"That is AWESOME!" Ruby said, as she threw herself forward towards Cobin, as she normally did. Once again he had to reach out and grab her as she made impact and wrapped her arms around his neck. At this point, the old soldier was fairly certain that the bruising on his chest would never fully heal. "Oof!" is an approximation of the noise he made as all the wind was forced out of his lungs.

"Ruby, it will definitely be less of a celebration if you break all of his ribs and kill him," Yang said, laughing.

"Oh, right. Sorry," the girl said sheepishly as she released and let herself drop to her feet in front of Cobin. "But still that's so cool!"

"Thanks," Cobin said, smiling at her as he rubbed the point of impact on his chest, "I definitely wasn't expecting it." He had run into the two half-sisters in the common area in front of the main combat arena while on his walk back from The Clocktower. They were on their lunch break and everyone else had decided to break off into their special duos, so it had left the two single ladies with nothing but each other's company for the time being.

"So how much sway did they give you exactly?" Yang asked, curious.

"Expert-Level-Instructor," Cobin said, "Whatever that means."

Yang's and Ruby's eyes got wide. "That's... a lot of sway," Ruby said.

"No kidding," Yang said, "I think there's only one 'Exxy' for the first year students, Oobleck, because he's got his doctorates. It's sort of a big deal."

"No shit?" Cobin said, "Well, I guess that means I can't mess up then."

"Oh yeah," Yang said, "I couldn't thread a needle through your margin for error."

Ruby nodded, "But on the brightside, that means Ozpin trusts you, like really trusts you. And it'll be hard for you to break that," she said.

"Ozpin's a genius," Yang said, "But he does this thing where he makes an ultimate determination about someone in the first five minutes of knowing them and then very rarely changes his mind. The good news though, is that he's usually right."

"Yeah, I always sort of had that feeling from him," Cobin said. This new information had caused a bit of nervousness to creep up the back of his spine, but he mentally shook it off and made the internal determination that Ozpin and Goodwitch had made the right choice when they gave him this job. "So, how're your classes going these days?" he asked, changing the subject.

Yang and Ruby groaned collectively. "Exhausting," the younger sister said.

"Mhm," Yang affirmed, "in a few weeks there's this thing happening called the Vital Festival. Big celebration of art, culture, yada yada. You get the idea. Anyway, part of it is a huge combat tournament between all of the Academies like Beacon."

Cobin raised an eyebrow. "Interesting way to celebrate culture and art," he said.

Yang shrugged, "Fighting is an art. In theory at least," she said.

"Guess I can't argue with that," Cobin said, "But what does it have to do with your classes?"

"Well, you see," Ruby started, "while it's not mandatory that all the of the first year teams compete, it is highly recommended."

"Oh I get it. Voluntold, right?"

"Pretty much," Yang said.

"So anyway," Ruby began again, "a lot of our normal academic oriented classes have been put on hold for extra practice time in the arenas and simulations." Ruby sighed, "Don't get me wrong, fighting is fun, but going to bed sore every night is definitely not."

"Trust me, I don't have to imagine it," Cobin said, shaking his head as he remembered the many days and nights he had spent at pre-deployment training, which was often way worse than the actual deployment.

"So when do you start with this whole Disciplinary Officer gig?" Yang asked.

"Ozpin wanted me to set up my office this afternoon, but I told him that I'd have to do it in the morning tomorrow so I could, you know, fix up the shop." Cobin said.

Ruby and Yang both nodded, knowing about the blast zone that his living space had recently become. "So before Wednesday you'll be open for business," Yang said, "Better get cracking on all of the rules I wanted to break before you're ready to punish me for them," she said, giving a sly smile.

Cobin laughed, but cut himself off quickly. "Hey now, you girls know that I can't be playing favorites. This is a serious job, and I'm going to to take it seriously. If you don't want to suffer my wrath, don't do anything to bring it upon yourselves, understand?"

"Of course!" Ruby said, smiling up at him.

"Yeah, we got you," Yang said, "We don't get up to too much trouble," she said, playfully punching her sister in the shoulder.

"I'm sure," Cobin said, definitely not completely believing them, "Well, I've got to run along and get my mess cleaned up, so I'll see you to on the flip-side, sound good?"

"Yep!" Ruby said. Yang just nodded and smiled.

"Oh, and hey," Cobin as he was backing away, "Just because I'm your instructor now doesn't mean you're not welcome at my shop when you want or need to be there. Just keep it low-key, right?"

"You know it!" Yang said.

…

Once Cobin was back at the shop, and had closed the door behind him, he spent a solid minute or two just gazing at the mess he had managed to make. It was incredible, and just looking at it was making him tired as he tried to piece together in his mind as to how he was going to sort through it. The lift was intact, thank god. But the tools that had been previously so nicely stored and arranged absolutely littered the ground, along with many pieces of nondescript debris. He assumed that the many chips of wood scattered about the place had once been his much loved sitting crate, but he would never know for sure. There were shards of glass too, of course, broken beer bottles and remnants of the one of the high side windows that probably had had something chucked through it at some point. After a bit of deliberation, his mind organized the plan of action as such: get all the tools and anything else useful and intact off the floor and onto the counters so he could simply sweep away the debris and garbage, than go from there. That task alone would take up enough of his afternoon. Cobin sighed and pulled out his scroll, setting himself up with some tunes for the work ahead.

"To my surprise, discovered that I really don't know much

and most of much of what I do know catches a 'what?'"

The work was tedious, but with the music blaring and Cobin's innate ability to put on the autopilot and become absorbed in his thoughts made the time move a bit faster as he located all of the tools and removed them from the floor. He thought a lot about his new job, and how he was going to deal with this newfound responsibility. Thinking about it logistically, he could probably handle it in much the same way he handled being a Staff NCO and a Platoon Sergeant while "in garrison," more or less just keeping records on the trouble makers and ensuring they got taught the lessons they needed to not continuously fuck up. But this school was a very different culture than the Army, and although he had already adapted to it well enough, he knew that he had a lot to learn.

"...I'm still living this life, trying to escape the problems,

Quick and quiet at night, just like the insects and the goblins…"

And of course, there was this predicament of this select group of students that he had insanely managed to befriend in his short time here. He knew that, at least while at work, his relationship with them would now have to be more professionally focused, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. At the very least, though, it would stop any of them from making an attempt to sleep with him. And that was a Godsend.

"... it's the gas fumes, the fast food, yo it's all of the above,

it's meetin' women for a weekend and falling deep in love…"

There was a broom and a dustpan in the back of the washroom, and once Cobin was fairly certain all of the tools were off the floor he went back and retrieved them. But when he came back out of the washroom, ready to get back to work, there was a surprise waiting for him.

"...And I found myself, when I lost myself…"

"Hey," Blake said, sitting on top of the lift, "Cleaning up?"

Cobin put the broom down and pulled out his scroll, hitting pause on the blaring music. "Yep," he said, looking back up at the student, "It's gotta happen sometime, might as well be now before I suddenly have a real job to do."

"Yeah, I heard they gave you an instructor's position," she said, "How do you feel about it?" that was Blake, she wasn't the type to simply offer a 'congrats' and a smile.

Cobin rested his hands on his hips and sighed, "You know, it feels good," he said, "finding my place in the world, and all that."

Now she offered him one of her rare, half-smiles. "Good," she said.

"So, what brings you in today?" Cobin asked.

"I owe you a story," Blake said, "I hope you didn't forget."

Cobin smiled, "Not for a minute. Care to step inside my office?"

Once inside the small room, Cobin closed the door behind him and went over to the desk. He started brewing a bit of a light, mid-afternoon coffee. "Want some?" He asked.

"Yes, thank you," Blake said.

It didn't take long, and soon Blake and Cobin found themselves facing each other, with Cobin on his cot and Blake in the office chair across the room from him. They took the first couple of sips of coffee silently, enjoying the peaceful moment. "So," Cobin said, "Is this story going to include and explanation of why you use that bow to hide your ears?"

Blake's eyes got wide, "I… I uh… how? What?" she was utterly stunned.

"It's sort of given away by the fact that it never leaves your head and never seems to fall off. Also, it twitches sometimes when you're irritated," Cobin said.

Blake regained her composure and shook her head, "I'm not going to lie, it's pretty scary how you do that sometimes."

Cobin shrugged, "I've been doing it for way longer than anyone probably should, comes with the territory." This response caused Blake to don a puzzled look, but Cobin didn't give her the opportunity to question it. "So, tell me this story."

Blake sighed, and nodded. "Well, you're right, it has everything to do with this," she said, pointing to her head with a single finger, "Rocco…" she paused, unsure if she really wanted to continue, "are you familiar with The White Fang?"

"I do read the news," he said, "But I don't usually believe all of it."

"That's good," Blake said, "Back when I… associated with them, they would have never have done anything like, like…"

"A car bomb?"

"Yes. When I saw the organization start to move in that direction, to simply be overcome with a desire of revenge more than change, I broke all ties."

"And then you came here."

"Exactly," Blake suddenly seemed very focused on the universe within her cup of coffee, "But not before I did a few things that I regret."

"Nature of the business," Cobin said, "I could fill a memoir with regrets, they don't make us any less of who we are."

"Maybe," Blake said, "The day I left, destroyed any connection I had with them, we were pulling a train job."

Cobin had to raise an eyebrow, "A train job?"

"Yeah," Blake said, taking an extra big gulp of her coffee, like she was wishing there was some Bailey's hidden in there somewhere, "A Schnee Dust Company train, headed through the mountains on it's way to Vale. We were just supposed to wipe out the drone security detail and destroy the cargo. Which I'll admit, had been much standard for a while at that point. But something changed that day."

There was something on his mind, and Cobin couldn't keep himself from asking it. "You don't mean The Schnee Dust Company, as in…"

"Yes," Blake said, before Cobin could even finish his thought, "That Schnee Dust Company."

Cobin whistled, "That must make for an interesting team dynamic," he said.

Blake shrugged, "You said it, not me," she said.

Cobin nodded, "Okay, so go on. What changed that day?"

"A bomb," Blake said, "We always had carried explosives with us for train jobs. But the way it had worked up until that point was to simply detach the cargo cars from the engine, and put the charges on the wheels to blow them over the side of the tracks and into the ravine. But this time, the person I was working under, a guy named Adam had a different idea entirely." Blake stopped, and this unsure look overcame her face. This was one of those things that there would never stop being a twinge of guilt about.

"All of the world's worst acts begin their life as its best intentions. That's just history," Cobin said, causing Blake to finally look up and make eye contact with him for a long moment. "So what happened next?" Cobin finally asked.

Blake didn't break eye contact when she started talking now, "The explosive charge was bigger this time. Adam didn't just want to be an expense for the Schnee family anymore, he wanted total shock-and-awe. He wanted to put the entire train into the ravine, at full speed. There were at least fifty civilian crew members on board the train, none of them would have made it. So I…" Blake took a deep breath, "So I stopped him. I didn't hurt him, I didn't leave him for the wolves. But I stopped him."

Cobin nodded, "And since then have their been a lot of people that have patted you on the shoulder and said something along the lines of 'don't feel bad, you did the right thing?'" he asked.

"Too many," Blake said.

"And that's why I'm not going to do that," Cobin said, "Where I'm from, if you're in the military, you get a lot of random people that will just come up to you while you're in uniform and say some shit like 'thank you for your service.' Of course, they're trying to be courteous, but in reality all it does is make you think too damn hard about what the fuck it is you're doing in your own existence. I still don't know."

"You know, I haven't met a whole lot of other people that get that," Blake said. And for the first time since Cobin had seen her that day, the girl's muscles seemed to relax, as if she was finally comfortable again.

"Yeah, well, there aren't a whole lot of people that do," Cobin said. He paused, and took a minute to down the rest of his coffee. "You got time for me to trade you one back?" he asked, setting the empty cup down on the floor in front of him.

Blake nodded, "Always," she said.

"Okay then," Cobin paused, looking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out where to begin this one, "I was on my second deployment. It was my first time being in the field as a leader. I was a brand new Non Commissioned Officer, a Sergeant, and at the beginning I had three people underneath me. Then, two weeks after arriving in theater our squad leader caught the wrong end of a shaped charge, and suddenly I had eight people underneath me."

Blake gripped her coffee cup a little tighter, this story was already turning out a bit more intense than her's.

"We're maybe three months in, and I've had these guys with me long enough to know how to use them, and I guess I made a good impression because whenever they needed anybody to hoof it way out into the middle of nowhere, me and my team were always at the front," Cobin paused quick to make sure Blake was still following before he continued, "So one day, we get this mission, and it's pretty standard grunt shit. Just a patrol down this dirt road that runs through a rural area and passes by a few local farms. We were just supposed to soft-knock the farms, make sure people weren't harboring insurgents or anything. Ask some questions, be polite. Normal shit."

"You swear a lot more when you tell war stories," Blake said, "and what's a 'soft-knock?'"

Cobin chuckled softly, "I'm a grizzled old soldier, I get to swear as much as I want," he said, but with a smile on his face, "But a 'soft-knock' just refers to a way that we approach a situation in a hostile environment when we're more or less surrounded by civilians, most of whom are innocent bystanders. Bassically, there's soft-knock, and hard-knock. Hard knock is all-out, guns drawn, move fast, kick down doors, shoot to kill, yada yada. If you're hard-knocking it usually means you have a very specific mission and you're looking for something or someone. Most of the time it's a soft-knock approach. In a soft-knock, you're still ready to fight if it comes to that, but for the most part you're just walking around, interacting with local nationals, asking questions, getting acquainted. Most people hate it, they think it's just playing diplomat while you wait to get shot, but I never minded it so much. I thought it made the whole ordeal more human."

"Hmm," was Blake's only response.

"Anyway, moving on," Cobin continued, "So we're soft-knocking all of the houses down this stretch of road, up in the mountains, and the houses are few and far between. We're hoofing it miles between every noticeable sign of humanity, and we're not really getting anything. Then we come up on this house, and it's this little shack in this little dirt farm, with a pen around the back of it with a few goats. For the first time that day, we get invited inside, so I leave most of my guys outside to guard the perimeter and go inside with one of my TL's and our interpreter. We sit down and have tea with this dirt farmer, and it becomes apparent pretty fast that this is guy is pretty much normal, just a nice old man. He's got two daughters with him, early teens I would think. But he's got some bad news for us; he's got a son, and this son has a friend who talked him into wanting to be an insurgent to fight the infidels."

"You'll have to explain that one, too," Blake said.

"Infidels is what they called us," Cobin said, "To them -these people we were fighting- it was a religious war. They saw us as people who came to take God from them by force, and they thought of us -almost literally- as agents of Satan himself. They weren't soldiers, they weren't warriors. They were just people who hated us enough to figure out how to kill us really good."

"It's a powerful emotion," Blake said, an air of experience to her tone of voice.

"Mhm," Cobin said, "So basically, this guy lets us in on this because he thinks that we can save his son. Now, I've go no idea in the world how I'm supposed to help this guy, but I want too. I'm trying to work through all this in my head when my RTO busts through the door and tells me there's a Marine patrol a couple klicks out that needs back up in a bad way. So of course, that takes precedence, gotta go save somebody's ass. So as I'm putting my helmet back on and running out the door, this old man grabs me and shoves a photograph into my hands. It's of the whole family, including the son, and it's the only photograph he's ever owned in his life. He had to trade two bottles of goats milk for it, or at least that's what the 'terp told me. He tells me…" Cobin paused, and took in a deep breath, "he tells me that I've got to save his son, and I'll know who he is by that photograph." Cobin took a moment and looked straight up at the ceiling, blinking a few times as you might do when you first wake up.

"And then what happened?" Blake said softly after several moments.

"We weren't able to go back to the dirt farm that day, got too late, got to dark, not enough people on board after the long haul," Cobin started again, bringing his gaze down again, "But I got permission to go back the next day and investigate. Shit like this is important to commanders, because they see it as an opportunity to possibly oust an entire cell or group of insurgents in their battle space. The terrorists in training are almost always the ones who lead us to the pack."

It was very slight, but Blake did flinch at that word, even when it wasn't being applied to her. She said nothing, and Cobin pretended not to notice.

"So we get back to the dirt farm, early in the morning the next day and… it's no good," Cobin started again, unable to think of another way to say it. "When we're doing our normal perimeter check, we go around the back to the goat pen and we find them, the old man and his daughters and their goats, in the mud." Cobin stopped and took a moment to rub his face, the memory being very difficult, even for him, "You could tell that he had held his daughters close to him, keeping their faces buried in his chest so they wouldn't have to see what was about to happen before the shooting started. They killed all the goats too, and just left them there in the mud."

Blake just looked at Cobin for a long moment, unsure how to respond, "I… I'm…" she managed to get out.

"Story isn't over yet," Cobin said softly, cutting her off, "We were all still too shocked to do anything, we just stared at the scene for a minute, and eventually everyone's eyes turned back on me because I was in charge, I had to make a decision. Whatever the fuck that meant. But I didn't have the time to formulate one before we started taking fire from a low ridge, just above and behind the shack. 'Terp caught one in the ankle, and we had to pull him to cover, but everyone else was fine. We returned fire, advanced, popped a couple of them and the rest dropped everything and ran. Now, we gotta hike all the way the fuck up this ridge to bag and tag more dead Hajis. Awesome. I leave bravo team at the farm and take Alpha up the ridge. When we get to the top, I'm the first one at a body, so I get down, check him to make sure he isn't rigged or anything quick, and then I pull the mask off, and…" Cobin stopped, taking a moment to rub his hand over his course facial hair again, "and it's the kid in the picture, the son. I don't believe it at first, so I take out the picture the old man had given to me and compare, right there where he dropped, and sure enough, it's him."

Even Blake's stoic nature didn't rival this story, and her mouth hung slightly open as she absorbed all of this new information. "I'm… I'm… I don't know what to say," she said.

"You don't have to say anything," Cobin said, "Just know this: because I shared this story with you today, it's yours now too. You may not have experienced it, like I did, but you can learn from it what I learned from it. This story was for you and you alone, because I think you're the only one that can really understand it, and I think you know that. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Yes. Yes, of course," Blake said, nodding her head.

Now Cobin's gaze became more intense, more focused. It was the look he had when he was instructing, when he was training. "There's a big difference between a battle and a war, Blake. And I know you're very familiar with the former, but I can almost guarantee you have no experience with the latter." His tone was not demeaning, or accusing, only honest. "That family, that bloodline, that linage had lived there on that tiny plot of land with nothing but their dirt and their goats for hundreds of years. Through good and bad times they had persisted through every generation, living simply but living honestly. All of their history, everything that they had been was simply extinguished in less than a day. And that's the difference. In war, real war, there is not good or evil. No reason. It's just the endless unnecessary destruction of the collective human soul by way of the human body. Remember that, because now you understand that you have to prevent a war at all costs; all battles, all missions, all goals should focus squarely on that intent. You do not want to go to war." He stopped, and stared deeply into the eyes of the teenager -well beyond her years- that sat before him.

"Can I ask you something?" she said, after a long moment.

"Anything," Cobin said.

"Why didn't you stop?"

The question was unexpected, and caught Cobin off guard, even in his current hardened state. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"You said that happened on your second deployment," Blake said, "How many times did you deploy?"

Cobin sighed, "More than twice," he said simply.

"That's what I thought, so why didn't you stop?"

"Why didn't you?" Cobin shot back.

Now it was Blake's turn to be thrown off her balance, "What?" she said.

"You could have walked away from the train job and probably done anything," Cobin said, "Why not a librarian? Why not a barista? Why not cubicle warrior? You and I both know why," he said, keeping his tone calm, "To some extent, I'm sure that you are driven by a need to 'atone' for what you've done, to fight the power you once obeyed. But just like me, deep inside you know you've just been doing this for too long. There's simply nowhere else for people like you and me to be in this life. No other places where our puzzle pieces fit. So we exist here, doing jobs like the ones we do and trying the be the best people we can be and making the best out of what we do. There's no point in lying to yourself about that."

"There's only thing you're wrong about, though," Blake said, she hadn't broken eye contact at all this time, "I've never lied to myself." She put her empty cup of coffee down on the desk, and stood. "Thank you," she said, and it was genuine. There was an unspoken but well known understanding between the too people in the room that the conversation was over, peacefully. So, without another word, Blake turned and exited the small office.

From where he sat on his bunk, Cobin listened to the sound of the air splitting and moving around her as she jumped up and out through the skylight, and into the evening air. "Anytime," Cobin said.

…

Damn! It's good to be back. Not much to report today. I'd apologize for not updating again but I think it would be arrogant for me to assume that you guys don't have lives 'n shit outside of reading this fanfiction. Carry on!

-Wahs.