After four days in the dark, Weiss's eyes had adjusted to the constant gloom that accompanied the dark cramped tunnels she had traveled through. The only source of light for Weiss was the glowing moss that stuck to the tunnel walls, hanging low over the stream like drapes and catching the mist that wafted up from the choppy waters. Those colonies and the occasional moss fire she would make when she wanted to cook a meal.

Singing to herself in her head, Weiss kept her hands in her pockets while kicking along a small, circular puck shaped rock she had found earlier. 'Mirror Mirror, Tell Me Something… Who's The Loneliest Of- Damnit…' Weiss cursed to herself when the rock that she had been kicking along skipped oddly off the floor, and bounced from her path into the stream running along her right.

"Uhhhh…" Weiss groaned. She could see her rock right there, right on the edge of the water, only a foot below the surface. But something about having to get her hand wet annoyed the blonde, so after a second where she shot daggers at the stream, an inanimate object, she turned and kept walking down the tunnel.

Rolling her shoulder, glad she wasn't as stiff as she had been when she first started walking, the blonde thought to herself on the past four days. Weiss wasn't actually sure how long she had spent underground though. She just guessed it had been four days; the blonde really couldn't be sure. Weiss felt as though she had slept in increments that would add up to four days. But with nothing to do other than just meander down long tunnels, Weiss wasn't sure if she was getting tired out slower than she usually would if she had just walked at Ruby's pace.

Walking through the tunnels, for lack of a better term, was boring. It was mind numbingly boring. Weiss thought to herself at least once a day 'once you see one stalagmite, you've seen them all. Same goes for moss, no matter how it grows.' Originally Weiss had been afraid of getting lost. She knew better now. Since she had entered the tunnel back at the bank where she had washed up, Weiss hadn't seen a single deviation in her path. All she did was walk in the direction the river besides her flowed… and walk.

And walk.

And walk.

Weiss had found ways of keeping herself entertained though. She had picked up little knick knacks on her march through the mountain; the oddly shaped rock here, the weird piece of driftwood there. She had nothing to keep in her pack anyways, and Weiss figured the there was no reason to leave it empty. Weiss's favorite trinket she had found along the subterranean trail though, by far, was shoved through a loop on her belt.

It was stupid, but when Weiss had found the long stick, bleached white by however long it had spent in the absence of sunlight, stuck in a crook in the rocks where it was barely poking out of the rushing rapids, Weiss saw the resemblance instantly. Pulling it out of the water while being careful to not scratch the wooden poles surface, Weiss already felt nostalgic. The meter long rod, already the perfect size, even had a pair of knots in the wood right where the pommel and the hilt would have been, although the grip was a little thicker than Myrtenaster's should have been. After scratching M. V. II into the grip where she held the toy sword with a fingernail, Weiss smiled to herself and continued walking along, happily humming to herself over her find.

'I should get rid of this thing, it's just dead weight,' Weiss told herself after she found it. But even as she said that, Weiss knew she wouldn't. While the blonde walked along the beach, which had shifted from large shale slabs to tiny granite pebbles Weiss practiced her fencing against imaginary foes, the makeshift sword kept her entertained against the constant monotony of trudging forward.

It was a good thing that she didn't throw away the stick, because the toy actually proved to be somewhat useful to Weiss. After a few minutes where Weiss had to get the feel of the lighter staff, the blonde sharpened the end of the stick to a reasonably sharp point. Being a master fencer, Weiss found it easy as possible to single out and stab fish out of the shallow waters along the stream. The fish were bland, small, and tasted absolutely horrible after Weiss cooked them in the moss fire on little sticks the blonde made into spits that she had found along the bank. But they kept her fed.

Sitting cross-legged in front of a new moss fire, Weiss watched as the second fish she had caught cooked over the fire in the acrid smelling flames. Picking at her teeth with a finger nail, knowing she would be absolutely appalled by her behavior if someone saw her doing that, Weiss wondered if she would actually eat the second fish she had caught, or save it for later. Weiss was battling between her intense hunger and her sense of disgust. The last fish Weiss had eaten definitely tasted horrible, but the three-inch long fish didn't do much to fill even someone as small as Weiss up. But Weiss wasn't sure if she would be able to even keep another one of those rotten little bottom feeders down, the way her stomach was tossing.

Guessing that the fish was done after its scales had turned from their original whitish yellow to brownish red, Weiss pulled the spit out of her fire and stared at the fish for a few seconds. 'Well… If I feel hungry, it's because I need more food'. And against her own better judgement, Weiss bit off a small chunk from the fish and unhappily ate as much of the meat as she could, groaning to herself silently as she felt slimy bits of bottom feeder slide down her throat and land in her stomach like rocks.

Finished and left with only a skeleton and a fish head on her wooden spike, Weiss looked the dead fish in the eye for a second before flicking the entire spit back into the stream on her right. Watching dispassionately as the skeleton of her meal floated down the stream and was carried out of sight, Weiss sighed and lied down while putting her hands behind her neck.

'Maybe I'll find my way out tomorrow…,' Weiss thought silently as she slowly drifted off into a light slumber.

Waking up again, only the cool green light visible, Weiss picked herself up off the cave floor and started her march again. She didn't feel need to check her fire; Weiss wouldn't care if she lit this whole mountain range on fire, as long as she wasn't caught in the blaze. But after the thought of running from a blazing inferno as the fire burned the colonies of moss clinging to the wall crossed through her mind, Weiss back tracked to her old fire and made sure that her old campsite was indeed put out.

"Better safe than sorry," Weiss mumbled to herself as she kicked the blacked heap of ashes into the river, watching as the crumbled strands of lichen dissolved in the water and left swirling trails of ash to drift down the stream.

Turning back around and continuing her marathon, Weiss imagines slaying Grimms and enemy huntsmen with her toy sword as she heard her boots crunch against the pebble beach she had been walking along. She may have looked like a fool to anyone watching, but to Weiss, the blonde was proud of defeating three beowolves and an ursa singlehandedly. Twirling the spear in her hands like a baton, Weiss thought to herself 'I feel more like Pyrrha than myself with this thing…'

Still, that wasn't too bad a comparison. Weiss had always respected Pyrrha's ability, although the blonde also joked to herself that the champion's tastes in men left something to be desired. But Pyrrha had been another individual at the top of the food chain at Beacon, almost coming close to herself and-

"Nope… not going down that road yet," Weiss muttered out loud, already knowing where that train of thought would leave her stranded at. Over the past however many days she had spent stranded in the dark, Weiss had learned to avoid that topic. Sure she had been strong, brave and full of resolve while she was marching towards her doom on the night she had woken up, but that phase had passed quickly. After her judgment wasn't so mind numbingly clouded by pain, the blonde found that every time she thought of… a certain individual, she was immobilized by guilt. The last time she thought of her old partner, Weiss had been stuck rooted to the spot for a good ten minutes. And in the end, she didn't even come to some sort of terms with the event. No, the blonde just shook her head as though she had been stung by a bee, and stumbled along down the path at a faster pace. So Weiss just kept walking, away from what had led her here in the first place.

If Weiss had been taller, traveling through the tunnels would have been really inconvenient. Even at her short height, Weiss often had to walk with her head down while she was making progress through the tunnels. Anyone taller would have had to walk with their knees bent awkwardly while they made the trek.

After a few hours of walking, where the tunnel continued to go on its perfectly straight path, Weiss couldn't take it anymore.

"Uh… this is so boring!" Weiss complained to herself as she walked along, running her hands through her long hair in frustration. Playing with her staff had lost all of its appeal after her victory over the beowolves, and her imagination couldn't think up a better scenario than that on her own. Weiss simply wasn't that creative.

At first, Weiss thought she heard some weird scratching noise as she pulled at her hair, thinking that she might have scratched her scalp with her long fingernails. But when the noise continued even after Weiss stopped, the blonde's eyes lit up as she realized something. She heard a deep rumbling up ahead, the sound of water hitting air. If she heard water hitting the air, that meant that the river she had been following for the past few days had finally ended. And if it had ended, that meant it had finally let out somewhere.

Picking up the pace, Weiss started to rush forward towards the sound at a brisk jog. At first the sound was only a slight rumble, and as Weiss rushed towards the sound she felt the air almost humming from the sound. After a few hundred feet though, the rumble had switched to be more of a crashing thunder, and Weiss could feel the ground beneath her feet shaking. Weiss could see the tunnel opening up, and towards the end, which was covered in drapes of moss, it looked as though there was actual…

"Sunlight," Weiss sighed happily as she began to run forward, unable to see anything other than patches of yellow light through the hanging drapes of green that blocked the end of the tunnel. Without slowing down, Weiss swept the drapes away with a hand and moved out of her tunnel with a smile on her face, happy to finally be out of that cramped passageway. And when Weiss stepped through the glowing curtain, she found herself hanging in the air over what must have been at least a hundred foot drop.

"DUST!"

Without even thinking, Weiss flailed her arms out, attempting to grab anything to keep herself from falling. Her hand caught on a particularly thick piece of lichen, which she had only just swept back. Falling a few feet, Weiss felt her body slam into the slick wall below her tunnels drop off as she hung from the piece of moss by one hand. Using all of her upper body strength, Weiss tried pulling herself up and back into the tunnel she had just fallen out of by her one free hand, the other still clinging to the moss. Once she got a strong hold, Weiss pulled herself up to the cliff and into the tunnel, rolling herself back in.

Lying on her back and panting from the rush of adrenaline she had just gotten, Weiss scolded herself. 'I'm an idiot, I knew that there as a waterfall up ahead. That was lucky, and I should have died from that…' Rolling over and getting on her hands and knees, Weiss looked over the edge of the cliff, this time being careful not to fall off.

When Weiss leaned over the edge and peered through the veil of moss, her heart sank. Weiss had assumed the sunlight she had seen was actual outdoors, and that she was finally out of the mountain. Instead, looking down at the hundred something foot drop, Weiss just saw more cave. Looking up at the ceiling, Weiss could see dozens of cracks in the top of the caverns ceiling, letting in forked cracks of light. Through one Weiss could actually see the sun, hanging high in the sky against a perfect blue background.

Looking down though, Weiss had to tackle her next biggest issue. The massive cavern Weiss had found herself hanging over reminded the blonde of the cave that she had first landed herself in. But this cave was much larger. Almost five hundred feet across and with a large, semicircular pool against the wall that Weiss was hanging out from, the bottom of the cave was dotted with dozens of small caves and even more tunnels, leading who knows where. Three different waterfalls, all pouring out of the walls at different heights, fed into the pool at the bottom of the pit.

Looking down from her perch, Weiss weighed her options. 'I can't go back; it'll take me three days to get back to that other pit… plus I'll have just wasted my time going in a circle. But the only thing stupider than not watching where you're going is to leap into water that might only be two feet deep.' Looking at the sides of the cave walls, Weiss saw no way to climb down the slick surface without professional climbing gear. So really, there was only one way to go down… quickly.

Picking a spot that looked safe, Weiss decided she might as well test where she was aiming for first. Rolling her toy sword in between her hands a few times, hoping this would work, Weiss lifted the sword above her head and threw it like a javelin into the pond below. Straight as an arrow, Weiss's makeshift spear sailed through the air and disappeared under the surface of the black pool of water. And then Weiss waited, counting the seconds.

After a few moments, Weiss thought to herself: 'Did my stick get stuck in the soil of the lake… if it did, that spot is definitely not deep enou-"

But suddenly the stick resurfaced, only ten seconds after Weiss had thrown the staff, floating lazily sideways on the surface of the water. 'Damnit… I mean, I guess that's a good thing, but… ah hell, no reason to put it off now I guess!'

Trying to not think about what she was doing, Weiss pulled off most of her clothes and stuffed them into her backpack, leaving herself in only her underwear again. 'I don't like how often this is happening,' Weiss joked to herself nervously, hefting her backpack over her shoulder and feeling its weight.

Mumbling to herself "lets hope this works…," Weiss practiced swinging the pack back and forth, guessing how she should let go of it to have it land on the closest shoreline, away from the lake to keep her clothes dry. Rocking back and forth with the motion, Weiss swung the backpack as fast as she could, letting go of it at what she hoped would send it sailing to the shore. For a moment, it looked as though it would make it, but a half second later the bag landed on the pebble shore, and bounced once before landing with a solid thud safe and dry on the edge of the subterranean lake.

'Alright, easy part done... Now I've got to go get it.'

Taking a few steps back from the jumping point, hoping up and down on the balls of her feet nervously for a second, Weiss steeled herself and ran towards the cliff before she had the chance to chicken out. Even as she ran, her nerves still yelled at her to stop. But while her nerves screamed at her no, a moronic, crooked grin split across Weiss's face. 'I can't even remember the last time I did something this stupid!'

Weiss felt herself enter the air a second later, and now that she was at the point of no return, Weiss actually felt excited as she fell. Dropping like a stone next to the waterfall, looking down at the foaming waters below her, Weiss actually gave out a single screaming laugh of excitement as she fell.

Only a few seconds after she jumped off the cliff edge, Weiss landed in the lake below. Crashing through the surface of the lake, Weiss plunged down into the water, and as she sunk down Weiss heard her ears squeak at the sudden change in pressure. Looking up through the water Weiss swam towards the spots of light on the lakes surface, the swirling waters from the waterfall pushing her upwards faster. After a few seconds, Weiss broke through the surface and found herself floating on top of the lake, letting go of her held breath. For a few seconds she just floated their quietly, listening to the thunder of the waterfall, feeling stray droplets land heavily on the top of her head.

And when the gravity of the situation finally made it to her, Weiss started laughing manically, hearing the high-pitched peal ring off the cave walls. Sighing to herself, Weiss complained: "why can't I do that again…"

Finding the shore of the lake and walking out of the water, Weiss smiled while she thought about accomplishing something so stupid. "I guess that went well," the blonde mused to herself while wringing out her hair and trying to shake the water out of her ears.

Talking to herself, letting herself bask in the pride of her success, Weiss muttered: "I don't think I would have been able to do something like that if… if Ruby was hear." Instead of freezing up though like she usually did, Weiss laughed to herself. "Ruby probably would have spent a solid week making a rope out of the moss in the cave, and even then made a few spares to be safe."

Finding her pack on the shoreline and pulling on her clothes, Weiss began to feel her adrenaline seeping away. Still, it was hard to get rid of her smile, and while she walked over fully dressed to her old stick Weiss couldn't shake her feeling of euphoria. Weiss was closer to wherever she was going, that was certain.

As she leaned down to pick up her toy sword, which had washed ashore in a patch of light on the edge of the lake, Weiss saw a shadow pass overhead as the light she was standing in changed shape for a second. Picking up her spear and her neck snapping up, looking at the ceiling of the cave, Weiss saw another shadow pass over the gap and blocking the light from the sun for a second.

'Probably just some birds or an animal passing over my head Weiss thought to herself'. Still smiling, Weiss looked back down the cave walls, checking the different paths she was going to take, seeing if any took her fancy.

What she saw whipped the smile off of her face instantly.

Directly in front of her, seeming to blend in with the shadows, a mass of black fur seemed to be rusting against the already liquid black background. Both black and grey, the shape seemed to be lumbering out of one of the larger tunnels, large white claws clicking against the floor. Weiss stared frozen in horror as she saw, for the first time in almost ten years… a Grimm.

It was obvious the Grimm was old, centuries old, maybe even older than parts of this mountain. Weiss had heard stories of Grimm that had turned grey with age, who had evaded hunters and huntresses for centuries. As the beowolf lumbered out into the cave and stopped by the edge of the lake, lapping up water with a forked black tongue, Weiss stood frozen in fear, not sure if the beast was uninterested in killing her, or simply unaware of her presence.

Standing totally still, almost shaking out of her clothes in sheer terror, Weiss's thought's screamed at the beast. 'Please be blind! Please be blind! Please be blind! Please be blind, deaf, dumb, everything that would make it so that I get to not be eaten. I want to live!'

Almost as though it heard her thoughts, the creature's eyes snapped up, and through its bone mask red eyes stared down the pure white figure standing in front of it.

Weiss couldn't do anything, and for those few seconds where the two starred each other down, Weiss just swallowed loudly and wondered in her head: 'how did one of you even-'

Cut off though, unable to finish her though, a sudden, ear-splitting roar came from the beowolf in front of her. Weiss didn't take a second to see what that meant. Weiss had fought hundreds of grimms during her years of training along her partners. She knew what that call mean.

It wanted her in pieces. Weiss knew was going to die, unless she escaped.

Back peddling, nearly tripping over her own two feet, Weiss turned and ran as fast as she could away from the beast. She heard the Grimm's great roar as it chased her down, gaining speed on her faster than she was creating distance between them. Without even checking to see if it went anywhere, Weiss threw herself head first into a small crack in the wall, the closest and only place to hide. Barely squeezing through, Weiss stumbled back against a wall; one about ten feet back from where she entered the cave.

For a few seconds it was silent, and Weiss strained to hear anything over the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest. She could barely see in her small crack in the wall, and feeling around, she didn't feel any way out. It felt as though there was nothing around, and as Weiss spread her arms out, she started to feel claustrophobic as she realized the space she was in couldn't have been larger than six feet tall and two feet wide. But at least she was safe. Hidden in the perfect darkness while looking out, Weiss didn't see any grimms. It seemed as though the one chasing her had just vanished. Thinking to herself optimistically, she asked herself 'Maybe I hit my head when I landed in the water?'

But as if to prove her wrong, suddenly a red eye surrounded by white bone appeared in front of her and stared at where she was hidden. Weiss's breath caught in her throat as she looked out in horror at the beowolf, who stared back with what could only be described as insane rage. Giving out a blood curdling roar, the beowolf began to reach into the hole Weiss had backed into, clawing at the heiress, attempting to rip her out and into the open where he could finish her.

Weiss screamed as she backed up as far as she could into hole, pressing her back against the cold stone wall behind her. The beowolf clawed furiously at the caves entrance, leaving inch wide and three-inch deep gouges in the stone where it raked its claws at the walls and floor. Biting at the cave's entrance as well, ripping off great chunks of stone, Weiss watched in horror as it's long arm only missed her by a foot. Clawing at the air in front of her, the beowolf stared Weiss down with a look of pure malice while it continued to try to catch its meal.

Weiss was a rabbit in a burrow, and the beowolf in front of her was a hungry fox. She wasn't going anywhere…

So, I'm not really going to talk about the story. I don't have much to say about it other than I liked it, and that I hope you did too. Maybe leave a review, let me know what you think... But anyway, that's not important today.

What I am going to talk about though, is a certain awesome individual. You all see the new cover page right? An awesome writer on the site named legacy23 drew that. It's awesome! I love it! I saw his pm to me just as I was putting this up, and I had to change the cover and wait, because I just wanted everybody it see it. It's so cool! You guys should go check out his page on fanfiction, and once your done there go from there to his Deviant Art account. He has drawn some really cool things.

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back soon. Things are really picking up, huh?