A.N.)- Please return to your regularly scheduled fornication with Authors Notes.
"You don't know where that is?!"
"Not really? I could find it without too much trouble since I have a general idea where it is and I can fly, but I couldn't describe where it is to you."
"I just, that… it could change everything! Trees of Dust! To be able to grow Dust! Do you have any idea how enormous that'd be?!"
"No. But if they're crystals it's entirely possible that they grow on their own and that those grew in those shapes and structures due to their environment over millennia."
I blinked a few times before crossing my arms over my chest and pouting, "You just have to ruin my fun don't you?"
"It's a talent, yes."
With a small sigh, I let my head fall back against his armored chest as he slowly turned the hunk of meat above the fire over with his tail. "… that forest could be a huge boon by the way… I'm not kidding about that… that much Dust… so easily gathered…" I gave a small shake of my head, looking up at the ceiling of the cavern, "It could change things…"
"It's quite a ways into the… you call them the 'Grimm Lands' correct?" I nodded, making a little sound of agreement and getting a small shrug in response, "It's several days flight from here at minimum. By my speeds, and I'm not a slow flier."
"Still… that could be a peace offering for when we introduce you to the others."
He was quiet for several long moments, and I glanced up at him, "What is it big guy?"
"… mixed feelings about the harvesting of that forest honestly. It was impossibly beautiful in person, but that my knowledge would help people would be amazing…" he gave a little shrug, eyes locked on the meat he was cooking, "Like I said, mixed feelings."
"I can see why… I only saw it in a memory and it was still amazing." Relaxing into the soft down of his stomach, I watched the quietly dancing flames for a moment before saying, "I'd like you to take me sometime… if you can. It's something I'd like to see… maybe show my whole family if it's possible."
One of those pleased, organ-hums came from him, "I'd like that, if it's at all possible."
"So when's lunch going to be done?"
"Give me a minute," he said with a good natured eyeroll, "Eesh, you're worse than a newborn bird, ah, ah, ah, feed me."
I grinned, "Well I am a chick, so cheep cheep, feed me."
The giant gave a chuffing laugh at that, turning the leg of meat over once more.
-oOo-
I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to scratch at the soft fur.
Ugh, damnit, why was I itching so badly?!
I'd checked for fleas, ticks, bugs, rashes, anything that could be the cause of it and I'd found nothing! Nothing at all!
Shifting in place sitting atop a branch, I forced down the frustration I felt. My forearms just itched so damn bad! I didn't want to open up my skin by scratching at them with my... fingernails? Claws? I wasn't sure what they qualified for anymore, they were sharp and nearly indestructible, but they were still... fingernail shaped.
But yeah, I didn't want to use those things to rip open my skin due to a freaking itch.
The moon hung low in the sky, brilliantly bright...
I sighed as I stared up at it, trying to distract myself from that insufferable itch.
Catching myself mid scratch I nearly snarled at my offending hand, I already looked like sasquatch with long white hair and similarly colored beard, I didn't need to have some big bleeding scratches on my forearms to... add... to...
…
… why is there white beneath my skin...?
Almost hesitantly, I reached out to poke the white spot, it was hard and... almost like bone...? Ignoring the limited blood that was atop it...
Curious... and also still itching like a motherfucker, I reached out and carefully kept scratching... almost peeling the skin and fur away like one would a scab... revealing a thick bony bit beneath my skin... it only reached so far... but the rest of my flesh began to heal back up against the bony protrusion once it'd been revealed.
… if I was turning into a sasquatch arrancar I'ma be so frustrated.
It was smooth...? And once I'd wiped the blood off onto the rest of my soft coating of fur... it was dry...
Strange... fascinating! But strange.
I sighed, shifting in place as I examined my arm.
[1] "I can feel it deep within, just beneath my skin..." my lips quirked upwards at the thought.
My pants hadn't completely dissolved yet, but they were more shorts than anything else at this point, tight as they were with all the muscle and fur I'd put on... it was still better than nothing. I had a blanket of a bear pelt that I normally wore like freaking Herakles when I was out and about. Super useful staying warm out here in the middle of the snow, fur or not.
"In the closet in the halls..."
You'd have to excuse me if I wasn't particularly eager to get cold bits of ice running down my jimmies. Terrifying monstrosity of a person or not, snow down your pants was not something to look forward to. I'd been here... six months now maybe...? Maybe seven...? It was hard to keep track of time really, the days had started to blur together after a certain point.
[2] "… nah, crawling probably fits better..." I murmured before starting to hum, staring at the slight dripping of blood from the recently revealed bone plate.
Now made aware of it, I began to feel around my skin, paying attention to the tension, ductility, and hardness of my musculature... trying to determine the placement of my muscles and bones and see if I could find... yeah... more of them...
Small, but they were almost like freckles... goodness gracious me...
…
I had to pause for a moment there.
… 'goodness gracious'. The fuck was I turning into, my Grandma at Church?
I should at least be at Grandma amongst polite company damnit! Not church! Damn piece of shit!
… I'll save 'Grandma and me hanging out' for when something bad actually happens rather than something weird.
"These woooouuuunds willll not heallll..." I murmured, amused at the irony. I was in all black with a weird hair color and hurting myself. How much more 'goff' could you get?
… now I just needed fishnet and some piercings and some make up and we're good to go for maximum gothiness. Or was it emo? Heh. Regardless. Irony.
-oOo-
"Hey, Andy?"
"Mhm?"
"What does your name mean?"
The knight paused briefly as he crawled up the cliff face to look down at me in the gentle embrace of his ab-legs, but he shrugged, returning to climbing, "Nothing."
"… what?"
"I made it up. Basically threw some letters together inspired by the phonetics of a fictional universe in my home world. It has no meaning except to me."
I stared, the words almost didn't compute. A name without any connotation to colors or music or expression…? That… I know it hadn't been that long since it started but the only person I knew that didn't have a name referencing a color in some way was Ozpin himself… my brain worked furiously, and my mouth worked before I could stop it, "Marrow."
Andoriol paused once more, "Huh…?"
"Do… do you remember the color naming rule I mentioned?" I said slowly, my brain trying to catch up to what my mouth was suggesting, "About how we're all named after colors or something like colors?"
"Mhm?"
"Well, your name doesn't fit it at all, does it?"
"Not a bit, no." He agreed with bemusement, starting the climb again.
"Well… why not Marrow? Andoriol Marrow," I hastened to add, to clarify that I didn't mean abandoning his current name, "You're mostly white with bits of red… it fits."
He was silent for several long moments before saying, "Marrow… Andoriol Marrow… heh… I like i–"
*CRCK–!*
"AH!"
"What?!" I nearly jerked around, looking about quickly, my brain immediately jumping to possibilities. It had been a resounding crack, like a high caliber rifle-! Hunters had found us-?! People-?! "What's happened?" My wrists twitched instinctively, vainly trying to unhook Blooming Moon, but instead I had to cling to his ab-legs, my silver eyes searching frantically for the attack, but I could see nothing as Andoriol's hand came up to his face, his wing flaring out defensively to shield his body and me but also blocking my vision entirely.
I grit my teeth, looking up at him, "Andy! Report!"
"… ow."
"That's not helpful!" I snapped, in full combat mode even if I wasn't able to actually do anything yet, "What happened?! Are we under attack?!"
"Don't know. Don't think so… no follow ups…" his wing shifted slightly, though the legs around me shifted to mostly shield me as he pulled his hands away from his face and his wing away from his body, "… my face just… suddenly hurt."
"Let me see." I ordered, looking up at him, my eyes still darting about and searching for the source of the attack, a sniper shooting at the head of the Grimm? It'd make sense given his size and armoring. A Hunter that could reach out and touch someone with a ludicrously high caliber sniper rifle would be my first choice to start an engagement with a Grimm like Andoriol, lure him into position or just pin him down with fire… followed by artillery.
Lots of artillery.
That worried me, but first, was he hurt?
Green eyes looked down at me, uninjured thankfully, which is where I'd have aimed if I was fighting him, it was one of the few points of vulnerability on his enormous body… but… "What… hit you?"
There was an enormous crack in his face…? Mask…? Helmet? Regardless, the crack stretched from the base of his left horn down to the right side of his chin, like a crack in a pane of glass, a bullet wouldn't do that though… that was the work of a power blow… Dust usage? No, I'd have seen that, a Semblance…? Possibly, but they probably would have had to been in visual range… and with his wing out of the way I couldn't see anything or anyone…
"How bad is it?" His bass rumble distracted me from my frantic search briefly.
I glanced up, "You've got a crack in your… face."
Without a word, he trailed his claws slowly over the white expanse of his mask, the tips catching in the aforementioned fracture, "… oh."
The word was a lot smaller than something his size had any reason to be making as his claws traced the split. What the hell had caused that? I almost started to reach up futilely towards the crack to inspect it myself, but I made sure to keep my hands locked on the legs holding me in place, focus on what's important, "Are you hurt?"
"Don't think so… it… wasn't comfortable…" He trailed off, eyes narrowing at nothing as his tail lashed out behind him, he was still crouched, touching his face with a hand as the other propped him up, "But it's not sensitive…"
"What could have caused it?" I asked, worry gnawing in my chest. Even ignoring the fact that I was desperately relying on him to survive right now, he was my friend! And he was hurt!
"I don't know…" The slitted pupils refocused and his head jerked up, scanning the area around us on his own this time, "First time this has happened…"
Bad reactions, my brain supplied. But a reanalysis disagreed, he'd turtled up instead of moving, and given how tough even the likes of a Nervermore could be after reaching a certain critical mass, it made sense as a first reaction for something as heavily armored as him. A hunter would want to dodge and find cover to conserve their aura, but something as big as him… cover just wasn't a thing really… it was tanking stuff or bust… "Any ideas?"
He paused in thought before shaking his head and starting to climb again, but far more warily this time, "… none, unfortunately."
The change was… stark. It was hard to put into words though. He'd gone from an almost casual apex predator to one on the hunt… no, more like a massive, apex herbivore switching to apex predator. It was subtle, he went from quiet plodding to silent stalking, his head sinuously moving about as he scanned the area instead of just giving it cursory looks.
And I was… unsettled.
The heck had happened?
I knew how tough a Grimm could get, disproportionately so compared to their size, and the white bone armor was some of the toughest material out there. A large Deathstalker wasn't dangerous because of its speed or strength, but because of how maddeningly impossible it could be to hurt. And Andy was covered in much thicker plates of the same material… he should have been just short of indestructible outside of his few, limited weak points, and even those should have been tougher than anything that wasn't made of Andoriol.
So what by Dust and the broken moon could make his mask, basically a plate of indestructium over two inches thick, crack?
-o-
Four days later, and we still didn't know.
*CRCK*
"What happens when a Hunter, a clockmaker, and a Grimm walk into a bar?"
A wet slurping sound and his head jerked, before his jaws snapped and he swallowed, "No idea…?"
"A bad time~!" I said cheerfuly, getting a snort from the giant as I settled in the cradle of his abs-legs.
"That was horrible, I expected better jokes from you." He said good-naturedly before leaning back down and taking another bite out of the side of the Ursa Major, tearing a hunk off of its disappearing flesh. His head did that little jerking motion that some birds or predators would do to toss the meat about midair before biting it again, doing it several times before the hunk of meat was entirely in his mouth and swallowing it down. It was honestly a little unsettling how he wasn't using his hands, but who was I to question how he ate? Just because I had the best table manners of STRQ didn't say much.
"Hey, I'm running out of material," I said with a grin.
To be honest, the sounds were kind of disgusting, the crunching of bones beneath his thick teeth, the tearing of flesh and the wet swallows… it was all pretty nasty.
But I was a mom. I'd dealt with a pair of kids in diapers, one with a temper and one with a penchant for cookies, and both with a talent for getting into trouble on their own, let alone together. This was nothing. After the crack had appeared, Andoriol had gone out to catch and eat a Grimm, something that was supposed to jumpstart his regeneration. It was sweet that he apologized for it though, with how nasty it could be. He used his ab-legs to shield me from the Grimm blood splatters from his eating, even if they would dissolve, presumably only if he didn't eat them.
"What about you? Any good jokes?" I asked, resting where I was… it was weird to feel his stomach work behind me as it did, like… I could remember laying my head on Taiyang's stomach while he ate a few times, just because, and while it was similar… it was really different when the stomach wasn't something you laid your head on but instead a freaking wall behind me.
Unfortunately, eating hadn't caused his face to heal. There was still that huge crack in his face/mask/thing.
"Most of my really good ones are 'yo mamma' jokes, which tend not to be popular with the ladies." He said in bemusement after swallowing, "So you'd probably love them."
I snorted, covering my face before elbowing him in the gut, which was easy since his gut was everything behind me, "Ass. Still, give it a shot."
It was easier to focus on things like jokes or the world rather than the worry that something or someone was hurting him and there was nothing we could do about it. We'd sort of agreed without saying anything to not bring it up again unless something changed.
"Heh, seriously though, they're not all that funny. Like… hm… 'yo mamma so fat that she has to use the ocean as her bath-tub!'" Okay, yeah, it was bad. I rolled my eyes, a small smile on my face even as Andy curled inward slightly to whisper, [3] "What I'm trying to say is your momma's a whale… a whale of a good time~ Yeah!"
"If that's the best you've got, then yeah, don't even bother." I smiled even as I settled into my cloak.
"Most of them require some measure of cultural understanding to be funny." He admitted with a small shrug before leaning back in to take another bite of the Ursa Major. He'd been nice enough to avoid eating too much while I was stuck with him, and he was unwilling to just leave me to go out and hunt. He needed to eat at least once every few days.
That made me a little sad, I didn't want to be the only one with the jokes! "Well, that makes sense… but nothing else?"
I patiently waited for him to finish tearing off another piece and swallow it down, "Two peanuts walked down the road… one was assaulted?"
"… yeah, you might want to avoid just telling jokes."
A little chuffing laughter as he leaned back in, "I did try to warn you."
-?-
The metallic floor vibrated beneath my feet as the air rushed around the Bullhead, my weapon sitting across my lap as I inspected it.
My butt was lifted from the seat as turbulence made the bullhead jerk.
Lips pressing into a thin line, I tried to focus instead on my preparations.
Summer…
My heart ached, my chest cold and empty. She… I knew the odds. I knew them better than many, but… but I still held out hope. It's why I was here.
Hope.
Hope that the woman that I… that she was okay… somehow.
The locals had gone on and on about this enormous Grimm, heavily armored and unique. And that it had still been there after Summer had gone out…
I sighed, hoping beyond hope that this was just something weird happening… but I knew the hope was false. That I was sent on a confirmation mission, possibly a scouting attempt to determine the threat of this enormous Grimm… and to possibly avenge Summer. The handle of my weapon creaked under my hand before I caught myself, forcing it to ease up, staring at my reflection.
"We're coming in," the voice of the pilot crackled over the speaker, making my head rise up, as did the other two in the cargo area, "Be ready to drop."
"Yeah yeah…" I muttered, standing and holstering my weapon, my companions doing likewise, "Landing strategy and all…"
"Hey…" I paused, swaying reflexively as the Bullhead swung to a stop as the pilot's voice continued, "I… I knew Summer. Great gal… give'm hell for her."
My eyes widened for just a moment before I smirked, forcing down my melancholy and the ache in my heart, "Yeah, will do."
The bay door of the bullhead began to swing open and I swaggered forward with every bit of confidence that I didn't feel, "C'mon ladies–"
"Qrow, we're both dudes." But I continued as if they hadn't spoken.
"–we've got a hot chick to save."
[1] watch?v=1mjlM_RnsVE
[2] watch?v=OLHd4BQIiGw
[3] watch?v=XG8b7WhANNA&feature= &t=3m58s
