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The distance from Salem's castle to Ansel, even as the crow flew, was a long one. Or maybe he should say 'as the dragon flew' instead, given his particular mount right now?

Not that he cared too much, beyond using the inane technical argument to distract himself from multiple things about his situation. Riding on a great, Grimm dragon, with the Queen of the Grimm - and the damned, given how many people she employed - as his only real handhold to keep him on the creature with the winds whipping against him hard enough to numb his arms. And gods did she seem to enjoy that fact, judging by how many times she'd pressed her hips against his since they'd left.

And normally, that kind of thing would have pissed him off - or repulsed him - just thinking about it. But he couldn't spare the attention to it to get pissed about it, not right now. His vision was full of Salem's back and her robes, his ears full of the heavy thrum of the dragon's wing beats and the violent howling of the wind whistling against his helmet, the cloth on Salem's front gripped tight in his fingers, none of it really registered to him. It couldn't.

His mind only held two things. His pain and grief at the loss of his mother, and possibly his sister as well, along with the ache that he felt at the mere thought that his home had been attacked. By Taurus and his gang of vindictive, racist little pseudo-freedom fighters, for some stupid reason or another. What those might be, Jaune had little more than suspicions, but some of those didn't even make sense.

Ansel, and the Arcs as a family as well almost exclusively with few exceptions throughout their history, had always stood and treated the Faunus as equals. Not from the start of either of their histories, of course, that would be a naive hope. But they had been among the first and most staunch Human supporters of Faunus' rights. And even until today, that remained true to a fault, even so far as to allow them to stand beside their Human allies and citizens when the White Fang had turned so many against their very race.

And against their family, too, when that came to light.

His family had lost so much money when that happened, and Jaune remembered how coordinated it had seemed even to him at his young age. A sudden loss in shipping contracts, security for them, and everything else. And his family had tanked it like champions, never once compromising even when they seemed like they might have to sell their land to the Valean Council just to survive. He still remembered seeing his father, eyes misting up, standing outside and watching as collectors and Huntsman carried away Arc relics. Swords, armors, spears, whatever he could sell to get by and support his home.

The armory was still missing a few pieces from that time, the Huntsman or collectors unwilling to sell the items back.

And in spite of all of that, Adam had attacked his home. His family. Why? Why the hell did he decide he needed to do that? What had they done to him to deserve to even get a glance out of the racist bastard and his equally racist fanatics? The answer was obvious, of course, as much as Jaune hated it, hated the consideration of it even entering his mind. Or, the thing that connected all the answers was obvious, at least.

Jaune had caused this, through some ass backwards rationalization on Adam's part of course, but Jaune had caused this.

And that thought had his blood running hot, boiling in rage and anguish, yet somehow still freezing in his veins. Fire and ice, rage and anguish, roaring in him like wild animals fighting for dominance. His fists clenched, so hard that his knuckles somehow ached through the numbness, and he felt his fingers dig into flesh even through Salem's robes. First Roman, and now his own mother and his home… he just couldn't.

"No time when we get there." He growled to himself, low enough even Salem couldn't hear. He sucked a frigid breath, teeth aching and chattering from the unbearable cold in the wind, his arms shivering from the cold as much as trembling from the emotion playing through him. And he let it out, eyes closing as he forced the emotions down and away, just like when he felt them from others.

When his eyes open, cold blue and hard and filled with as much hatred and rage as he believed Adam had ever held for Humans like himself, he growled, "Adam Taurus… You made a mistake, and I bet even you are aware of that."

He let his eyes close at that, breathing deep and slow to try and force those emotions into check too. A failing plan, to be sure, but all he had while he waited for them to get there and stared into Salem's back. Anger and sadness, mixed with the stomach turning, visceral ache that echoed at the back of his skull and behind his eyes. Almost nausea inducing in its own way, worse even than the dragon's wingbeats.

"Jaune," Salem's voice reached him after a few more minutes, the blonde having leaned back as the dragon slowed, blue eyes roving green expanses that once would have amazed him. Now, he couldn't even pay attention beyond trying to figure out how close to Ansel they are. "Are you well, Jaune? Or, well, as well as one ought to dare hope for given what has happened too you so recently, at the least."

"My mother is dead and my home burned." Jaune answered, meeting Salem's blood-tinted eyes with hard blue ones, "You know how I feel, I bet."

"I… Do." She answered, those crimson orbs hard, boring into his own for several seconds before she turned. Not before he caught them softening, though, little more than a shift of her brows and a sad smile, but he saw it. "I saw my home burn, once. My people cut down before me by those who hated me, misunderstood me… They called me witch, and set a blaze they hoped to kill me."

"It didn't work." He noted, stating the obvious and hoping it would get her to continue her story.

"It did not." She agreed, voice so low he almost lost it in the wind and the beating of the dragon's wings under them and behind them. "I was away, with Ozpin at the time, on a mission… I can't even remember what it was, so long ago it was. When we returned, myself, Ozpin and his entourage of warriors and Maidens, my town was ashes and little more."

"They spared no one." She added, voice tinging with rage as she did, and something else. Below them, the dragon warbled mournfully and its head lifted as it did, betraying Salem's feelings as much as her voice ever could have. She gave its great neck an absent minded pat, and continued, "My friends, my people, were merely slaughtered. But my family? They were not spared in that way. They were roped to logs together in a circle, and set ablaze."

"What did you do?" He asked, losing himself in her story, and just imagining that for a moment.

His family, roped to logs and set alight, watched as they burned and cried for mercy by a laughing force of men and women, surrounded further by the burning settlement and the corpses of those who had lived there. Ansel in ruins, his sisters crying out for mercy and getting nothing but laughs...

It made his blood boil for Salem, rage coursing through him for what had been done to her. To the innocent people she loved, who she fought for.

"I ran to Ozpin, or to our camp a few minutes away rather, and I told him what I had found. Told him who had done it, as well, for they left more than enough evidence so I would know what they had done." She sighed, Jaune knowing she had more from feeling her move against him than hearing it. The sound was too silent to be heard. "Why, I do not know for sure. I asked Ozpin to help me avenge them. Do you know his answer?"

"He refused." Jaune suggested, knowing the answer even before she nodded her response. "Of course he did, the cowardly son of a bitch would refuse to go out and put a stop to that. Did he at least say why?"

"He told me that he, and the Maidens, and now myself at the time as well, could not…" She chewed on the word, almost, scowling for a moment before finally amlst snarling, "That we should not debase ourselves as to seek out petty revenge. That I should just… Just forgive them, and move on in my life. Become something greater."

"That sounds like him." And now Jaune was wondering where the ancient woman was going with this, eyes searching the back of her head for answers and finding none. "Why are you telling me all of this, Salem? Why now?"

"Because when you get there, your family may tell you that revenge is petty. Wrong. That it won't fill you with anything but emptiness." She turned again, pivoting at her waist and looking him straight in the eye, eyes hard and a cruel smile playing across her lips. "But I felt a kind of satisfaction I can't describe when I left Ozpin, and sought a way to get my 'petty revenge', and so we became enemies. Do you know what I did to them, Jaune?"

"The Grimm?" It made sense. What else could he have possibly been so bad that Ozpin would call her an enemy? "You found a way to… Become what you are now, and you used the Grimm."

"Indeed. So began our opposition to each other, if our war came later." She answered, "So, on this day, when you seek out your revenge against them, know that everything I am is at your disposal. Do as you wish, I won't intercede, Jaune. And I ask, what will you do?"

"I have a plan." He smiled, as much a smirk as a true smile but mixed with something more carnal, and Salem seemed oddly satisfied by it even if she couldn't see it. "I think you'll like it."

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The dragon circled over Ansel lazily, while Jaune stared down from on high. The guardsmen rushed to and fro, panicking and desperately readying themselves to face the creature. The manor - and the armory with it - had been scorched into oblivion, so most ran around with their normal spears, swords and shield, but a couple found pikes somewhere and held them high to ward off the dragon as best as they could possibly hope to. Jaune even spotted the blonde shocks of hair, rushing here and there among the settlement's ruined space and organizing the citizens as best they could manage into militia forces and dozens of small clusters of families either unable or unwilling to fight.

It would all be a waste, of course, if the dragon had actually come here to attack them. There wasn't much a bunch of spears would do against a Grimm this large. Even with his family lending their power against it as well, it would simply crush the settlement and its people under sheer weight. But he knew his father and the Arcs, and the people who lived here as well, would never go out with a whimper like that. Better a useless, vain roar than a whimper, he knew his father would say.

And he agreed, now, looking over the damage that had been done to his home.

The fields were scorched black, all the way to the forest where several feet of trees had also burned black before the fires could be controlled. And nearer to the settlement, several rows of neatly arrayed shapes in varying sizes lay, sheets, blankets and whatever else could be found covering them. Bodies, he knew without asking, a sight he'd seen before even if it hadn't been in this number.

"Can the dragon land in the burned trees?" He asked quietly, Salem angling the creature so she could see it and then nodding. "Land there, then, and… I don't know, try and make the dragon look less threatening?"

"It is a two hundred foot long, hundred ton flying Grimm wyrm, Jaune. I doubt there is anything that I could even attempt that would make it not look like an extinction level threat." Salem advised him dryly, angling the great creature towards the trees regardless. "I shall await atop my mount for your word. I don't quite feel like being stabbed to death today, I'm sure you understand."

Not that it would matter if she was stabbed to death, he thought about saying. She'd just leap into a new body again, and that would make her dying less of a problem beyond how annoying it might be. But he held his tongue, in the end, because he had much more important things to deal with.

Namely, his family and the militia they'd gathered, rushing towards the wall as the dragon came in to land. The dragon roared as it came down, wings and tail smashing trees aside as it slammed into the ground and Jaune lurched on top of it. Turning, it bucked against the last few trees in its way for space to move, and its tail swept behind it as it turned to face Ansel and bowled over even more of the burnt and dead trees, along with some green ones beyond them.

It leaned low and Jaune leapt off its shoulders, hitting the ground and kneeling with a pained grunt as it reared back up behind him defensively and he rose, shouting, "Don't attack! It's me, Jaune!"

"Jaune?" His father's voice shouted, caught somewhere in the middle of fear, surprise and absolute exhaustion. Jaune understood, looking at the dozens of bodies yards away under the wall. The gate opened as the younger blonde walked away from the dragon, and his father took a hesitant step out before he could make hi out, "What the hell are you doing with a damn dragon, boy?"

"It's…. Complicated, dad." He answered, grimacing at having to shout across a field of literal corpses like this. If kind of felt disrespectful, a little bit. But his father came down the hill, a hand gripping a sword in his off hand anxiously. When the man stood a few feet away, he spoke again, "I came as soon as my, uh, my friend told me what had happened. She sent the Gryphons to save the twins from Adam."

"About the twins…" He started, making a face as Jaune's stomach dropped like a stone in a well. His father spared the dragon a glance, the creature rearing up high to hide Salem, and then blue eyes met blue again and he continued, "The Grimm drove that bastard away as soon as it got there, but Cairi, she… Our doctors couldn't save her, Jaune."

"Cairi is…?" His father nodded and Jaune turned, pacing away from the dragon and his father both. His voice was muffled by his helmet and low, throat constricting so hard he almost felt like he was choking on his own tongue. "Did it… Dad, did it hurt?"

"I would like to say no, but…" His father made a noise like a sigh and a grunt, mouth working for something to say, and then settled into a frown. "I won't lie to you, Jaune. She woke up a few minutes later, after the Grimm drove off that bastard… It took a long time, and with no good doctors… She asked for you, Jaune."

He could imagine it easily enough, Cairi crying for her big brother while her home burned around her and her family fought to save what they could. And Jaune was away, at a Dust damn party while it was happening. A damn Grimm came to help her where he could not, because he'd left days ago for petty revenge.

"Jaune?" His father tried, taking a couple steps towards him, watching the dragon from the corner of his eye. He saw the shaking in his shoulders, and his fists balled to the point of nearly cutting the skin open, and his father smile that kind of smile one gave when they didn't know how to show their empathy for someone's pain. "I know, son, it hurts. But there's nothing anyone could have done, so just come with me and you can see your-"

"My fault." Jaune snarled, voice low but carrying in the silence regardless. "I wasn't here, I was off on some revenge quest. I couldn't… Couldn't protect her. She cried for me, and I was gone… Off fighting Atlas."

"Atlas…?" His father questioned, eyes narrowing curiously at his son's back. "What do you mean, fighting Atlas?"

"Ironwood took someone I cared about from me." Jaune explained, growling the name with a kind of heat that made his father flinch. "He had his fleet, or his ship, or whatever… He killed Roman in cold blood and fire." Jaune laughed, a cruel bark, and looked up at the sky, shaking his head, "That was my fault, too…"

"Jaune, this is not your fault." His father whispered, closing the distance with his son and laying a hand on his shoulder, using it to turn him and looking at Jaune through the helmet, "You can't have possibly done anything that would have brought the White Fang here, Jaune. It could as easily have been my fault for-"

"It isn't, Dad!" His son snarled, jerking out of his grip and stepping away. Sucking in a deep breath, he staggered away, staring into space, "Adam came here to get at me, Dad. He attacked here because I… I cost him something, something that he thought was his, and he wanted to take from me."

"Jaune, you couldn't have-"

"I could have!" He snapped back, pushing at his father weakly, for nothing but the need to hit something. "I should have known what Blake was going to do! I should have sensed her damn intentions and stopped her! But I was too absorbed with my own shit to pay attention and she killed herself to stop an attack that I wasn't willing to!"

"Jaune, you-"

"And then Ironwood killed Roman, and I went off on another kick of self-absorption, and fuck knows how many people died in that!" Jaune snapped, turning to look out at Ansel and fighting a losing battle with his tears. "And now, just look at what I-"

"Enough!" He turned at the woman's voice, in time to catch Salem's palm across his helmet while his father gawked at her. Jaune staggered to the side from the strike, ears ringing, and she grabbed the front of his shirt to wrench him around to face his father, speaking to the older man instead, "I hadn't wanted our introduction to go this way, Arc Senior, but such is life."

"What are you-"

"I am Salem." She interrupted with a hint of some kind of impatience, bowing her head slightly in greeting. "Queen of the Grimm, and Jaune's intended once the time comes as well, much as he might dislike that."

"Now," she turned on Jaune, "You need to calm yourself. You are losing yourself to emotions, because your Semblance has over-loaded your mind with them until you began to simply ignore them. And now you can't process them properly, so you need to breathe, Jaune."

"How do you know?" His father asked quietly, while Jaune forced himself to calm down through the roaring in his ears and the aching in his head. Salem turned to look at him, and he asked, "How do you know how to help him? How are you controlling the Grimm? W-What are you?"

"I am a woman." She answered simply, smirking amusedly when he gave her a disbelieving look, "Alright, I am a woman of particular looks and with more years than you would possibly believe behind me."

"And you're his… Fiance?" He asked, the ancient woman nodding at the man's question. "What happened to the other woman?"

"It's complicated, Dad." He answered for Salem, taking a shaky breath and nodding. "Everything is… Have you already had the services?"

"Did so around an hour ago." He answered, sighing and running a hand through his hair tiredly, "I was just gathering volunteers to fetch wood for the pyres when you and your…" He spared the dragon a glance, and this sigh was a suffering one, "Mount flew over our settlement."

"I was hoping to get to attend…"

"We can't have bodies around, Jaune. Funerals have to be quick, or the emotions bring the Grimm down on us." Jaune nodded, understanding what he meant, and his father smiled apologetically, "If we'd known you were coming, we'd have waited, but we had no way of getting in touch so no one saw reason to wait."

"No, I understand, Dad." He nodded, "Can I see the girls? And get some Militia armor and a sword? I have something I have to do, after."

Two hours passed before he returned to Salem by the dragon, the woman having had some opinions about going into a village full of people to ogle her and call her a freak. He came wearing light chain over his shirt, and with a plain straight-sword hanging off his waist, but little else had changed aside from a thick cloak to ward off the chill from riding with Salem on the creature's back.

"How were they?" Salem asked when he joined her, the dragon stretching to prepare for another flight. "Also, Tyrian has been badgered incessantly by your friends. They are rather upset at your departure, it would seem."

"I'll explain everything to them once we get back, Salem. Tyrian can survive annoying questions until then." He answered quietly, meeting her eyes a moment later, "I know what we're going to do, to get at Taurus, Salem."

"Oh?"

"He claims to stand for the Faunus, right?" He asked, smiling behind his helmet. "That is because the only thing he has now is the Faunus, and his lust for revenge. That's it. He doesn't have another care in this world, with Blake gone."

"That sounds about right." She agreed, eyes searching him in concern as much as curiosity. "Does that factor into your plans, though? I must confess, I don't see how it would, myself."

"All he cares about is the Faunus as a race. And you want to rule the world as a whole, as well." He explained, resting a hand on his borrowed sword, "So we're going to hold the executioner's axe over as many of them as we can, by surrounding taking Menagerie for ourselves and demanding that he surrender."

"And if he refuses?" Salem asked, sounding intrigued by the plan in a way that made Jaune anxious to even propose it to her.

"We'll make a show of attacking it, crush the CCT, and sink the ships." Jaune answered, "For all intents and purposes, and all anyone outside Menagerie will know, Menagerie will be in the process of being destroyed."

"That won't get Taurus to surrender." She pointed out, smirking knowingly, "But I suspect you know that already. Don't you?"

Jaune just smiled in answer, because he knew that perfectly well. Of course he did. He'd been in Adam's head, and knew how the man thought.

Adam attacked his home, the home of his people, and killed many while he ruined it as best he could. If Jaune made moves against Menagerie, the Faunus terrorists would assume it was vengeance and demand he do something. Adam, though, wouldn't care about Menagerie for the people. More for the idea of saving them, and playing the hero, and that would draw him to attack Jaune, a vain attempt at playing hero for the people he pretended to stand for.

And that would be where Taurus died.

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Making a very mild retcon here, before they begin to become important to this story in a much larger way. Apologies, and this is a symptom of such a long story over such a span of time. Going forward, Ghira's design is that of canon. Ase are the Belladonna's past. The only variance is that Sienna is dead, Adam usurped her at the implied earlier point in this story's predecessor.

Just a minor tweak, with few effective differences from what I had already written in, and an apology for its need. But one that is indeed needed, because of how much we have learned about that family and Menagerie as a whole. I hope for your patience.

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The Impossible Muffin :

Adam made a big mistake, that is to be known as fact.

Smokey Panda :

This story is, in a way, a show that no one is a monster. Not really. Everyone is a hero, villain, and background character to other's stories. Always, and wrapped into one. Adam is a monster, to us. And to me, personally. But so is Salem.

Yet here, she is heroine, and Adam is a plain monster.

Gizmo Gear :

Indeed~

Blartibus :

I hope you enjoyed what I wrote here, then, friendo~

I love reviews like yours. To think I inspired such passion in something as to get someone to write, themselves, a chapter in response. Just to talk about what has transpired. It is humbling, thank you.

You did, however, essentially guess what I planned, so…. Fuck.

Follower 38 :

Indeed. Bloody dust, blowing away in the wind.

Lord Owl :

I hope you find it satisfactory~

I know I will.

Patriarch :

Glad you enjoyed it. I always hoped to, one day, be good enough to deserve rereads. It is a truly wonderful experience that moves this writer's very heart, stone as it is.

Kill Kill 123100 :

Vicious. Salem says she approves.