A/N: Set before the main events of the story, a background-building chapter of sorts. Basically, info dump and I have no idea how to fix it without losing what I want to keep...
Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY.
Chapter 1. Queen Summer
The kingdom of Vale was one of the largest of them all.
Numerous street vendors paraded the market paths every morning, families or loners striving to make a cent more lien than the next person.
Faunus stragglers often stole when the opportunity showed itself, and if they were lithe and cunning enough, they often got away to rob another stall the next day. Sometimes fallen scraps would suffice, or sometimes the kind hand of a generous stranger would bless them.
If one ever came into enough expenses or luck to open their own stand to start a business, the Faunus often kept to their own kind, sold only to their oppressed brothers and sisters.
Vale was far from perfect, but there was less crime and murder here than in the other kingdoms, and perhaps that was due to the actions of those in power.
No one knew exactly where she came from, but she seemed to have been around for as long as anyone could remember.
The venerable Queen bore the name of Summer Rose, and she was not a ruler that could be trodden on easily – or at all, for that matter.
Whenever war broke out, she used her political wit and reasoning before all else, more often than not able to resolve things peacefully and with benefits to all parties involved.
However, the few times war was necessary, she did not simply hide behind her bodyguards in a safe room of her castle. She was at the head of the battalion, leading every attack with her own sword and steed, her billowing white cloak that was renown on the battlefield snapping out behind her.
The people never feared for her, for she was more or less invincible, almost omnipotent.
At least, for a time.
As was often the case, the downfall of this legendary woman of power was the cruelest emotion of all:
Love.
After many years of reigning her kingdom and bringing them to a time of tranquility and peace with the rest of Remnant, Summer took a man's hand in marriage.
His name was Tai, and he, like many others, had lost his first love.
Some died in battle, some from disease, some from wicked curses or magics.
Summer met him at one of the monthly banquets where the castle opened up its lavish doors to all citizens, human or Faunus. There was dancing, free food, jousting and games, and thanks to the watchful eye of the armies, never any hindrances beyond a few petty thievery incidents.
Banquet nights were times of peace between the humans and Faunus, where differences were put aside for the sake of respecting one another, and for the sake of simply having a good time. The races' relationships still had a bit of a ways to go before past damages could ever hope to mend, but under Summer's rule, things were getting better, slowly but surely.
It was on a warm summer evening when she met this man, her future king.
She had never seen him before, and was initially intrigued by his presence, and even more so by the baby girl who clung tightly to his back.
Introductions struck up between them, and before very long they had lost themselves in conversation after conversation.
He had originally lived in another kingdom, where he had met the mother of the girl on his shoulders. The girl's name was Yang, he told Summer, and her mother had disappeared shortly after giving birth to her.
Confused and desperate, he had gathered his daughter and a bare minimum of their belongings before abandoning his own kingdom to search for answers. In their travels, they had come across no information about his wife's whereabouts, however he had caught wind of a generous banquet that would welcome in weary travelers.
And so, there he was before her.
She invited him to take residence in her kingdom, offered him a small house in the village that had been abandoned. Not a fool to refuse an offer like that – especially from a queen – he had humbly and graciously accepted, begging to somehow repay her kindness.
And he did, only several months later when they were married.
On that day, the entire kingdom celebrated.
The party that was held was more extravagant than five banquets combined. The entire population attended or at least made an effort to. Cheers of congratulations roared through the air all day and all night long. Music was played by various quartets and small bands of musicians all over town.
In the mirth of it all, humans and Faunus danced together, shared contact, and altogether were brought closer together than ever before.
Vale's time of peace suffused, growing stronger and more evident, and rather than become jealous, the other kingdoms seemed to be taking the memo and following suit.
Humans and Faunus started helping rather than ignoring or competing with each other, and interracial relationships were soon not so uncommon.
The winter seemed particularly warm that year; the entire kingdom seemed to be in love.
The following spring, Summer gave birth to a lovely baby girl, but not just any girl; a princess.
Summer loved her very dearly.
But that love would be her downfall.
Princess Ruby Rose was only four years old at the time, her half-sister Yang only six.
Vale's – and possibly, consequently, all of Remnant's – time of peace was continuing strongly. The kingdoms interacted by means of aiding rather than harming one another, and whatever issues existed were within the confines of their own territories.
The biggest threat to the people was no longer other people, but monsters.
The creatures of Grimm took the forms of many beasts. No one knew from quite whence they hailed, but any person could sense they were a threat to the world.
At first, the existence of Grimm was thought to be natural, but by this year, it was getting to the point of imbalance.
The once-docile creatures that often kept to the forests and wastelands outside of the peoples' limits suddenly grew bloodthirsty, and there had been more attacks and deaths in recent months than in previous years combined.
The stirring of the beasts unsettled every soul, and mention of old legends started leaking past lips.
It had happened eons ago, when an increase in Grimm had imbalanced the world so greatly, it drew forth an even mightier force.
Legend had it that the Dragon was a being that had been roused from his thousand-year sleep in his cave in the crevice at the center of the world. He had slithered up through the cracks of the earth, fiery chasms that no mortal eye ever saw the bottom of.
They said the chaos and screams of the warring people and Grimm had woken him, and he had no mercy to spare for either side. He had spread his wings and took flight for the first time in over a thousand years, casting curses upon every living thing that crossed his path before vanishing back from whence he came.
In that year alone, half of Remnant's population perished, be it due to illness or severe natural disasters.
Thanks to their innovations, the remaining people survived, though some withered off or went mad under siege of their own dark magics.
Almost all of the Grimm had been destroyed then, and the human and Faunus populations combined were far greater in number than that of the beasts.
And so the creatures had gone into hiding, repopulating for centuries until it brought them to the present.
The Grimm - burdened with ancestral hatred of the people that had been passed down for generations - started to attack them.
And naturally, the people fought back.
At first, the King and Queen limited fighting of the Grimm to only for mandatory instances of self-defense. They forbade hunting the Grimm to the point of extinction, for they knew that such a drastic change in the world's environment would create chaos like never before.
But bands of radicals who would rather eradicate the beasts altogether started to form. They had no knowledge of what balance was, and sought to destroy the beasts until only humans and Faunus remained.
Prone to indiscretion, they set out to hunt down the very last of the Grimm. There were many groups, most of which were comprised of young knights who wanted to prove their worth - knights who could not be stymied by royal orders. Some survived to hunt another day, to improve their skills and share what they had learned from their experiences, but many never returned.
The most infamous group however, was made of Faunus, ones who harbored a rudimentary education of the world at best, ones who still suffered the repercussions of the past years' oppression and discrimination. Many still made homes in the alleyways, or continued to steal for a living.
Therefore, after a time, Faunus of such status had eventually come together, deciding to use their energy fighting and training rather than corrupting the town any further. Many sacrificed themselves as fodder, hoping that in giving up their own pitiful lives, that perhaps they could at least satiate some of the beasts long enough to prevent the slaughter of other citizens.
But those who fought continued to do so, rummaging through the debris of the battlefields and gathering up the weapons of their fallen comrades before they were laid to rest.
It was not long before the bursts of anger and desperation were replaced by organized attacks.
Those that survived more hunts eventually rose to power in ranks of the group. Battle training camps were formed and enacted in secret; they were working against the orders of the Queen, after all, and with so much to handle on her plate, she could not dedicate too much time into stopping them.
They gained numbers quickly - Faunus who had nothing left to lose, and some who had everything to lose. They started to train, forge weapons, and set out in formations to take on the Grimm.
They called themselves the White Fang.
Many saw merit in the things they did, and believed they were righteous to try and fight off the monsters; for these reasons, even a handful of humans joined their ranks.
But the majority of the people looked down upon the mutinous group for acting out in direct contrast to the Queen's wishes; they had lived many years under Summer's rule and she had never once led them astray.
In her eyes, the quixotic ideals of the White Fang were defending the citizens temporarily, but would ultimately spell doom for the entire world if they did eventually succeed in killing every last Grimm. She even went so far as to enact a law that forbade the necessary slaughter of Grimm in hopes to spare some of their numbers to maintain balance.
But the beasts were bloodthirsty by nature, and only growing even more so now as the White Fang trampled into their woods to slay them.
As time went on, tensions only grew tighter and tighter, like various ropes that were straining under pressure; it would not be long before they started to snap.
Before long, there was little Summer and Tai could do to stop the war between man and beast that would not cause fighting between the citizens themselves.
But unbeknownst to anyone else, Summer had something much, much more devastating to consider.
In the autumn of that year, Vale's Queen suddenly vanished without a trace.
The only thing Summer had left behind were kisses to her sleeping daughters' foreheads, and a remorseful letter to her husband tied to the stem of a dying flower:
My love,
I know you will raise our daughters to be the finest people they can be. I haven't the slightest doubt that you will be able to overcome the obstacles that have risen, as perilous as they may seem. It is with the deepest, most agonizing regret with which I leave you, but I haven't any other choice, for the petals of this Rose are weaved with dark magics – a curse.
Farewell, my love, and my precious daughters.
Summer Rose, thus kindly I scatter.
The King wept for days, and the kingdom wept with him.
His daughters wailed every night, pleading for their mother's return.
The loss of Vale's Queen was devastating, and for a time, even the White Fang ceased their activities. But the Grimm never stopped attacking, and so the people were forced to fight back when instigated.
Summer left behind no body, nor any means of tracking her; if she was still alive, she would never be found.
The lonesome king struggled to run his kingdom on his own after that.
Some of the people called Summer a traitor for abandoning them in their time of dire need, but the majority mourned her loss dearly. She had led them through their best years of life, the most peaceful, the kindest, and they wanted to honor her memory by attempting to continue that.
They did their best, but there was only so much a town of terrified humans and paranoid Faunus led by a disheartened king could manage.
A team of scholars did however, step forward. The young man who led them called himself Ozpin, and his grey hair mislead the mind into thinking his age was a greater number than it truly was.
Together with his companions – a young woman named Glynda and two other men – they delved into studying old archives and records kept at the castle.
Through seeking out certain documents about Vale's history, and making connections between various discoveries, they came to a less than auspicious conclusion about Summer's curse.
It was revealed that the Queen had been a victim of the Dragon's curse almost one thousand years ago.
There were hundreds of curses that had been cast by the almighty beast in that dark time, ranging from deadly storms to curses that made people go mad.
Some were cursed to kill until they were killed, and some were curse to be killed by their own family.
Some were cursed to be taken by disease, and some were cursed to initiate and spread such a disease.
But while some were cursed to kill and be killed, it was arguable that some suffered even more terrible curses.
Summer's curse had been that of eternal life until love.
For centuries, she had wandered Remnant, watching those around her perish in anguish, praying she could do the same. She had witnessed her parents and siblings being slain by one another's blades.
And yet she remained untouched.
No matter how frequently she tried to kill herself, no matter the method she attempted, she never died. She knew her curse was a branch of immortality, but she knew not how to break it.
Until she had met her husband and given birth to Ruby.
Somehow, she had sensed her death was drawing near, and had held out with them all for as long as she could. But she could not bare the thought of her kingdom – her family – watching her die.
And so she had left them with no evidence of her demise, leaving them with a shred of hope that perhaps she was still alive somewhere, somehow.
Only Summer would ever know.
In the ensuing years, the King continued to run the country, his daughters continued to grow, the people continued to thrive in fear, and the White Fang continued to fight.
Every day, the people could sense it was one closer to the inevitable crumbling of their world, and they longed to die and leave their problems behind to a new generation.
But as the new wave of children started to grow and display their unique skills, it was murmured around the kingdom that perhaps there was hope for them all yet...
A/N: I'm sorry I needed to throw in so much at once. I hope the breaks helped a little.
Chapter 2 preview: Weiss' father had gotten close to Ruby's long before Summer's disappearance. Like they tried to do for all families, the King and Queen had assisted the Schnees in their darkest of times.
The man and his wife had been so thankful that they pledged one of their two daughters to the King and Queen, vowing that she would serve to be the future princess' personal bodyguard.
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