Like, Mom Mom, not… y'know…"
The girl was trepidatious to ask such a thing, as she was not in any condition to play the role of surrogate parent to Ruby while Taiyang had one of his episodes.
Worse still, if her father did have an episode at present, she and Ruby would be stuck in town until her uncle finished… whatever he was doing.
Which is why she was startled when Tai did not freeze but sniffled, looking up and to the side as he rubbed his eyes.
"Dam-," Ruby's hyperenergetic kicking on the bench froze in place, "Darn allergies."
Taiyang cleared his throat, "That's a great idea Yang. We'll go when Uncle Qrow can come with us too, how about that?"
The two Xiao Long's looked down at the Rose between them, the younger girl having gasped excitedly, "We can make it a picnic! So everybody isn't sad the entire time!"
"Mom loved picnics so it'd kinda be like she's there, so we wouldn't have to be super sad, and then we'd be abletovisitmoreoftenbecauseit'dhurtlessand-" Ruby's rambling became one incoherent stream of words until she had to gasp for air.
Face flush from brief oxygen deprivation, the girl looked up at her father with an expression of absolute seriousness, as if she had achieved some form of enlightenment and was trying to impart it.
At this Taiyang couldn't help himself.
He started laughing.
The uncontrollable laughter of a man given the opportunity to laugh instead of cry and taking it gleefully.
By the time he was slapping his knee to control the fit, Yang couldn't help but join in, laughing along with her father and sparking some of her inner fire back to life.
Ruby on the other hand was utterly crestfallen, misunderstanding that they were laughing at her idea.
Taiyang, recomposing himself, quickly consoled her, "I'm sorry rosebud, *cough*, I wasn't laughing at your idea. It was something else. That's a great idea too. We'll stop by the grocery store before we go home and get whatever you two want for the picnic. How about that?"
The scheming glint shared in the eyes of the sisters immediately provoked an addendum.
"Within reason. All of it can't be sugar- and it has to be stuff that's going on the picnic. No cramming the shopping cart full of stuff that will 'magically disappear' when we get home."
"I dunno what you're talking about," Ruby grumbled quietly while crossing her arms and looking away.
Yang simply shrugged with a smirk, content to bide her time for the next opportunity, and hopped off the bench.
The eldest stretched her arms over her head, before straightening her posture to bellow, "What're we waiting for then? Let's go get the stuff!"
She immediately dashed for the edge of the town square that led towards the supermarket.
"Yeah!" Ruby responded emphatically to the rallying cry and followed suit.
"Stop!"
Both girls paused halfway to the plaza's edge as their father jogged up behind them.
"Quiet down you two. We can shop around for groceries but nothing that needs a refrigerator. We don't know when we'll get back," their father said as a familiar smug grin spread across his face, "Might pick up an energy drink, though. It'll help considering raising you two is a marathon."
A grin that conveyed the near exact same spirit as her father's was plastered on Yang's face as Ruby clutched her own and groaned the moment the pun registered.
It was then that Taiyang's Scroll rang.
'Couldn't have timed it much better Qrow.'
Pulling the device from his pocket expectantly he gestured for the girls to stay put while he took the call, "Hey man-"
Ruby and Yang watched their father's face harden from a tired contentment to a sharp concern.
He froze stock still for a few moments, the sisters fearing the worst before he snapped his attention to the both of them.
"We're heading back to the car."
They made to protest, but he cut them off, "Now. Uncle Qrow needs help."
Returning to their car swiftly, Taiyang slipped into the driver's seat and the girls got into either side of the sedan's rear passenger seats.
He pulled his Scroll out again and unmuted the call, "We're in the car."
"Give the call to Yang, Ruby might panic," Qrow said after audibly swallowing a lump in his throat.
Yang looked down at the Scroll being held out to her in Taiyang's hand and snatched it, "Uncle Qrow, what's wrong? What's happening? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine kiddo. We're just having a bit of a misunderstanding back at the house… you know the big guy in the blankets you walked past this morning when you left?"
"Uh-huh," the girl responded, glancing at her father nervously, who only grimaced in distaste at the situation while looking apologetically at her.
"He just woke up and is really scared right now. He can only speak Notre Voix. I need you to translate what we're trying to tell each other, okay?"
"That's it? Yeah, I'll help," Yang responded confidently with a nod to Taiyang, who smiled weakly back.
"I need you to tell me exactly what he is saying and only say exactly what I tell you to. I mean exactly. If he misunderstands something, he might get more scared. Got it?"
"Yep!"
"I'm going to put you on speaker now, you ready?"
"Yup!"
/\/\/\
Qrow and Meg were stood backs facing the foyer and eyes fixated on the man squaring off against them on the opposite end of the living room.
The animus was at least half a head taller than Taiyang, a man already six foot three, and the additional mass was distributed across his body as raw muscle… on full display as he was still nude.
He had an imposing presence even if he wasn't holding a fighting stance, which he was presently.
Legs bent and planted, arms up and defensively close, palms open and razor-sharp digits forward.
His blue green eyes never wavering from distributing a glare evenly between Meg and Qrow.
"Qui êtes-vous et où suis-je?"
That was the third time he'd nearly shouted what was clearly a question with a frustration that had only increased with each repetition.
"I'm going to put you on speaker now, you ready?"
Meg glanced panickedly towards Qrow as he turned the Scroll towards the animus, who barked out his question again, unsure of what Branwen was doing.
"Qui êtes-vous et où suis-je?"
"He said, 'Where am I and who are you,'" Yang translated through the Scroll, "He sounds mad, is everything okay?"
The animus tilted his head in bewilderment at the voice of a small child coming from the tiny glass pane in Qrow's hand.
Branwen ignored his niece's worried inquiry, "Tell him 'My name is Qrow, the woman's name is Meg, and he is on the Island of Patch in the Kingdom of Vale.'"
"Mon nom est Qrow, le nom de la femme est Meg, et il est sur l'île de Patch dans le Royaume de Vale."
Their names meant nothing to the stranger, but when he heard Kingdom of Vale, his interest was obvious.
A potential route to defusing this timebomb of a situation had presented itself.
Qrow pressed forward, "Say 'We can't speak Notre Voix, we speak Candor, and I'm using this device to translate.'"
Dutifully, Yang said, "On ne peut pas parler Notre Voix, on parle Candor, et j'utilise cet appareil pour traduire."
The man looked down at the device in Qrow's hand then locked eyes with him, "Que va-t-il advenir de moi?"
"He said… uh, 'What is to become of me?'" The archaic wording gave the girl pause but she relayed it accurately nonetheless.
"Tell him, 'We're not going to hurt you. We are trying to understand where you came from and what you are. What is your name?'"
Again, the message was relayed, "Nous ne vous ferons pas de mal. Nous essayons de comprendre d'où vous venez et ce que vous êtes. Quel est votre nom?"
"…Judeau."
"That's his name," Yang quickly clarified.
"Judeau," Qrow repeated the name aloud and briefly tilted his head forward while pointing to the animus.
Judeau pointed at himself and nodded back in confirmation.
"Tell him, 'Someone who can speak Notre Voix will be here soon. We just need to wait. Are you okay with that?'"
"Quelqu'un qui peut parler Notre Voix qui sera bientôt là. Nous devons juste attendre. Tu es d'accord avec ça?"
Judeau remained in his stance, "*tch*. Ce n'est pas comme si j'avais le choix, n'est-ce pas?"
Yang made a quick intake of breath over the call, "'It's not like I have much choice in that, do I?'"
"Tell him 'No, I'm sorry.'" Qrow asked quietly.
"Non, je suis désolé," Yang said apologetically.
Judeau continued leveling a leer at the Huntsman and Huntress, wavering internally at the seemingly genuine worry and unwillingness on their faces.
The animus remained resolute.
He had a mission, and it would not be compromised.
Judeau stood straighter and asked, "Où est le Jeune Loup?"
"Wha? 'Kay, he just said, 'Where is the Young Wolf?' Wait- does he mean the Beowulve, Uncle Qrow?"
"Tell him, 'We know where he is. He's safe but hiding up a tree. He is… like you now.'"
Branwen chose his words carefully to maneuver around his niece's question. Especially carefully after he heard Ruby gasp in the background at Yang's questionings through the Scroll.
Yang grumbled in frustration before saying, "Nous savons où il est. Il est en sécurité mais se cache dans un arbre. Il est comme toi maintenant… is he the Beowulve? He's the Beowulve, right? Is that his Semblance? Ooh, are the-"
"Yang. Focus. Please," Qrow pleaded sternly, heatedly at first before fading into a remorseful tone.
"Emmenez-moi à lui, tout de suite," Judeau demanded, walking fearlessly up to stand directly before Meg and Qrow.
The Huntress stepped back reflexively, hands grasping the air above her sword hilts in visibly forced restraint.
The Huntsman stood his ground and held the animus' glare.
This close to the Scroll Judeau's voice carried the deep rumbling promise of untold wrath distance had obscured from Yang as she squeaked out, "He said, 'Take me to him, now.'"
That got Qrow's attention, "Ask him, 'You remember him? You know him?'"
"Vous vous souvenez de lui? Vous le connaissez?"
Judeau's eyes softened uncontrollably as he looked down at Qrow, "Il est comme... non. Il est de la famille pour moi. Dites-lui ça, traducteur."
For the first time the stranger directly addressed Yang, startling her for a moment, "He told me to tell you, 'He is family to me.'"
Meg could see the gears turning in Qrow's head as he processed this, eyes still locked with Judeau's.
"Tell him, 'We'll take you to him after we get you some clothes. The… Young Wolf is attacking our people for getting close to him. Can you calm him down?'"
"On t'emmènera le voir après t'avoir donné des vêtements. Le Jeune Loup attaque les nôtres pour s'être approchés de lui. Pouvez-vous le calmer?"
The animus narrowed his eyes a hair's width and calmly said, "Je peux."
Yang translated, with no small amount of relief, "What he said means, 'I can.'"
/\/\/\
Scarlatina shuffled through the contents of one Taiyang Xiao Long's closet, dispatched by her team leader to collect clothes for the animus.
Qrow was still talking to Judeau with his niece as a translator, albeit now they were sitting non hostilely across from one another in the living room, and the 'guest' had wrapped himself about the waist in a blanket.
She had not expected having a name to put to the insanity of the last twenty-four hours would be so surreal, as if Judeau were supposed to be some abstract theoretical concept that should have remained unexplainable.
Yet here she was, picking out clothes for him while her… friend was too strong a word, acquaintance chatted with him in the other room.
An admittedly reductive summary of the situation, but one she humored in her mind's eye as a way of coping with the exhaustion, bewilderment, and repressed frustration.
She finally settled on a gray t-shirt stretched a size larger by wear, a baggy pair of paint spattered work trousers, and a pair of well-worn sandals from the available clothing on hand.
Holding up the shirt by its coat hanger, Meg mentally transposed Judeau into it, and was confident that it would fit well enough for the time being.
The mental imagery had unintended consequences.
As the adrenaline from the animus' explosive awakening faded, just how much of Judeau she had seen fully dawned on her, and a buzzing heat flooded her face.
"I do not need this right now," she groaned, pulling the clothes off their hangars and folding them over her arm, "Just… think about something else Meg."
She spared a glance at the clothing she was carrying.
'Don't,' she thought to herself as an uncontrollable train of thought left the station.
There was another blonde muscular man she had interacted with recently.
'Don't you dare.'
He was even good with children too. Now that was a bonus wasn't it~
'Don't you fucking dare!'
Lurid visions pranced in her mind at the express disobedience of her conscious will.
Taking a moment to confront and sort out her thoughts, no matter how explicit they were, was enough to regain control over her imagination.
Ignoring it would have worsened it, but accepting it contextualized and pacified the unbidden thoughts.
She whispered a scream under her breath, her accent slipping free again, "Alright! Fine. Thay're both attractive, I get it! God's sake I haven't been a teenager in over a decade, I'm not about to start acting like it again now. Get your shit together."
Meg returned to the cabin's living room and gave Judeau the clothing.
She forced herself to meet his eye while enduring a carousel of rather choice recent memories assaulting her composure.
A squared jaw, a nose not too large but not too small, high cheekbones, tight features, and only the faintest of stress lines creasing his skin.
Scarlatina absolved herself partially for her reaction earlier. The man was handsome and there was nothing wrong in admiring it.
"Merci," he responded to her before looking over at Qrow who waved him towards the kitchen to get dressed out of sight.
Meg watched him go.
'…well. I have good taste, at least.'
Shielding her internal strife with a grace that betrayed nothing, Meg addressed Qrow, "So what is the plan?"
Branwen flipped the Scroll in his hand back and forth, "Barring more shit going wrong, we're the most important part of the show right now, and probably what's going to close it. We're escorting our new friend here to Anne and Port's location. Bart is dirtside with us on Patch, he is going to get to the party before us and see if there's anything he can do before we get there. There's a Bullhead landed and on standby in the forest to bring all of us back to Beacon, Judeau and this 'Young Wolf' included, once it's all said and done."
"Light at the end of the fucking tunnel," Meg sighed happily.
"We're not out of the woods yet-," Qrow froze as he finished saying that and rubbed his forehead, "I have to get out of this cabin, get hammered, and pass out. I'm turning into Tai."
"What, are you going to exorcize the spirit of the pun dragon with alcohol?" Scarlatina teased.
"I can and I will," he chuckled, standing up as he saw Judeau return fully clothed.
Qrow and Meg collected their equipment in the foyer, after which the three departed.
/\/\/\
Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck arrived at Anne and Port's location to find them standing a distance from the tree rather than under it.
Bartholomew's single inquisitively raised right brow was joined by the left as he saw the detritus from the boy's primitive attacks prior his arrival.
Among a scattering of small oak branches were four decently large tree limbs and a single straight one standing on end embedded in the dirt.
"What is all that?" Oobleck questioned as he approached his comrades.
Port was rolling his left shoulder with a wince, "That is the lad's way of asking us to leave."
Anne sighed, "He nailed Peter with a spear. Took around four percent off his Aura reserves when it hit."
She pointed at the standing spear near the base of the tree, "That was meant for me."
Bartholomew blinked gapingly at the pair in front of him then back to the oak tree.
"When I applied for a teaching position at Beacon and put 'multilingual' as one of my skills, this was not what I had in mind when I did so," Oobleck said, voicing his internal monologue aloud in a rapid ramble before turning to his colleagues, "I will go see if I can reason with him."
The moment after he marched towards the tree, resting his green metal club on his shoulder, waiting for what he correctly assumed would happen next.
With an Aura enhanced swing of superhuman speed Oobleck sent a spear he had fractions of a second to react to splintering into the dirt.
Now close enough to somewhat see into the branches above, he called up to the vague outline of the animus in perfectly clear Notre Voix:
"You could really hurt someone with those you know."
Silence, eerie and foreboding, was his response.
The Doctor was beginning to quickly realize that his instinct to treat this as a normal child could not be followed.
"What is your name?"
He caught two blue green needlepoints in the obscured mass above, stabbing into and picking every detail of him apart.
Bartholomew felt the hair of his arms stand on end.
"Why are you so afraid of us?"
"'Why' he says…" spoke a boy's voice in the language of Old Vale, frigidly cold, detached, and deeply condescending, "I know what happens to beastfolk in Mistrali territory."
"We're on the island of Patch in the Kingdom of Vale," the Doctor replied calmly.
"Oh, truly? Then I should just hop into your awaiting arms then shouldn't I…" the mocking words carried the sentiment of wrapping a weapon in barbwire, "Jump back across the Centre Strait and kill yourself. You're an embarrassment of a slaver."
At that the Doctor slowly backed away from the tree and walked back to the others.
"The boy speaks a late dialect of Notre Voix, thinks that this region is under the jurisdiction of Mistral, is aware of Mistral's history of faunus slavery, and is under the assumption that practice still continues. He believes we are slavers as well-" The Doctor was speaking so swiftly his words nearly bled into one another as his excitement mounted, "-which would require him to be nearly a century old and cognizant of the politics from that era! We're in the presence of a living piece of history!"
Anne blinked a few times while she attempted to sort through the flurry of words that just assaulted her ears.
Meanwhile, Port sighed and clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, "Oobleck. You said the boy believes us slavers. Is there any chance of us convincing him otherwise?"
"It's Doctor Oobleck," Bart corrected in what was becoming an automatic attempt to fill the void of eight years of academic rigor he would never get back, "Ah, but to answer your question, absolutely not. His conviction is bone chilling and I'm certain he would kill us if he thought he could."
Anne snorted, "I believe it."
Peter stroked his mustache and tutted, trying to think of a solution, before sighing again resignedly.
"Then the best course of action then would be to wait for the rest of our number to escort this Judeau figure here to talk the boy down."
/\/\/\
Qrow and Meg arrived with Judeau little under half an hour later.
Not much had transpired in that time beyond Anne, Peter, and Bartholomew walking about the tree to ensure the animus boy did not creep down the trunk opposite them to escape.
When the arriving capture team members stopped to discuss the situation, Judeau walked past them as if they were not even present.
He advanced upon the tree, stopping next to the primitive spear embedded in the ground, and craned his neck upward directly at the Young Wolf.
It was an odd thing, being able to recognize someone's scent in human form. Just another new reality he would have to acclimate to.
Judeau smiled faintly, 'The two of us will have to acclimate to.'
"Il est temps de descendre, Jeune Loup."
The Young Wolf went rigid in his crouch within the tree canopy as his breath caught in his throat.
This newcomer did have Old Bear's scent, but more than that, the boy recognized the man.
His face, his voice, his presence.
It slammed into him mentally, sending spiderweb fractures through the sufferation and bravado he was using to barely keep functioning.
Because he was here.
Any fear, hesitation, or caution was thrown to the wind.
The capture team watched in surprise at a distance as the boy desperately scrambled halfway down the oak's trunk, stopping to turn about and see Judeau unobscured.
Judeau himself was stunned into wide eyed tight jawed silence before his body moved of it's own volition, sprinting up to the tree's base, "Badaoin!"
At the same time the boy braved the five-foot drop and met Judeau halfway, nearly tackling into the man's chest to embrace him as tightly as he could.
Judeau returned the hug and sank to the ground with him as the boy's legs gave out in sheer exhaustively overwhelming relief.
"Ça va aller… ca va aller…" the boy heard gently repeated above him as the warmth and wetness tears dripped onto the back of his head.
Not that he noticed.
He was too preoccupied with the flood of tears from his own eyes and choking in gasps of air with snot clogging his nose while he cried as hard as he physically could clinging to Judeau's chest.
The Young Wolf felt the pieces of his psyche slipping through his fingers as he fell apart more and more with each sob.
But keeping himself together didn't matter to Badaoin now.
The world was right again.
His father was here.
01/13/2023 Post Chapter Blurb
I 'ask' (subject) a close friend to early drafts of these chapters for his opinions and advice on how I can improve them. He described the scene of communicating with Judeau as, "…negotiating with werebear Kratos." I found this amusing enough to immortalize here before I forget it.
I'm trying to get these chapters out more often, last few have come easier because the events happening in them are already planned out.
Anyway, to the guest review who guessed (say that three times fast) The Young Wolf's name would be Lowell, I didn't even know Lowell/Lovell could be interpreted in French as a way of literally meaning 'young wolf.'
Let me know how you found that meaning for it if you read this, because I went looking for it and found it as a character from the game 'The Last Story.' I've never played the game, so The Young Wolf wasn't inspired by Lowell if that is what anyone was assuming.
Regardless, that's a really interesting name.
It would also be kind of on the nose, which The Young Wolf's actual name still is, just in a roundabout and far cheekier history nerd way.
The Young Wolf's full name is Badaoin Basille Fay, not much of a spoiler, that's coming next chapter anyway.
The name Badaoin is an 'interpretive artistic license' version of a French name from the Middle Ages: Baudoin.
Baudoin is a very old synonym to our version of the word 'Brave', while Basille is much the same but for the word 'Friend.' Fay is 'Fae/Faerie/Fairy', which as you can probably gather in this story is the more Germanic interpretation of Fae mythology, I.E., the dark nightmarish interpretation.
Thus, The Young Wolf's human name with all these terms aggregated can mean 'Brave Faerie Friend.'
I then took this really cool name with deep meaning and tweaked it into Badaoin so the character representing the Big Bad Wolf from Little Red Riding Hood has 'bad' in his name.
If you can't tell, I'm a genius… at being a total hack.
I'll give the meaning of Judeau's full name in the next Post Chapter Blurb, it was fun going back through my notes from almost a year ago and rediscovering what Badaoin's name meant.
Criticism is expected and anticipated as always… seriously. I can take it.
If you feel there is a problem, show it to me, that is what the review section is truly for.
I'll even make it easy. These are the things I was wondering about as I wrote the chapter:
- My depiction of canon characters. Yay or nay thus far?
- You, the reader's thoughts on the original characters.
- Did I get across that this has been a traumatic experience for Badaoin?
- Does the worldbuilding with references to languages, locations, and cultures feel natural, is it non-intrusive to your enjoyment of the plot?
Steel sharpens steel, and my writing craft grows more refined the more perspectives I hear while practicing it.