AWOO, MUTHAFUCKAS! We are back in Vale for this next chapter. Everything's starting to come together. But how will it end? Only I know! Mwahaha!
Enjoy!
Summer faded into fall. The first chill in the air broke through the thick heat as the leaves began to fade. Animals were already hurrying to gather what they could for the upcoming winter. The forest was bustling with activity.
Cinder's pack was on the move. Convinced that the old denning site was too far away from the human town to keep an eye on them, she had decided that she would move half of the pack to Adam's old territory. Two territories meant two different places to attack the humans from, two ways to fight them, two ways to destroy them.
Yes. Destroy. It was finally time for the village to fall. It had existed for too long. The humans and Faunus got more and more aggressive by the day. The benefits of letting them live for the possibility of plundering resources no longer outweighed the reasons to just wipe them out.
And she knew just how to do it! The wolves would hunt, more than they had ever hunted before. They would kill every deer, rabbit, and bird they could get their claws and fangs on. The prey would be stockpiled at the denning sites. The pack would eat their fill, and leave the leftovers to the carrion birds. They would do this throughout the fall season.
Then, come winter, the humans would have nothing! There would be nothing for them to hunt. Cinder would make sure of it. The pack would hunt all around the human town, even in the territory south of it.
We'll see how well they fight when they have nothing to eat but dry grass, she thought gleefully as she led the pack into the old denning area.
Her snout wrinkled when she saw how messy it was. Adam truly had been a pig. She was happy to notice that his scent had almost completely faded. She'd have some of the males mark the area, just to get rid of what remained.
She quickly found what had been Adam's den. It was the largest structure of all of them, and was still in almost immaculate condition. She padded into it, sniffing around. After a few nights, any traces of him would be gone from here too.
She felt Emerald hovering nearby, but didn't bother looking at her. She knew what she would see: the beta's red eyes wide with concern and fear.
Cinder knew that Emerald didn't like her hunting plan, but at least she knew her place and wasn't saying anything. There had been a few alphas who had tried speaking against the plan when she first voiced it. Cinder had been quick to exile them from the pack altogether. They just didn't understand the big picture. The humans had to die, or they would all die, whether or not the deer population was decimated.
Just the other night, Mercury had been shot in both legs. If he had been hunting alone, he would have been doomed. He could hardly walk now, and had been unable to make the move to Adam's denning area. Cinder considered putting him out of his misery, but couldn't bring herself to. He was too loyal to her. She could put up with his uselessness until he recovered. He deserved that much, even though he seemed unsure of Cinder's plan as well.
We won't starve, Cinder told herself. If we clear out the forest and are truly hungry by the time winter comes, we can always eat the humans.
She wouldn't voice this idea just yet. The others would probably be disgusted. But later, when human flesh was the only option, they wouldn't be so squeamish.
She shook herself. There would be time to think of that later. For now, they had hunting to do. They had a lot of hunting to do.
…..
It was another night, and another hunt. Taiyang's wrists ached with the weight of his favorite gauntlets. He couldn't remember a night when he had just been allowed to remain in his home and rest.
Due to increased activity from the werewolves and a seeming increase in their numbers, the Elders had decided that the Huntsmen of Vale needed to spend half a night hunting every night. Ozpin and Glynda were visibly against this verdict, but ended up coming out of their retirement to join the hunts. They paid special attention to patrolling the edge of the Faunus District, which had gotten hit again recently with a small raid.
"It wouldn't be right ordering you all to go out there while we sat in the comfort of our homes," Ozpin had said to Taiyang one night, glaring in the direction of Jacques Schnee as he spoke.
Hawk Winchester and James Ironwood, at least, showed an eagerness to be a part of the hunts, though their old injuries and age kept them from joining. Still, they stayed up all night, repairing weapons and keeping bows at the ready in case something came to the edge of Vale.
Honestly, Taiyang almost hoped that something would attack the very edge of Vale. At least then, he'd be able to stay in the village and maybe go straight home after the attack was over. It was a selfish train of thought, but he didn't care anymore.
He hadn't heard any word from Qrow, which didn't surprise him. Jacques had declared the drunken Huntsman to be a traitor to Vale once it was discovered that he had left. If the Elders found letters from him, Taiyang could potentially get in trouble.
The only things keeping Taiyang sane at this point were his growing friendship with Winter, and his recent interactions with the Arc girls. Winter, seeming to recognize a father figure in him, came to his house on a weekly basis just to eat dinner and talk without worrying about her status as a priestess. Jaune's younger sisters had recently started visiting him with treats obviously made by their mother, which he was grateful for. Little Silvia especially was a balm. She would often ask him to carry her, and Taiyang was almost able to pretend that he was a few years younger, carrying a baby Ruby or Yang in his arms.
Shaking himself, Taiyang gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and entered the forest.
Immediately, all thought faded away as the reality of the hunt settled in on his mind. Every sound reached his ears, and he immediately discerned which ones were the common, nightly noises that anyone would associate with a dark woodland. In the distance, one sound caught his attention: large pawsteps in the bracken. He set off in that direction.
He tried to keep upwind, though he knew it might not make a difference. Years of experience taught him that werewolves could sometimes tell when a Huntsman was coming after them, even from a distance. He didn't know how. He supposed it was some sort of Grimm or Devil magic. Some werewolves didn't notice, however, so it was good to be careful.
Cardin wasn't careful, he thought grimly, remembering the night when the son of Hawk Winchester lost his entire hunting party to a wolf pack. The only reason Cardin had survived was because he ran. The humiliation that had followed caused the boy to become almost crazed. When he hunted, he ran at anything that could possibly be a werewolf with little regard for his own life. That strategy had been what got his party killed in the first place.
Of course, Hawk encouraged this bloodlust. Taiyang had once overheard him telling Cardin that it was better to die fighting a monster than it was to run away from it, hinting strongly that he would disown him if he ran again.
Taiyang hated him for that, though he had to bite his tongue. He doesn't realize how lucky he is to still have a son, he thought bitterly. He threatens to disown Cardin for running, while I'd give anything to turn back the clock and make it so Ruby could have run away just a little faster that night… Tears blurred his vision, and he quickly tried to refocus on the hunt. He was getting close.
Peering through the trees, he saw his target: a smaller wolf with dark fur and a rabbit in its jaws. Another piece of meat tainted…
Slowly, Taiyang took a Dust vial from his pocket. He didn't want to risk making a sound by drawing his blade. Since the wolf was holding a bloody rabbit, its sense of smell would be dulled. It was an easy kill.
Selecting a vial of ice Dust, Taiyang uncapped it and threw it. The glass shattered on the ground at the wolf's feet, coating them in ice immediately.
The wolf dropped its prey and let out a scream, immediately thrashing and trying to dislodge its paws, even as its flesh started to dissolve. Its voice was cut off as Taiyang strode forward and swiftly slit its throat. Its eyes, which were a bright blue color, dimmed as it let out a final gargle, then slumped forward.
Taiyang sighed, wiping his sword in the grass. Many Huntsmen would draw out the kill, taking pleasure in the beast's anguish, but not him. There was no need to torture an already-damned being. Bowing his head, he said a quick prayer that the creature still had some trace of humanity left, and that the Maidens would still accept it into Heaven.
Another thing that Taiyang didn't do was drag the werewolf back to the village to be skinned. In his opinion, lining one's floors and walls with the pelts of these damned creatures was a barbaric practice. These beasts were of the Devil, and had no place in the homes of good, God-loving folks. The forest would lay claim to the corpse, turning its tainted form into wormfood.
He trekked through the forest for a few more hours, finding no more wolves. He also, strangely enough, didn't come across any deer to bring home.
When he returned, Jacques was standing at the entrance of the village. "Did you kill anything?" was the Elder's first question.
"One werewolf," Taiyang replied dutifully.
Jacques raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that bringing its corpse back will earn you some extra coin, don't you?"
"I'm aware of that." Taiyang walked past without another word, nodding respectfully at Ironwood as he passed. It was time to return to his empty house and try to claim a few hours of sleep before his day started again and he had to prepare for yet another hunt.
Sweet Maidens… Taiyang breathed a long, long sigh as he thought about the repetitive, endless, exhausting days that awaited him. I am so tired.
…
Emerald found the dead omega as she was carrying her second deer of the night toward Adam's former denning site. The sight of a fellow werewolf spilling his life's blood into the earth no longer evoked a sense of horror in her. She just felt numb.
Smelling Dust, she did a wide circle around him and sniffed at the rabbit he had been carrying. Small traces of ice Dust had managed to get on it. Sighing, Emerald brushed dirt over it, even though she knew that the humans wouldn't touch it.
As she returned to her task of taking her kill to Cinder, she realized that she had no idea who this omega had been. He had been one of Adam's wolves. She wasn't even sure of his name. Did he have a name? From what she knew about Adam, it was very likely that he hadn't allowed his subordinates to have names.
She couldn't be sure. They never spoke.
When she entered the denning area, she saw that there was already a sizable pile of dead animals in the center. The few alphas that were still with the pack were eating their fill. The betas and omegas who grew up with Cinder had just started while Adam's wolves kept their distance, looks of uncertainty on their faces.
They shouldn't look like that, Emerald thought. Not after a whole season with our pack. They still act like they don't know which way is up.
It was because of the alpha stare. Rather than weaning herself off of it, Cinder just got more and more paranoid and kept using it more and more often. Emerald could only watch as the woman she had grown to love became a shadow of what she used to be.
A small voice that she usually tried to suppress spoke up. What was she before, really?
Emerald shook her head irritably, trying to remember the early days. She had been a thief in one of the larger towns, left for dead after a Grimm attack. She still remembered being savaged by that Beowolf alpha and bleeding into the ground as she crawled into the forest, not even knowing where she was going.
The next thing she remembered from that day was a warm, furry body curled up next to her. A warm tongue licking her wounds. Amber wolf eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight.
Ever since that day, she had followed Cinder everywhere. They had wandered the woods together, eventually finding a rogue wolf named Mercury, who had just killed his abusive father and was near starvation. The pack had grown and grown until they finally settled in the forest near a small, inconsequential town that would provide resources to steal as was necessary.
That's what Emerald had to keep remembering: The woman who had saved her life, the woman who had started this pack.
She dragged her deer to the pile, and her eyes fell on her leader watching from a short distance away. There was a foreign look in her eyes that caused Emerald to wince, duck her head, and hurry back into the forest to find something else. Her nose wrinkled as she ran. Already, she was anticipating the putrid stench and flies that would fill the denning area as the over-large pile of prey started to rot.
What would they do in the winter? At first, Emerald had wondered if Cinder had a plan to herd the remaining deer to keep them away from the humans and close to the wolves during the cold season. However, she was becoming more and more sure of the fact that Cinder truly hadn't thought that far, that she truly was losing her mind.
She found herself missing Mercury. His annoying quips would at least provide some comfort and familiarity.
Breathing a sigh, Emerald did what she did best: She repressed her misgivings, tried not to think too much, made more excuses for the wolf she loved, and went off to hunt once more.
As I've said before, nothing can convince me that Emerald isn't in love with Cinder, regardless of how crazy/disturbed that lady gets. Like, anytime I have those two together in a fic, I'm going to reference that. I really hope that Rooster Teeth explores that more in canon, and maybe leads to an Emerald redemption arc. That would be so awesome!
If you like what you see and want to show extra support in exchange for rewards, my P/atreon is Solora Goldsun.
For writing tips, prompts, top 10 lists, and fandom rants from yours truly, check out my blog at soloragoldsun dot wordpress dot com.
Peace out!