Chapter Four: Interruption; Dreams; Journal

Laying underneath an icy-blue comforter, decorated with roses and brambles, the two were entangled underneath a flowing canopy of white drapes which hung from a high ceiling; wrapped together to such a degree that the very notion of space seemed insulting. The room was artificially chill, yet within Cinder's protective embrace Ruby found a comfortable warmth more satisfying than a heated blanket in the middle of winter, breathing small whispers as she dreamed.

The smooth skin of Ruby's pale face rested on one of the smaller pillows, facing away from her beloved. There was little covering the compact figure which Cinder held protectively to her breasts, with only the comforter and her own arm underneath wrapped around Ruby's elfin body.

Cinder loved moments like this, practically the air she breathed. To feel the skin on skin contact of the one she loved, protected from the outside world by an insulating cocoon of thick blankets and chill sheets; it was moments like these which kept her sane. The drama, the stress, the violence which had stained the last three years of their relationship; all melted away within the gentle sounds of beating hearts and steady breaths.

Things had finally settled down around the beginning of this year. The war Ruby had started against the numerous criminal elements infesting the downtown sectors had lasted longer than they had expected, and the toll it had taken on Cinder had been one she had not expected. The mental strain of near-constant murder and subterfuge, political scheming, and the depths of Ruby's cruelty was one she had never imagined.

This right here, the innocent, child-like Ruby which she now held against her body was the one she wanted to keep. She didn't want the other side of this beautiful and spirited angel to rear its head again. Cinder didn't like that side of her beloved, the side which had no problem orchestrating and participating in the three-year slaughter, and she'd since resolved herself to keep Ruby from needing to unshackle the beast again.

Cinder nuzzled into the silk-like skin of Ruby's neck. This precious gem in her grasp right now was better than any dream.

"You awake," a voice leaden with a groggy weight spoke into her pillow.

Cinder smiled before moving up to Ruby's ear. "Did I wake you?" Her voice was a low breath, warm to the touch. Slight bits of motion creased the bulk of Ruby's pillow. It might have been a nod. "Sorry love, you know how hard it is for me to keep my hands off," Cinder admitted unapologetically with a smile.

Ruby pushed her face further into her pillow. "No not you, you fiend," she joked with all the energy of an insomniac. "My scroll is going off."

Cinder was confused for a second. Ruby's scroll wasn't going off—it couldn't. Cinder had purposely taken the device and muted the thing right before their hours of personal reunion. But as she looked in the dresser on her side of the bed she found that the thing was going off—vibrating, actually. The noise was so light Cinder couldn't even hear it when picking it up from the top drawer. Cinder's one eye looked to the silhouetted figure of her love. Even now Ruby managed to surprise her from time to time.

"And your list of talents continues to grow," Cinder jested as the scroll extended to its full size. Ruby's response was to pinch the inside of her thigh without having the decency to move from her position; a sharp sting too close to her groin for comfort. "Ouch! Stop that you little brat," Cinder gave Ruby a humorous thwack with the back of her hand.

"Hello, this is Cinder," she finally answered the call, the last remnants of a laugh leaving her throat. A man spoke. "Clancy?" The eye not covered by hair hardened along with her voice upon knowing the caller. "This better be important."

For the first time in hours, Ruby turned her head towards the upright Cinder, all signs of tiredness gone within the instant she turned.

And so Cinder's plan of a lazy day spent in bliss with Ruby was put on sudden hold. She could feel her face morph as Clancy explained why he was calling, no doubt a crestfallen expression akin to a child whose toy was snatched by the wind. Intimate whispers and silence, the simple pleasures of physical contact as they traded stories, and hours of vigorous sexual unity; stolen in a manner of seconds.

...

Junior had always wanted to own his own bar, from the time he was thirteen and ever onwards. It was a dream spurred on by a character on a show he always watched. He remembered coming home from school and catching up on the adventures of an animated barkeep, learning of woes and mending hearts, or dazzling onlookers with fancy flips and tricks with glass bottles and fire. It was romanticized to a ludicrous degree, yes, but the passion had been kindled nonetheless.

Of course, life had its spiteful side. His life took turns he never imagined, as tragedies and mistakes, betrayals and unexpected opportunities shaped his future before he was even a legal adult. Roman was someone he had met during those formative years, becoming partners in crime more so out of mutual benefit rather than friendship.

Junior had believed his dream would be nothing more than that, and he would be stuck in the underground until some random hit man finally paid his debt in blood. But yet again life threw a curve ball.

One day last year Roman had appeared with a strange friend, and immediately he knew who it was. Both child and adult, both man and woman, both human and inhuman—the one with silver eyes was a product of unification, the meeting of extremes and their inverse counterparts. All aspects of humanity were represented in this one; selfless and selfish, saint and sinner, virgin and whore, pacifist and warmonger—it was an existence at the heart of human contradiction, and within it's soul all of these opposites found balance and harmony.

It was humanity in its purest form.

He must've looked like an idiot that day, stunned like deer in headlights. The fear had come some heartbeats later. The first time one stands in Ruby's presence is awkward and confusing, gratifying yet also terrifying.

Ruby's face was unlike any other; the differences between sexes, that natural dissonance between male and female anatomy, seemed smoothed over, harmoniously blended into the perfect sculpture of a deity made manifest. To look at Ruby up close was to see a face that could never exist; seeing the impossible does strange things to a mind.

The woman at Ruby's side also had an aura to her, a sort of heat that had made his nerves twitch unnaturally, triggering like some frightened cat. She was no normal woman, not by any stretch of the word, yet even then, when paired with Ruby there was no comparison. One was but a fiery avatar, while the other was a fragment of humanity's collective unconscious.

There was this sense he got that day: it would take just a heartbeat's worth of time for Ruby to unleash something more bone chilling than any grimm. A mere second would turn this angel into something too vile, too monstrous to be called a demon, yet still all too human.

From what Roman and Hazel have alluded to Ruby wasn't always this thing in between opposites. Those two and Neo are apparently the only ones among any of them who knew Ruby before what he calls his "apotheosis." Few have asked about his time before, and none have gotten an answer.

Whenever he looked back on the direction of his life, Junior couldn't help but laugh at the randomness of it all. From having a dream and being forced to abandon it, believing for almost two decades that he would never attain it, only for it to be handed to him by an acquaintance who, in part, was the reason he had abandoned it in the first place.

People with simple minds would call it destiny. That was nonsense. Life was chaos, an infinite lattice of chain reactions with each second spurring an infinite more. Meeting Ruby only reinforced these beliefs. That wasn't to say he was ungrateful for Ruby or his offer—quite the opposite actually, for knowing that there was no grand plan made the special things in his life truly worth that label.

Among those special things was the simple chore of restocking his shelves with expensive brands in luxurious glass bottles. Right at the entrance on the outside of his counter was a plastic pallet held inches above the floor by a mechanical jack. Unlike the one in his show, Junior's was a grav-jack, using Gravity Dust in place of wheels to elevate the platform more conveniently than older models could ever. It could even go over stairs as if they were a flat plain.

In the past he would have never expected managing his stock of alcohol to be this fulfilling but here he was, taking notes of empties and throwing the replacements onto his beautiful in the well underneath the bar, and enjoying himself all the while as music played in his earbuds. It was the closest thing to content he had ever known.

Pushing aside the drapes his bosses walked into the room. He didn't notice until a few taps on his shoulder knocked him from his music. He casually turned while pulling on the cords hanging from his ears. Cinder stood on the other side of the counter, a look of mild annoyance visible on her features. It was not an uncommon expression.

"What's up boss?

Cinder motioned with a subtle motion of her head across the room. "Has he been here all night?" Junior followed her lead, and answered with a nod. Tukson was passed out upon one of the lounges directly opposite to his bar. He remembered him being there when he left last night, and had been in the same spot this morning. Several beer bottles were strewn across the floor directly in front of the sofa.

"Seems like it," he answered as tape was ripped from a beer brand's box. It collapsed in his hands and tossed upon the counter, adding to a stack of flattened cardboard already two dozen tall, tape dangling from the sides in messy tangles and flaps.

"Great," Cinder rolled her eye dismissively. "Another sad sack. I wonder if we'll ever get a non-emotional wreck walking in here."

"Oh stop your complaining," someone spoke to Cinder. It wasn't Junior. The day he spoke to her like that would be the day Cinder shoved glass under his fingernails. Walking out from behind Cinder was Ruby's diminutive form, inhumanly beautiful as ever. "Don't be pissy just because your plans got messed up." The words weren't as sharp or pointed as one would probably expect, but Junior was more surprised by Ruby's clothing.

Unusual for him, Ruby wore a dress, sleeves ending at the wrists. Normally he never wore dresses; long jeans were the staple, only occasionally wearing shorts or skirts on so-called "lazy days," but never a dress, and the colors along with the amber shapes looked more along Cinder's taste.

"Plans?" Cinder sounded insulted at the designation. "Plans? All I wanted was to spend the day with you all to myself and now it's scrapped because that fat ass can't do his damn job."

"Now don't blame Clancy," Ruby nudged Cinder playfully. "He did the right thing. I'm just gonna talk to him and be on my way—a couple of hours at most. Then I'm all yours." Ruby rested on the crook of Cinder's neck, who was now scowling at the countertop. "I'll be putty in your hands," Ruby whispered in her ear.

Cinder gave a derisive breath but leaned into her partner's weight. Junior could only guess that was her way of accepting Ruby's train of thought. A rather weak effort of Cinder's part, if he was honest, but then Ruby was her soft spot.

"Good morning love birds!" Roman entered the room in his usual showboat style, using his cane to fling the curtains aside as dramatically as possible. "How are my two favorite people," he said while walking over to them. He wrapped his arms around both Ruby and Cinder from behind, much to the latter's irritation.

Cinder shrugged his limb off like he was diseased or something similar, but Ruby accepted his touch warmly, even bringing Roman's head down for a kiss on the cheek. "Doing fine, thank you. How's your night?"

"Same old Same old," Roman stood straight again. "Tell ya about it later."

"So where's Neo?" Junior spoke up. "I got that dessert she was asking about."

Roman leaned against the counter beside Ruby. "C'mon man, you know her well enough. Sleeping the day away, as usual. No way I'm waking her up and getting a knife in my back."

"Such riveting conversation," Cinder leaned down, giving Ruby a kiss on the lips before standing. "I'm gonna go start the car, don't make me wait too long."

"Wait-wait, what? Who going where with Ruby now?"

Cinder smiled in a passive aggressive manner as she turned to the man in the hat, forecasting what was about to happen. "You heard me. I'm taking Ruby for the day, so run along and steal from some neighborhood kids or something," she waved him away.

Roman responded, as he always did. "Hey, I'm the designated driver. Me. So how about I take Ruby and you go take out whatever crawled up your ass last night."

To most, it would be a petty reason to fight over, and it was. But Roman wasn't butting heads with Cinder just for driving privileges. Nah, Junior has known the man long enough to understand that. Roman was arguing to check Cinder's attitude, and that was it. When she insisted on being rude and arrogant, he would always try to knock her down any number of pegs.

Cinder pinched the bridge of her nose, annoyed and already in a foul mood. "Why are you even here? Your hookers leave early or something."

"Hey now, I don't need to pay. Some of us, sweetie, have faces good enough to not pay," Roman outlined his face for emphasis. Cinder responded with something, as did Roman right after that; back and forth as per usual. They moved the argument to the center of the room, their insulting taking on a pseudo life of its own.

"What's with the dress?" Was the first thing Junior said to his other boss.

"Welp," Ruby leaned his back against the bar counter. There was a diamond-shaped hole, Junior now noticed, just under the edge of the back of his dress, flawless pale skin peeking through a field of dark red. "All my clothes are still in the suitcases in the car… don't give me that look, I was tired and forgot them, alright?"

"Sure," Junior agreed jokingly. Ruby rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," he continued, "Roman's clothes are too big for me but Neo's are the perfect size. I was gonna borrow something of hers but I guess Cinder had this packed away somewhere in her closet. Kinda regretting it, honestly."

"Why? I think you look fine—weird seeing you in a dress but you pull it off well."

"Meh, not that."

"Cinder playing grab ass?"

"No. Well, yeah, but that's not why," Ruby answered Junior's semi-joke seriously. "This material is too thin and flimsy, not to mention tight. I could tear it so easily; it's worthless in a fight. It'd get got or snagged on something and tear apart like paper. I'll never understand why so many women pay so much for such weak fabric."

"Well most women probably don't worry about combat every day."

"If they did they probably wouldn't need to starve themselves to fit in this thing," Ruby joked in a deadpan while pulling on the dress's hem for emphasis. Junior gave a few chuckles to that line. "I don't get how Cinder wears this stuff day to day, this is already driving me nuts." Ruby tensed his right bicep; the fabric of his sleeve threatened to split just from the flexing muscle, stretching to a degree that slivers of pale skin peeked through parts of the fiber.

"She probably just wanted an excuse to get you in that thing. You're probably checking off something on her bucket list," Junior joked, again semi seriously.

"Oh I believe it; a hundred percent." In repeat of earlier, Ruby once again answered seriously.

Cinder and Roman continued their back and forth, Cinder threatening to torture him and Roman responding with something involving "dry" and "chafing". It was a pretty standard conversation between the two. Junior found it entertaining, like a background comedy routine. Ruby was less amused, looking at the two like bickering children. Their screaming matches did wear at his nerves.

In an effort to distract his boss while satisfying personal curiosity at the same time, Junior leaned on his counter behind Ruby and asked a question. "So what's Clancy done this time? I think I can actually see steam around her."

"Nothing," Ruby turned his attention from his two bickering loved ones and faced the bartender. "There was an incident last night. A few idiots decided to rob a bank."

Junior snickered. Idiots was an accurate descriptor. Banks nowadays almost never have enough cash on hand to be worth the monstrous security detail and publicity, not to mention the hostage baggage. Any criminal with two brain cells would know that things like Dust shops and jewelry stores would be where the real lien was at. But still...

"How's that our problem," Junior cut in before Ruby could continue. "We don't do the police's job for them."

"A noble stopped it," was Ruby's answer, and Junior choked back a surprised breath. Such an expression did not go unnoticed by those silver eyes. Very little did. "Exactly. Last thing I need are those clowns getting involved. Things are still so… nascent right now, one of them getting mixed into things throws everything off."

Well that certainly explained why Clancy felt the need to call.

In the world of Remnant, the city of Vale is unlike any other. It is seen as the most prestigious, though not the oldest, of the world's superpowers: kingdoms that possess enough power to shelter millions of people. Like its kin, Vale stands firm as a beacon of hope in a world infested with grimm, ravenous creatures that have driven man to near extinction on multiple occasions in the past.

Eighty years ago, after a century-long war between the then unstable kingdoms, certain families of influence from the other kingdoms were moved to Vale as a sign of trust to live; a sort of permanent, hereditary ambassador, essentially. Vale had been selected because the kingdom not only claimed victory in the long war, but it had been Vale's King that brokered a peace treaty between all four of the superpowers.

Someone with that high of publicity, and the much political pull; a noble could easily dismantle everything Ruby had been building for the last few years, especially now since things are still so raw. If things were going to break, right now would be the easiest time to do so, especially since Ruby had just returned after a three-month trip abroad. The phrase "striking the iron while it's hot" gave an accurate mental picture of the problem.

"Well isn't that… concerning," was all Junior could respond with. What else was he to say? The potential problem spoke for itself. The fact a noble was downtown at all was worrying, thwarted bank heist aside. Those aristocrats hardly even paid lip service to these run down sectors, let alone visit.

"Got any ideas?"

Ruby rested a cheek on his knuckles, the rings on his opposite hand knocking against the wooden counter as he absentmindedly twitched his fingers. "I'll let you know when I get back."

"For god's sake Roman!" Cinder suddenly shouted. "Why do you have to be so annoying first thing in the morning!"

"Me?" The accused pointed to himself. "You're the one biting my head off for asking a fucking question. How about I get Hazel to mess up that pretty face of yours some more, huh? Maybe that'll teach you some humility."

"Say that again and I'll light you on fire," Cinder threatened with a desert-dry tone. She was just on the edge of actually doing it, too.

Roman smiled, a blatant thing of pure smug. "Sweetie, as much as I would love to say the same, I don't even trust you to burn."

Ruby may have rolled his eyes, but Junior grinned off in the background in satisfaction. It was always gratifying when Roman talked back to Cinder. Junior himself couldn't do it, almost no other within the whole of the organization could give Cinder a taste of her own treatment. Not even the civilians who joined the club could get away with any such talk to her. Roman was different.

Roman occupied an interesting spot in the social hierarchy of things here. Cinder was a harsh and brutal commander, having no qualms with physically reprimanding anyone that gave her displeasure or annoyance—so long as Ruby wasn't present, of course. Roman and Neo, however, were forever outside her reach. They could disobey and disrespect all they wanted and Cinder would never touch them. She couldn't. Everyone knew she couldn't. If Cinder hurt them in any way there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Ruby would rip her to pieces, relationship be damned.

Their closeness to Ruby had always been a sore spot for the woman, a spot which Roman often targeted and irritated in as grating of a way as he could. The results were always fun to watch, so long as Junior kept his distance immediately afterwards.

There was another who was unchained to Cinder's moods, but for entirely different reasons. Arrogant as she was, even Cinder doesn't have the nerve to order Hazel around.

Cinder, meanwhile, continued to glare at Roman with hellish eyes, practically burning with sheer malice, but said nothing. As much as it pained her pride to admit, his taunt did have truth at its core.

The night Cinder and Emerald first met Ruby and her group had been one of conflict. Hazel, a man with the size and disposition of a mountain, had stepped in between Ruby and Cinder that night, protecting her from Cinder's attack. It hadn't been needed, Cinder realized in retrospect. She was no threat to Ruby in any sense of the word, but protecting comrades was encoded into the very marrow of Hazel's bones. He protected Ruby that night simply because that's what he does.

It had taken him all of two minutes to mangle Cinder onto death's door. At the end of the confrontation Cinder had lost an arm and an eye, organs had been ruptured, ribs snapped inwards and puncturing lungs, arm bent into painful angels, throat crushed, and her left ear had been ripped by the sheer force of one of Hazel's right hooks. Gifted with a Maiden's power as she was, Cinder was still no match for that man.

He had lorded over her with that same expression as when he first entered the fight, like he pitied her for being weak, and had readied himself to crush Cinder's skull beneath his boot like some sort of injured ant. He was going to end the searing pain ripping apart what little consciousness she had left. Ruby's mercy was the only reason she had survived that night, for reasons Cinder didn't fully understand even now.

Four years had passed since that night, and that man was still many leagues beyond any within the organization, a power differential which never seemed to close. Only Ruby matched him on such a high playing field, yet even then saying which was superior to the other was near impossible to say.

Cinder hated Hazel. She loathed him in a manner more personal and visceral than even Roman. She hated him for breaking her body, for leaving it forever scarred and battered. She hated how casually he had destroyed her, as if she wasn't even worth taking seriously. She hated how, despite the years of bone-breaking training, the gap between them never seemed to close. Lastly, she hated his connection to Ruby. Roman always said Hazel was something of a parental figure to Ruby, but Cinder believed differently. There had to be something deeper going on, she knew it.

There was no other explanation. Hazel had already stolen both her pride and body from her, why not Ruby as well?

"Roman," Cinder spoke his name with the threatening tone of a cocking gun. "One of these days you're going to go too far and I will skin you alive YOU HEAR—!"

Ruby slammed his fists on the counter. Junior jumped back at the sound, like he was afraid the whole bar would collapse into splinters and shards. As he did so Ruby had already whipped around, his speed never ceasing to amaze him.

"Enough!" Ruby snapped. The light, softly spoken voice was now something akin to battle-worn iron. A completely different demeanor took over Ruby for but a second, but it was enough. Carried with the gravitas of a natural disaster, Ruby's warning shook Cinder and Roman's yelling match with seismic force. The two flinched at the harshness, at the sheer authority lacing the command. Their movement was something akin to animals startled by a gunshot.

"Cinder will come with me and you will check in on Adam and our guest. Does that solve the problem?" While less harsh than a second ago, Ruby's tone was no less commanding. It wasn't a suggestion.

Roman gave a disgruntled agreement and left it at that, walking towards an empty chair. Cinder said nothing, but crossed her arms and tried to suppress a grin. Junior noticed something as she did. Her cheeks now had a dusting of red; she was blushing, and when combined with the satisfied smile and over confident pose; it seemed the ever cruel and controlling Cinder Fall liked it when Ruby exerted some authority.

The bartender suddenly shook the train of thought from his mind. Some thoughts were better left untouched.

It had seemed as though things were calming down, but someone woke from a dream. Ruby's voice had broken up more than just an argument.

...

Tukson's waking wasn't a peaceful transition. It was violent, sudden, and unfulfilling, caused by the guttural boom of something terrifying. His stinging eyes felt like ten pound weights the second they had snapped open. He was back in the basement of Sitra Achra, and felt relieved, but he didn't know why. He guessed his dream would be better off forgotten.

The faunus looked to his side. There were four other people in the spacious room, all uniquely dressed, much more eye-catching than he had ever looked. A woman in an expensive dress was in the center of the room, Cinder, if he remembered correctly. The bartender was there, still in his uniform. A man with orange hair and a white suit was new to him, and the last one was familiar yet new.

She looked vaguely familiar, was Tukson's immediate thought. Like he had just seen the face recently, but just wasn't awake enough to place it. He blinked away some crud from the edge of his eyes. The motion he made to sit up caught everyone's notice.

As the newcomer looked back out to the room he saw every attention had turned to him. He was nervous at the attention; it felt like he was being scrutinized just for breathing. And then his own gaze fell on the youngest in the room, now unobstructed by sleeping sand or blurry vision.

It wasn't the face that struck Tukson's mind, it was the eyes; that silver color…

He was back in his dream again. He remembered it all now, and it struck him like a thunderous hammer.

He remembered that place which existed only in the span between breaths, located in the darkest pits of the collective unconscious. It was naught but an open plain which stretched from horizon to horizon, and a ceiling which was the distance between the heavens and the earth. He remembered the atmosphere being awash with colors, a maelstrom of writhing flames of passion and desire, swirling and coalescing like paints on an artist's palette. He recalled the short-lived soul-faces in that tempest; preternatural things of silhouetted repressions, swirling helplessly in the liquid inferno.

The thing which had truly awed him, however, had been at the center of that plane. Dwarfing even the tallest mountains, the being at the center of this world looked at Tukson, amused and knowing.

Bodies of such splendor and size that there was no mistaking them for anything other than gods and goddess—a dozen of them, naked, fused into some horrific sexual parody of a chair. The throne quivered and swayed under unblown winds, slick with fluids best left unthought of. Their faces were frozen in soundless screams or moans, faces contorted into a visage of ecstatic agony.

It was a blasphemous monument, mocking the divine and all that was holy, and upon the throne of sacrilege was that which Tukson wanted to forget.

Saying it was a fusion of man and woman would be too simple. It was the very concept of masculine and feminine becoming one, the abstract archetypes of the Father and Mother, the Anima and Animus, coming together in one ideal. It was not some other third thing, removed from human nature—it was the perfection of the individual natures of man and woman.

The left side of Woman was one of soft matronly curves, a single breast of exaggerated size sagging down to the being's stomach like some ancient fertility idol. Her skin was the blackness of nothingness, the void which existed before the miracle of life and creation. She was the wise old crone, the heavenly goddess, the loving yet controlling mother, the arrogant, and the wanton.

The right side of Man was a figure of carved muscles and gnarled scars, vividly stark against a sunburned tan; the color of an ancient warrior battling in the sun for centuries on end. His eye was a pitch black, less of a color and more of an empty void, in contrast to his counterpart's pearl-white iris. He was the wise old wizard, the sky god, the harsh yet protective father, the dissolute, and the violent.

At the center of the hermaphroditic being's forehead was the silver which haunted him. A third eye, vertical, and burning like a dying star.

Time had been mangled in this dreamscape. A few seconds stretched to hours, or perhaps the other way around. Either way Tukson had been frozen still, staring at the thing that blended all opposition into unity. And then his eyes had snapped open. He ought to have been safe in the real word, yet he had just seen those eyes again.

"What are you?" He said in a frightened breath. He had thought Cinder was terrifying just from the sense power which radiated from her. Now Tukson realized just how wrong he had been. Cinder was nothing when compared to the demon which hungered for the death of gods.

Cinder seemed perturbed at the way he spoke to her beloved, but was waved down. Ruby seemed more entertained by the fearful tone rather than insulted by it. She was amused by his tone, and played into it.

"What am I, Tukson?" Ruby took an exaggerated bow as if performing to an audience. She lifted her head to meet his eyes, keeping the position. "I'm a freak, an abomination. I am what happens when the human paradox is answered; when the conflict between morals and desire, between will and form, finally resolve."

Ruby's eyes peered into Tukson's like she was dissecting his mind, and yet he had no willpower to turn away from them.

"I am humanity undivided."

Qrow's head pounded like a gong, throbbing in a way only a hangover could cause. It felt like his brain was pushing against his skull, expanding yet still trapped within. Even his eyes felt the pressure, aching despite lying in a room devoid of any light. The worst part was the sound, however.

His drunken stupor had been killed by a knifing noise stabbing his ears. His scroll rang and rang on his nightstand, and he wanted to ignore it, but the pain worsened his headache, even when muffled by the thick pillow the ringing hurt. The simplest solution would be to reach out and turn it off, but he lacked even that energy requirement.

Last night hadn't been one of his better moments. Sad to say, it wasn't one of his worst, either.

The last thing he remembered was the door man, recognizing Ozpin as he supported Qrow's weight. He wasn't sure how he ended up in his room, but he assumed it had been Oz. He was the only one who knew about this place, staff aside, and he had been with him right before the blackout. Also sad to say, it wouldn't be the first time Oz had dropped him off passed out, either.

What Qrow called home was no real home. It was a suit in a high-end hotel chain, Forever Dusk, permanently on lease to headmaster Ozpin. Off the books, of course. It was a spacious room, fitted with amenities one would find in a high class resort, but it looked almost untouched. Aside from the clothes mindlessly thrown across the carpet floor, and the wide sword resting against a wall, the room looked brand new. It was, practically speaking.

Qrow's position was an odd one. He was one of Ozpin's most trusted, but his role was to venture out and gather and verify information more than anything else. The last time he had been in this room was two months ago. The time before that he had been gone three and a half months, and the job before that had been a tedious seven month-long assignment.

The ringing stopped, and silence returned.

At least, Qrow thought as he put the pillow he had used as ear muff back underneath his head, it wasn't his sister. He didn't have the mental capacity to deal with her right now. Raven had, or rather used to have, a bad habit of appearing without notice or forewarning. There would be no scroll ring from her, even if she had one. That wasn't her style. She showed up on her terms alone. Raven was stubborn like that.

"Used to'' was important, as Raven hasn't bothered to appear these last couple years. The reason for that was Ruby. Many of his family, the other nobles as well, believe Raven and Ruby are birds of a feather, like-minded associates if not outright allies. Both assumptions were wrong, not that he bothered to correct anyone.

The two black sheep of the family have met only once, two years previous. It had been their first encounter, given the fact Summer hadn't even been pregnant with Ruby when Raven had left Vale. Qrow had been there along with Cinder, both of them wanting to know what Raven wanted with Ruby after so many years of seeming indifference. It didn't end well.

The conversation had turned to attempted bribery on Raven's part, and when that didn't work, blackmail, which had lit the fuse for violence a mere minute afterwards. Qrow could still remember the visceral pit in his gut at the sight, every crooked and broken inch of his sister's bloody form at the brutal manhandling she had received. He could barely even recall the pitiful thirty seconds of conflict before Raven had been smashed against a brick wall after the vicious battering at Ruby's deceptively delicate hands.

Never before had Qrow seen such a look of helplessness, such abject terror from his sister. But the worst part of that incident was Ruby himself. Ruby had changed. In the blink of an eye he was upon Raven with the psychotic zeal of a serial killer rushing his newest victim. He tore into her like a rabid beast, beating and breaking limbs with an animal's savagery. He stopped himself just as quickly. When his pseudo aunt couldn't even muster the strength to utter sounds through her split lips and broken teeth, when she could barely breathe through the pool of blood gargling up from her throat, Ruby had spared her, back to his previous self instantly; a switch unflipped.

Qrow had stood by in a state of shock, trying desperately to rationalize the brutality Ruby was capable of. That day had been his first time seeing Ruby fight in seven years, and the difference was beyond black and white. Speed, while always a specialty for him, had never been so extreme. Ruby's strikes were akin to bullets—keeping track was a near impossibility. A video with frames missing, a flicker in space-time, a ghost with no concept of distance; all were accurate analogies to describe the way Ruby moved, enhancing a fighting style revolving around maiming the opponent in the most brutally efficient way possible.

His twin has yet to step foot in Vale since that day. Years had passed, yet Raven still seemed terrified at the thought of sharing even a kingdom with their nephew, lest he find her and, just maybe, finish the deed he stopped himself from completing. He couldn't blame her for that.

She had been helpless that day, a feeling Raven despised like no other. He would've been helpless as well. Ruby and Hazel both have stepped beyond the realm of Maidens now. At this point in time Ozpin was the only one among the brotherhood who could fight them, a fact he kept secret from everyone else. But how long would that last at this rate?

Qrow turned onto his back, his mind now fully turning despite his want to sleep off the pain and embarrassment. It seemed some part of him wanted to dwell on things, despite the pounding headache.

Regardless of whatever power Ruby had, it wasn't the reason Ozpin was worried. According to him, though rare, individuals that surpass the Maidens are not unheard of. On average, Ozpin has estimated there are between half and a full dozen such individuals every hundred or so years that reach such a point. Many go down as legends and war heroes, unsurprisingly. In this respect the only delineation between Ruby and the rest was the method in which he attained such power. Ozpin refused to speak on that matter.

What really scraped at Ozpin's nerves was Ruby's mastery of the mind. Ruby's psychological manipulation was the thing that truly terrified the headmaster. Even at full power, Ruby and Ozpin were on similar planes of power—it would not be easy and victory is far from certain, but defeating a berserk Ruby or Hazel was a tactical problem to be faced in a similar vein to an invading army. The real Ruby was much more complicated.

Through power one could conquer a nation, but through words one could bend the will of the world, and it was through such words Ruby had turned the entire southern half of Vale into his own pseudo-kingdom. He has won the downtrodden masses hearts by culling the rotten fruit, waging a war of terror on the scum which had festered for decades, all the while letting the politician's pick at the breadcrumbs from the palm of his hand.

His manipulations even reach into Vale's Council, the ruling government officials. Ozpin doesn't know the details, but he has an idea of what happened. Ruby has divided them, picked around their souls as a surgeon would muscle, his words the scalpel to slice their minds and expose the deepest recess of their being. It is there, under his gaze and with everything they hate about themselves laid bare, when Ruby will show them compassion and love unlike any other.

With the men and women of the council, along with several police stations and the majority of politicians in the southern sectors willingly dancing to Ruby's manipulations, not to mention the public who view him as a sort of local hero, legal as well as social options are virtually empty.

Effectively, Ruby has created his own separate state within Vale's borders. Meaning, theoretically, he could engineer his own civil war. Such a disaster was the guillotine Ruby was holding above their necks, his threat obvious despite never vocalizing it: if they attack him, Ruby would tear the kingdom apart on a societal level.

Ozpin says their best bet at the moment was to keep relations close and play it by ear, but the tension was running Qrow's mind ragged. There was a cold war of sorts being waged under the surface of smiles and friendship. Whatever he was planning Ruby wasn't overtly hostile or even aggressive with either of them, which was why Ozpin has decided to take the more passive approach for the time being.

There has been a snag, however. An extremely recent development. Ruby spent three months in Haven, and it had been Mistral's own headmaster, Lionheart, which had made the arrangements to board a last minute aircraft to Vale's biggest airport, and give him a spot on one of Vale's restricted Huntsman-only air carriers which would then drop him off at a local port closer to home. It was there when they had met just hours ago.

Lionheart worried Ozpin. He worried Qrow as well, if he were honest. Capable as he was, Leo would be a particularly easy victim for someone of Ruby's skill set. To twist the mind of a headmaster is a monumental task for a reason—mental stability was a contributing factor to their appointment after all—but over three months together with Ruby, with Leo specifically, the possibilities were about as horrifying as the implications.

Why? Everything circled back to that word. Why did Ruby go to Haven? Why has he spent years systematically gaining control over the southern sectors? Why is he amassing a militia? Why is someone as powerful as Hazel supporting him? Why develop a relationship with a Maiden? Why did his appearance change? Why hasn't he aged?

That word transcends the present and pervades the past just as ubiquitously, but at a far more personal level. That night so many years ago, the night Tai and Summer had walked in on him mutilating himself; what insanity had possessed him to take a knife to his own genitals? It wasn't some crisis of identity, that much Qrow knew for sure. It was ideological, philosophical even, which somehow made it even worse.

Qrow has read and reread Ruby's journal over a dozen times over yet the answer never appeared to him. Maybe someone else would have a better idea of what his words meant, as to Qrow Ruby's ramblings were just as cryptic as, well, Ruby himself, but that would never happen.

The huntsman trusted no other with the journal. Not even Ruby's parents knew of its existence. His nephew probably assumed it burned in the fire he caused that day so long ago. He was wrong.

His scroll suddenly beeped into life once again. This time he had the presence of mind to reach for it. His strained and stinging eyes recognized the blinding caller id. It wasn't the one calling that made him anxious, it was the timing. The fact that Yang was calling now of all times so insistently told him more than he wanted.

He held the scroll hesitantly in his palm, heavier now than it had ever seemed in the past. When he talked to Yang he could only feel his gut curdle. He slumped against the bed's headboard, and resigned himself to the inevitability of the coming times. Hell would break loose soon, was the nagging thorn in his mind.

As Qrow's fears became solidified and more monolithic by the second, a journal sat at the table against the wall. It was something ununique, a generic store bought thing whose only noteworthy attribute was age. The spine was wrinkled and loose; the floral cover had lost all vibrancy and was now but a dull, lifeless picture blackened with patches of soot; its pages yellowish and stained.

The journal was open, placed page side down. It had been this way for months, simply unattended as Qrow had been busy as per usual, away from the kingdom for prolonged periods of time. It was opened to the spot Qrow had left last time he had been here, prepared to resume whenever he felt helpless enough to recheck its contents for some magical epiphany.

"...one does not deny a fundamental fact simply because it is offensive or displeasing, for such actions present only delusion and a constitution too weak to stomach the hard uncaring facts of the universe. Such sheep willingly shackle themselves to their ignorance like a drowning man to a buoy, keeping their own weak minds safe and just while those yearning for knowledge sacrifice everything for a greater understanding, for enlightenment.

Maybe it would have been better if I were religious or, perhaps, even superstitious. That way I could pass off the urges in my head as some malignant third party trying to corrupt my innocence; a scapegoat to pass the blame. But that is not the case. I know that is not the case. The innocence so many people brought up with regard to me was only as deep as my self-understanding and naivety, like taking a dozen steps into the serene waters of a beach and believing the whole ocean devoid of dangers.

My Abyss is there, just like everyone else's, and all that is required to see it, as I unintentionally found out, was the willingness to dive into the blackness of the primal Id. To go where the light of consciousness and morality do not penetrate is to see the truest and most honest form of a person. What fear-mongering fools call "Hell" is the collective human potential hidden in the Abyss, and my so-called "demons" are the desires I made myself aware of by swimming in the blackest waters of my mind.

And now that I know of them, I cannot stop their voices. "

(End of Chapter Four)

Author's Notes:

Hey, look at this, a new chapter in under two years. Miracles can happen after all, it or not it's not because of this Covid shit either. Hell when the outbreak first happened, the first month of it, I worked an average of 10-15 hours over each week, so it's not like I've had a whole lot of sudden free time or anything like a lot of people have. That said don't expect speedy updates from me in the future, that's just not how I do things. Quality of quantity, as the saying goes.

Anyway, so, I gotta address the elephant in the room. I see this popping up a lot, and to be honest I just assumed that, especially by this point, most readers are aware, at the very least, that Ruby's sex situation is entirely on purpose. Regardless, I'm just going to set it in stone: yes, everything is on purpose, and no Ruby is not trans. If Ruby was trans this story would be a lot simpler, not gonna lie.

Second note, I'm thinking about changing the name of this story from Red Maiden to Undivided. I had a proto version of the Tukson segment in one of the scrapped versions of the last chapter and when I wrote the conversation that line ("I am humanity undivided") jumped out at me as a perfect title as it reflects so much of Ruby's character and philosophy. Red Maiden was more of a placeholder title honestly, and I just never found a good replacement in the first two chapters, and the last one was just an absolute bastard so I wasn't gonna bother with the title then. However I never expected this thing to get the traction that it has so… let me hear your thoughts, should I change the title now four chapters in and get it over with, or no it's too late and leave it as is?